<p>I'm about to take a practice test and want to try a lot of new things. I won't impose a time limit so I can try to predict answers(eventually speed it up). Eliminate choices based on reading one passage for questions dealing with 2 different passages(in the same question). I read passages in sections, but should I read the whole thing first to try something new, or stick with what I've been doing since summer of last year? But any other strategies I should try?</p>
<p>Your strategies sound good. Small suggestions:</p>
<p>-Before you read, scan the questions and annotate the passage where there are line based questions (this should only take 20 seconds), then stop reading every paragraph that there are line based questions. (Read the whole paragraph, tough; don't just stop after that one line).</p>
<p>-Be very wary of very vague answer choices and very specific answer choices, because both could be possible correct answers. Very specific incorrect answer choices are somewhat easy to spot if you read carefully. But, with very general answer choices, make sure you know to what each general term or characterization refers. For example, if the answer choice to "what is the author's purpose" is "asserting a strongly held belief," make sure you know what that belief is. If you can pinpoint the underlying belief to the passage, then that's the correct answer, even if it's the only answer choice that doesn't seem to relate to the passage.</p>
<p>-For some questions, you'll have to shift back and forth between the author's point of view and the conventional wisdom. For example, "how do x (the author) and y (the conventional wisdom) differ in their opinions about z (the author's main point)" or "what would x (the author's nemesis) think about the y's (people who subscribe to the conventional wisdom) acceptance of z (the author's main point)." For these, make sure you match up each "variable" to its corresponding "side." </p>
<p>These tips worked wonders for me (just got a 770 CR on my copy of the October 2007 SAT--and only one error was made on a long passage. So ****ed, because one of my errors was because I didn't know the word "charlatan," and it's on my next vocab list! Argh, if I had waited two days I'd have a 790).</p>
<p>Glance at the questions first. But don't look at the answer choices.</p>
<p>Read longer passages in chunks. Answer questions relevant to each chunk.</p>
<p>Look for the main ideas. Pay special attention to the intro, conclusion, and topic sentence of each paragraph.</p>
<p>Answer the easy questions first. Begin by answering the questions with line references.</p>
<p>Save global questions (author's purpose, best title, overall tone) for last, because answering the easier questions first may give you more insight into the passage as a whole.</p>
<p>i'm looking for CR strategies too; keep 'em comin! :)</p>
<p>here's the little bit i can contribute. </p>
<p>make sure you use process of elimination correctly and thoroughly...
your goal is to eliminate all four wrong answers. make sure you can correctly cite the reasons for eliminating an answer. </p>
<p>find the main idea of the passage at one of a few places: 1) first sentence of first paragraph, 2) last sentence of first paragraph, 3) first sentence of second paragraph, 4) last sentence of whole passage</p>
<p>also, the chunk reading strategy mentioned earlier is really effective!!</p>
<p>The citation questions (questions referring to certain lines or specific parts of the story) cause problems. When you have a citation question, you usually can get the answer purely from the cited section. Some tutors/strategy books tell you to always read ahead of the citation, which you may do a bit of, but it's only necessary to read further if the cited section alone doesn't provide enough information to complete an idea or provide an answer (off the top of my head, that usually happens in those questions that only cite a single line or even just a word and ask what it refers to). The point that I'm getting at is that you have to really focus on scope of that citation and only the scope of the citation. Otherwise, you'll be vulnerable to choosing an answer which may be perfectly supported by the passage... and keep in mind that the test-writers will do whatever they can to make that incorrect answer seem like the right one... but it will just end up being considered "irrelevant" to the cited section. can often have 2 or 3 answer choices that can be eliminated pretty quickly. </p>
<p>Most average CR-takers can get that step down, but the important thing from there is how to choose among those 2 (sometimes 3) answer choices you'll have left. One thing that is very important is to be VERY WARY and CRITICAL of the accuracy of the answer choices based on the passage. Here's another trap that this test will use to perfection on anyone unprepared- They make sure that it comes down to two answers, and out of the two answers, they'll make one answer sound like a better solution to the question, but they'll add some tiny piece of information not included in the passage which immediately makes the question wrong. This is also stumps less experience test-takers.</p>
<p>How do you get around these traps? For whatever 5-15 minutes you spend on a passage, you need to treat that passage like the bible. You'll be able to eliminate 2 or 3 answer choices pretty easily for most of them, and from there you need to pay very close attention to detail. As I said, answers will be irrelevant, not relating to the citation, and some will sneak in tiny bits of info not even included in the passage. </p>
<p>If you want me to illustrate those two types of answer choices, the kinds that always seem to be the wrong answers that everyone chooses, just ask me. I'm too lazy to dig those out right now.</p>
<p>As for general passage questions. Those should become much easier after you do the citation questions, assuming that you did the citations right. Just look for general patterns in the citation questions, and they'll help answer the general passage questions.</p>
<p>The bottom-line there is that you should never read between the lines. That's not what this test is asking you to do. It's the SAT Critical Reading, not the AP English Language Composition exam. In CR, it's all about making sure that answers are supported by specifics in the passages. I wasn't able make the jump above 700 for CR (a jump that I made last night, actually), until I learned the importance of NOT THINKING TOO MUCH on the CR exam. In doing that, I was making assumptions and getting questions wrong often-times because of measly details not supported by the passage. When I switched to focusing on the passage like a laser-beam and ruthlessly getting rid of any answer choices that weren't faithful to the passages, I saw the immediate improvement- in fact, the few questions that I WAS still getting wrong I messed up purely because I was still learning to trust the idea of relying on the passage for answers and nothing else. I'l like to thank Grammatix for that, it's by far the best SAT test prep I've seen or heard of.</p>
<p>Oh yea, one thing I forgot to mention. Practice a lot. As you go through each section of CR, make sure you are always keeping in mind what I told you about the Passage-based questions.... *Answers need to be supported by the passage or they are wrong.
The "this word nearly means this" questions are usually pretty easily, as you just need to try each of the answer choices in the blank, and one should clearly work better than the rest.</p>