<p>Okay, here's the story: I took the SATs several months ago as a junior and lo behold, I scored a 680 <em>AHHHH</em> :( </p>
<p>Before the test, I tried so many CR books, Kaplan, PR, Barron's, whatnots, and even the official study guide.</p>
<p>My point is, no matter what I do, I always seem to miss around 8 raw points (-2 penalty)!!! It's getting on my nerves especially since I should be able to do better since I scored 780 on writing and a 5 on AP Eng Lang!!!</p>
<p>What can I do between now and November to seriously bring my score to at least 700, preferably 750!!??!?!?!?!?</p>
<p>I've memorized 2 whole book of words and read the <em>required</em> reading found in Barron's 2400 book. I've done more than 30 practice CR tests and dissected them question by question, and I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY I GOT SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WRONG! </p>
<p>As a matter of fact, the one's I got wrong I thought I got right or had no clue of how to do, even after reading the explanations. What else can I do?!?!?!</p>
<p>That's the problem: you don't know why you got them wrong. The key to answering the harder questions lies in the subtleties of the passage. Maybe you could post the passages and questions?</p>
<p>Well the OP says he has already dissected them question by question...</p>
<p>...I really don't know how to help you, as it seems that you've done a lot already. My advice? Don't sweat one section. Your writing and AP scores show that you are good at english. Colleges are willing to overlook your particular weakness at one section on a standardized test.</p>
<p>Are there any examples you can post (which wouldn't infringe on copyright)? Most of the vocabulary questions are straightforward but the passage-based ones can be a bit tricky and a few require a bit of experience about what CB means. For example, in questions where they ask "what would a reader think," do they mean a person reading it now or or someone in the past?</p>
<p>Honestly, I don't know how one would practice for CR other than reading/analyzing a lot and being familiar with the types of questions asked and logic they expect. There isn't enough time for the former so your best bet is to go over those questions you missed and figure out why each answer was wrong. You may want to find a study buddy who can provide another perspective that might be eluding you.</p>
<p>for vocab, i find that no amount of memorizing or studying can help, it's an accumulation of the amount of reading and processing of words you've done throughout your lifetime. maybe if you memorize words and study hardcore you get get at most +20, but other than that, honestly, you need to just be a natural test taker for the CR section.</p>
<p>i dunno, i'm in your situation, i get mid 600s- high 600s and cant get any higher, after doing what seems to be a million practice tests for Critical Reading. Sometimes I get lucky and choose the right answer, sometimes the answer is one I eliminated right away because it wasn't even mentioned in the passage, EVEN THOUGH it was the right answer. <em>bangs head</em>. anyways, the answers are sometimes like "What the hell?" and sometimes they're like "Oh my god! Why is this answer so apparent, even though the answers to the other questions are so HIDDEN! i'd never guess!" but i read the Rocket Review CR Strategy guide, some good advice there although not much of it is going to help, but the biggest advice in the strategy guide was to [take the passage literally, don't look for symbolism or hidden motifs, themes, etc] it has somewhat helped me improve , not really though, the SAT passages are so jarbled up and mumbo-jumbo that it's hard to take it literally....like "our bodies have internal time clocks" kind of hard to interpret doesn't it... oh well, I suggest going back to the passage frequently to verify details...don't skip ANY Lines. sometimes i miss an answer because a specific line gave me the answer, even though I thought it had nothing to do with the question. so yeah...</p>
<p>I read the series twice and it hasn't done me a thing!!! It seems nowadays that Rowling only writes for prestige and money. Gone are the good days of simple, honest writing.</p>
<p>In CR, there is a crucial balance of reading too much into the passage, and reading too superficially.
You just have to do enough passages before you find this balance. There is nothing that I can tell you that will help you to find this. You have to find it for yourself. But once you find it, u'll get perfects or nearly perfects for all your critical reading sections.</p>