<p>Has anyone here improved their reading score by reading books for any length of time before their ACT/SAT? How much did you improve, and what kinds of books did you read? Did you take the common advice and read the Economist?</p>
<p>Auxiliary questions: If you can answer these. that would be great:
What criteria should I use to determine it a book will improve reading comprehension greatly? Lexile score? Readability-score.com? </p>
<p>I appreciate any replies based on experience!</p>
<p>How much time do you have before taking the test? It would be a lot more effective to just take practice CR tests in my opinion…</p>
<p>^ I am taking my test in August.</p>
<p>@LeatherBoundBook, the next ACT test date is actually Sept. 13 and SAT is OCT 11. </p>
<p>Honestly, what helped me the most was taking a ton of reading practice tests (ACT). The reading section was dragging me down and just by taking probably about 4 or 5 practice reading sections (timing myself just like the real test), my reading score went from 22 to 31… and it only took a couple hours of practice because timing and pacing is key.</p>
<p>reading is a waste of time. just read articles on the internet OP </p>
<p>-cheers</p>
<p>Reading books can help you out with reading speed if that is an issue for you, and if that is what you want to work on, just practice reading books of any genre. It had been a while since I had read an actual book before I took the SAT due to terrible English teachers whose tests I aced with LitCharts, so I actually needed to relearn how to speed-read by reading John Green’s books the week before my SAT lolol. Helped me get an 800 CR though. Reading stuff with hard vocab is not going to help you since any passage Q’s on vocab will only be on definitions, which you will already be learning by using context clues/reviewing normal vocab. For CR, the reading level is really quite basic; just work on your reading speed and make sure you are understanding what you are reading. The reading level of the CR passages is pretty basic for the most part; the trick is just understanding passages and answering the Q’s in the short time given. So basically ANY book will help you out with reading speed/comprehension, which is honestly all you can really work on other than vocab for that section.</p>
<p>IMO reading books will help you if you are a lifelong reader, however I don’t think reading books will help if you are a few weeks or month leading up to the test will help. I was one of those readers and I found the CR section to be exceptionally easy with no practice, but if you only have a limited amount of time, I’d just recommen practicing with a practice book such as the blue book.</p>
<p>Reading books is an inefficient way to improve your Reading score on both SAT and ACT. SAT and ACT don’t test general comprehension and reading speed - they test very specific skills in picking out details from texts, getting the overall point, finding supporting evidence, etc. It’s by far better to get a ton of useful sample questions and to learn from your mistakes. </p>