<p>Well, my SAT days are over, but I was bored one day and I decided to see if there were any SAT videos on youtube. Last night, I came across this dude.</p>
<p>I was particularly interested in the CR section, seeing as how I could never score above a 600 on the real test. I found some of his advice appealing, and appalling.</p>
<p>Here's what I found interesting:
He states that in order for the collegeboard to provide accurate measure of data for colleges, every single question must be "bulletproof," meaning every question must be free from subjectivity and interpretation. If there were subjectivity, then the collegeboard would cease to exist, since the test (which is collegeboard's bread and butter jewel) won't provide accurate data, and colleges aren't going to accept them anymore.</p>
<p>This leads to the awkwardness of making a reading comprehension test. He mentions that in order to do well in this section, you must throw away everything you've learned in high school english. In high school english, students are rewarded for thinking outside the box, and providing interpretations about a text. On the CR of the SAT, students are punished for doing so. Many incorrect answer choices seem to add to the discussion of the passage and don't contradict the passage in any way, but are still wrong, since they're not supported.</p>
<p>Anyway, he doesn't provide a definitive way on tackling the reading passages, but he does offer one other way. Answer all the line citation questions first by referring to the proper lines of the text, basing only on what is stated. To answer the more general questions about theme and tone, DO NOT read the passage. Instead, use what you remember about the passage when you answered those line citation questions.</p>
<p>He also mentions that there are no inference questions, everything answer should be stated in the passage in some way or form.</p>
<p>I haven't tried this, but this tactic seems interesting.</p>
<p>Here's what I found appalling:
The sentence completions do not test vocabulary. Don't waste your time trying to memorizing thousands of words, with only about a few appearing on the actual test. Instead, memorize roots, suffixes, and prefixes so that you can decipher the words that you don't know.</p>
<p>I don't have any materials to test on, but I'm interested to see if anyone has taken his advice and has improved dramatically on the CR section.</p>