<p>Read Classics.. any classics are good for vocabulary and reading comprehension.
I mean, I have read Beowulf(which has some good vocab in it), Flannery O Connor's shorts ( odd themes..hard to understand), Scarlet Letter ( I loved this book, most people don't lol..a lot of descriptions), Adventures of Huck Finn ( Loved this one, absolutely hard to put down).. and currently, I'm reading Anna Karenina. Although it is a long novel, I find that it is a quite great novel for reading comprehension because it makes you think, and not only that, but it also has great vocabular. Tolstoy also manages to depict emotions very realisticly; if you are up to it, then read the novel.
I'd also suggest Charles Dickens novels, Crime and Punishment, Lord of the Flies( Started reading this one too..it's really interesting, but then again, I really like adventure stories where people are stuck on islands. XD) lol
yeah..so go to your library and go to the classics section. That's what I did, and I just picked out novels I thought would interest me.</p>
<p>Jane Austen....great books and the vocab in context is great...don't even need to run to the dictionary!</p>
<p>I know someone mentioned TIME, but if you want good current events coverage, something like the Economist is probably better. Since its not as mainstream and doesn't try to appeal to all readers, the Economist keeps its articles very sophisticated and I think a harder reading level than, say TIME.</p>
<p>So I'm assuming Jane Austen gives definitions somewhere in the book?</p>
<p>^ No, Jane Austen is an 18th century English writer lol</p>
<p>LOL........oops</p>
<p>EDIT: I read crzy2rite's post again, and noticed he said "in context", so yeah this time I'm guessing one can learn words through the context, and they don't provide definitions like I assumed before.</p>
<p>Yeah, Jane Austen...TIME magazine, NY times, Scientific American, national geographic</p>
<p>Catch-22 is really good. In the first 4 chapters there were about 40 SAT level words.</p>
<p>I just finished that book today. Luckily someone had read it before me and wrote the definitions of a lot of the words in the book. Otherwise I would have no idea what half of them mean. </p>
<p>When you guys read do you look up words you don't know?</p>
<p>If i'm reading books for prep, i do look up and note the new words.
but if its an interest reading, i don't have to, since you can find out the meaning from its whole passage.</p>
<p>read 2-3 classical books (dickens, hardy) within a short period of time and watch your score go up 50 points.</p>
<p>id go with flocabulary</p>
<p>how is vocab going to help you comprehend and critically analyze the passage more? it's only good for the sc.</p>
<p>Catch-22 is a great book, and also contains a colossal amount of SAT words.</p>
<p>Yossarian is the man.</p>
<p>Yossarian <em>is</em> the man, it's true.</p>
<p>The best source of SAT-like reading I know is an anthology of (mostly) contemporary prose called The Norton Reader. Get the tenth edition used on a site like half.com; new, it's $60, which is way too much.</p>
<p>If you order it and try it, I think you will find that most of the essays are very similar to SAT passages in style. A number of the authors included in the anthology have appeared on SATs in the past. And because it's more than 1000 pages, it gives you a large volume of SAT-prep reading in one place.</p>
<p>^^You don't have to read the whole thing, of course. On the other hand, if you are the type of student who is motivated by a big goal, you might make it your aim to master every essay in the book (I don't mean learn the words; I mean really understand the author's point) instead of making it a goal to memorize a huge vocabulary list. Those two projects would take roughly the same amount of time, but reading 1000+ SAT-style essays and understanding them deeply would help your score significantly more than learning, say, the Barrons 3500 list.</p>
<p>I thought that Lord of the Flies was a good book for the SAT, because a lot of the themes can be used for examples for the essay section. However, I really hated the book, and thought it was extremely boring.</p>
<p>Great Gatsby is the ultimate book for SAT themes. </p>
<p>Somehow I am going to tie in catch 22 on my next SAT essay.</p>
<p>I think you guys have presented great tips.</p>
<p>Here's my problem:
I started reading "The Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens, but there is like one passage per page(or two pages) that I am unable to fully comprehend.
Should I keep on reading or quit(read some other classic book with a relatively easier diction)?</p>