<p>Most people have trouble with the Passage Reading, not the sentence completion. For sentence completion, you either know it or you don't. But I would definitely agree that some people scare themselves to death just looking at the "intimidating" passage. </p>
<p>And the overarching passage questions? They soil themselves when they see that one.</p>
<p>About the "overarching questions"....</p>
<p>that's just a simple matter of test-taking strategy, and easily remedied.</p>
<p>Just skip it, answer all the other questions first, then come back at the end when you have a fuller understanding of the passage.</p>
<p>Done.</p>
<p>lolilaughed: I've always been a reader so when I was 5 or whatever I wasn't asking myself SAT questions... I think if you are going to try and read with questions in mind practice tests will probably be the best for that since they have the actual questions.</p>
<p>I think that hookem makes a good point about people psyching themselves out too. Since I've always read and I know that I wasn't worried about the CR, I spent all the time I was prepping on the math.</p>
<p>^Just wondering, since you said zilch and nada for days 1, 2 and 3. You took the SAT blind and got 760 CR without taking any practice tests before hand?</p>
<p>^ precisely.</p>
<p>I did prep for math, though, and only made a 730. But I never claimed to be a "math mind"</p>
<p>I don't know. for me, i've been reading for as long as i can remember. yet when i do the CR reading section, i always get an average of 3 wrong per section. it's not that i don't understand the passage, it's just that many of the questions ask you to add extra information, (or the except and roman numeral questions) and i'm not very good at those. is there any way to increase my score on those questions?</p>
<p>Enhancing your vocabulary will help if you make mistakes in sentence completions. My projected score is around 760. That is what I am constantly getting in the practice tests. I don't make more than 1 or 2 mistakes in the passages, and sometimes I find the word in context question in the passages difficult. And I make on average 2 mistakes in the sentence completions. I have one month left before the exam, so I am thinking if I learn a lot of words in the coming month, I can make sure that I will not make any mistake on the sentence completions. Then, 800 will be good possibility. By the way, I got a score of 660 in the November administration of the SAT last year. </p>
<p>How did I improve? Firstly, I believed that I CAN get a score close to 800. I read a lot of novels, literary criticisms, and good quality writings. I used to make around 10-9 mistakes. My first target was decreasing that number to 7-6 and so on. In the process I have learned that my reading speed has improved greatly. As a result I can read the texts with ease and close attention and still conserve few minutes in every section. </p>
<p>And another thing, for the past few months I have only worked on the critical reading section. Surprisingly, I have found out that my math skill has also improved with the critical reading improvement. My math score used to hover around 700, but now it is around 790-800, even though I barely practiced math in the last few months. </p>
<p>So I guess you need to be confident and patient if you want to increase your score substantially!</p>
<p>1990-2008, read/was read to constantly. </p>
<p>October 2007 - took the PSAT</p>
<p>February 2008 - took a practice test</p>
<p>Got an 800.</p>
<p>Simply put, it's cliche but reading is the best thing you could possibly do. Read anything and everything. You don't have to read Dickens, you just have to read to develop good comprehension and to learn vocabulary (in context). Memorizing vocab words isn't going to help you long term. What if you memorized the wrong definition? If you learned them through reading in the first place you'll be able to place them in a sentence on the SAT.</p>
<p>READ:)</p>
<p>^So you're telling me you knew how to read ever since the day you was born? Your parents must be real strict. No wonder you got an 800. :D</p>
<p>lol...read carefully (good critical reading practice:D). I was read to since I was a baby...;)</p>
<p>i hate reading books, but i read a ton of magazines--new yorker, national geographic, sciam, sciam-mind, nyt magazine, economist, vogue (lol). originally i hit a plateau at 700, but then i began reading those and got all the way up to full score. i think there are a lot of different approaches--mine may work for some of you.</p>
<p>To be honest, I didn't do much preparation -- I looked over the format of the test and did a few sample questions of each type and one sample test before taking it for the first time. But I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, so that helps. If you're a freshman or a sophomore, I would suggest reading in general as much as knowing the format and practicing for the test. If you're a junior, you probably want to focus on the format and take practice tests.</p>
<p>phade, I appreciate your advice and I see where that comes from, yet that shouldn't be said over and over again to test prep kids.
READING should be a good habit whatsoever. Even if SAT doesn't exist in the world, we should all read good books. I believe you did so, and an 800 just came out naturally, and I agree that's the right way to go.
But not everyone is a natural reader. Just for example, I noticed you didn't get 800 on math. I do believe you are an excellent math student and probably you just lose points for careless mistakes. But whatever, people who easily get 800 on math can say that you should get an 800 by simply paying attention in your math class without doing any prep. But three years of math classes are not coming back to you, and nothing can be done regarding that, just as people can't go back to three years ago and changing their reading habit. So, when there is still three month to the SAT exam, reading is not going to bring up your score by much.
I guess I'm not saying this just to point at phabe. I'm trying to make a point that test prep is really only for those who don't feel ready when the test is coming, not those natrual 800 people.</p>