<p>I usually score around 550s-650s</p>
<p>But my parents expect a 700+ (or basically KICK @$$ on the CR portion) or they will ground me.</p>
<p>I need like BREAKTHROUGH advice. I suck at the reading comprehension. Esppecially tone.</p>
<p>Also if you have real psats, please mail it to me.
I need them -_-'''</p>
<p>HELP</p>
<p>Do you annotate your passages as you read?</p>
<p>I’m going to assume that your getting most of the easy CR questions right. The easy ones involve fact-recall, main-ideas, and the definitions of words in context. </p>
<p>The tough CR questions are all about rhetoric. I wish I could help, but analyzing rhetoric is an acquired skill. </p>
<p>Read in between the lines. What is the author’s tone toward the subject? How does he or she feel? Impassioned? Indifferent? Those tricky inference questions also rest directly on your ability to analyze the author’s rhetoric.</p>
<p>I had a great English teacher for sophomore year, so analyzing rhetoric comes easy for me. We dissected prose and poetry all year. That’s all we did. </p>
<p>Here are some rhetoric analysis pointers:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Note the author’s diction. If the author is using words such as “stupid” and “foolhardy” to describe the subject, note it down. The author clearly has a negative attitude to the subject. </p></li>
<li><p>Note transition words. Key words, such as “but,” indicate important shifts in the passage. Pay attention to what the author has to say, especially after the transition. </p></li>
<li><p>Note the author’s POV towards the subject. The SAT loves to ask you questions regarding what the author thinks.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Here’s a sample passage - I’ve underlined the important parts</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I did. Until I realized that I went overtime. So I can’t annotate. I usually underline though ^</p>
<p>Well I usually can’t decide between two answers. Dx</p>
<p>^Rhetorical analysis of above passage:</p>
<p>1) “but” - shift - note the viewpoints that follow</p>
<p>2) Parallelism. You don’t have to know the term, just know the effect. Parallelism creates emphasis. </p>
<p>3) “barfly” - negative connotation; the author holds negative views toward barflies … </p>
<p>4) What do barflies do? They don’t know crap about El Salvador yet they are held in the same esteem as history professors by news reporters</p>
<p>5) Concession. </p>
<p>6) “But” - another shift! Note the opinion that follows “but”! </p>
<p>7) “manifestly absurd” - ouch! That’s some crushing rhetoric. </p>
<p>8) “cult of mediocrity” … ouch! </p>
<p>Clearly, the author has some pretty strong views.</p>
<p>But does rhetorical analysis help you answer the questions? Yes:</p>
<p>Here are the questions for the passage:</p>
<p>1) Which phrase best expresses the main idea of this
passage? </p>
<p>2) The author most probably included the example of
the question on El Salvador ( lines 1113) in order to</p>
<p>3) The author would be most likely to agree that</p>
<p>^The analysis of the passage easily answers all the questions above.</p>
<p>WOOW. Thank you. But seriously If you handed me that passage, I would not have gotten it.</p>
<p>Do you think more practice will work? I have barron workbooks? And some other test prep company books for SAT/PSAT</p>
<p>^Speed is an acquired skill. I can annotate and finish CR sections with 6-8 minutes left on the clock. </p>
<p>So practice practice practice!</p>
<p>And remember, it’s not about the number of books you have, it’s about the number of books you go through :). My suggestion - attack the workbooks. </p>
<p>(I think I got my speed annotation skills from annotating my passages during lunch before my English class … my teacher actually graded our annotations! :p)</p>
<p>Proceed with great vigor :D!</p>
<p>Haha great job!
Hey were you the person who had like a 238 on the PSAT? Did you do this on that test?</p>
<p>^It was a 238 on a practice PSAT ;). And yes, I annotate on every practice test I take.</p>
<p>lol sorry! I’ll definitely do a passage per day on my school bus :D</p>
<p>So wait, you never took the PSAT? Only practice ones o:</p>
<p>Read books! If you’re a quick reader you can get through a handful of novels before Sept. It WILL help</p>
<p>Sent from my LG-P509 using CC App</p>
<p>Doryelmo.</p>
<p>Read the RR’s excerpt on a certain website about the critical reading passages. It helped me a bit. It includes 12 pages from the RR book.</p>
<p>[The</a> SAT Reading Comprehension: Basic Principles - FamilyEducation.com](<a href=“http://school.familyeducation.com/college-prep/sat/39914.html?detoured=1]The”>SAT Critical Reading Tips)</p>
<p>Plus practice on reading fast but still comprehend. Or at a medium pace.</p>
<p>Read plenty of articles from NYTimes. Try to understand each. I am getting much much much better in Critical Reading section.</p>
<p>I have taken 1 SAT and 2 PSATs in the past. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13047657-post19.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13047657-post19.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nice IceCube I didn’t really know about annotation,but now I do thanks alot.</p>
<p>I also read more about annotation here on wikipedia,incase somebody doesn’t know.
[Annotation</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annotation]Annotation”>Annotation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Definitely am going to try all of these asap.
Thank you guys :)</p>
<p>What workbooks are good?</p>
<p>IceQube has some exemplary strategies of attacking the CR section. However, if you want to get even a higher score, you will need to do these: