<p>Charles Dickens is a bad idea. The teachers at my school have stopped using his books because they say he's too dry and uses unclear language.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the SAT passages seem to favor British authors, mostly of the early 20th century. Therefore anything from about 1890-WWI is a good read. I recommend Sherlock Holmes books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They're interesting and full of sentence structure that shows up on the SAT.</p>
<p>Charles Dickens has appeared on at least one SAT in the past, but I'd say that if you are missing that much of the meaning, you're really not gaining very much. It's sort of like trying to struggle your way through a set of calculus problems if you've only mastered algebra II: you'd be much better off starting with something less difficult and working your way up. (I can back this up with educational research, but I won't bore you guys :) unless someone is specifically curious.)</p>
<p>Since the SAT often doesn't identify the authors of passages, it's hard to do solid statistical analysis, but here are some authors whose work I have recognized:</p>
<p>Richard Rodriguez (the red book passage about the kid who reads for the wrong reasons)
Lydia Minatoya (the "discordant fruit" passage about Japanese culture)
Adrienne Rich (the passage about being a woman and a poet)
Charles Dickens (the passage about Trabbs' boy)
E.M. Forster (the passage about Lucy Honeychurch, I think in the white book, 10 Real SATs first edition)
Amy Tan (the passage about Waverly, I believe in the red book)</p>
<p>I'm sure that I (or you) could track down more via google. I just found the Minatoya via google. The others are just the authors I recognized at the time and remember now. </p>
<p>It strikes me that, as JBVirtuoso commented, British authors are SAT favorites, especially nineteenth/early twentieth century British authors. The other favorite category--and a somewhat more common one, I think--is widely anthologized contemporary essayists. Amy Tan, Adrienne Rich, and Richard Rodriguez are all in a number of essay readers, one of which is the Norton Reader. Another good one that I just found is a McGraw-Hill reader called 75 Essays, at <a href="http://auth.mhhe.com/catalogs/0070521573.mhtml%5B/url%5D">http://auth.mhhe.com/catalogs/0070521573.mhtml</a> and possibly at Amazon. I haven't looked at an actual copy but I have looked at the Table of Contents and the selection of authors looks good. </p>
<p>The Norton Reader contains work by Rodriguez and Rich; the McGraw Hill Reader contains work by Rodriguez, Forster, and Minatoya. Together, that's four of the six authors I just named. Of course, that doesn't mean that SAT passages always overlap a lot with those two anthologies; far from it. But it does suggest that anthologies of contemporary essays are pretty good SAT prep.</p>
<p>JBVirtuoso, I agree that Sherlock Holmes books are full of SAT vocab and SAT sentence structure (and I also find them a ton of fun).</p>
<p>^^P.S. There was also one passage somewhere from a famous Russian short story, I think, but it escapes me at the moment who wrote it. One of those Russian masters. :)</p>
<p>^^P.P.S. The other advantage is that reading all these personal essays is <em>great</em> prep for writing your own college essays later, so it's two birds with one stone.</p>
<p>Withering Heights...</p>
<p>Thanks you guys :)</p>
<p>i'm reading "democracy in america". i think it's worth reading, since it's improving my vocab and critical reading. what is your opinion?</p>
<p>how about books like "the audacity of hope" or "mrs dalloway" or "the Hours"...things basically on my reading list.</p>
<p>thank you guys, y'all are great.
I really appreciate yall's advice.</p>
<p>Dickens....</p>
<p>My D came up with this idea: take CR passages from previous SATs. Google some sentences from the texts--you will find their sources. A common one was Encyclopedia Britannica!</p>
<p>But high-scoring students tend to be those who have been dedicated readers with their own literary passions--having read rather omnivorously throughout childhood.</p>
<p>Check out Powerscore's free help area. There is an article that lists magazines and authors that use similar writing styles or have actually been used on the SAT.</p>
<p>Dickens and Forster have been used in the blue book and on real tests.</p>
<p>Authors whose works have made it into the public domain are popular, because the College Board does not have to get permission to reprint them. Most novels published before 1923 are in the public domain. Project Gutenberg has most public domain novels available for print on their website.</p>
<p>Hi pwewacket,</p>
<p>I'm intrigued by the Encyclopedia Britannica connection, so I started to google, but I haven't found any passages yet from that source. Any chance you can ask your D for specifics?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>SpartyOn, that's a good link: thanks.</p>
<p>For everybody else, the URL is <a href="http://www.powerscore.com/sat/help/reading_comp_practice.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.powerscore.com/sat/help/reading_comp_practice.htm</a>.</p>
<p>anyone else have any recommendations on what to read to improve cr?</p>
<p>i would think that anything on a school reading list couldn't hurt. plus it's a whole two-birds-one-stone thing.</p>
<p>any titles? im not in school yet....</p>
<p>hmmm. "all quiet on the western front" and "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" are the only two summer reading books i ever actually read. they were both excellent. so if you're actually looking for a good book to read, not just looking to learn vocabulary, i'd say those are two good places to start. (of course, the good people in charge of educating the american public have done their best to make sure as few of us are interested in reading for its own sake as possible . . . :) sorry for the editorializing, but it's been a rough day :) )</p>
<p>thank you for responding...any classics you would recommend for vocab...(i liked 1984...maybe classic like that)...sorry for being picky lol</p>
<p>no problem :) i'm not trying to be evasive or anything, but i've never tried to read to broaden my vocabulary, or looked words up in a dictionary or anything while reading a novel, so i'm having a hard time coming up with anything. "brave new world" always seemed similar to 1984 to me in some ways. wanna try that? ooh, actually, something just occurred to me. the english translation of gabriel garcia marquez's autobiography ("living to tell the tale") has some great words in it, because they tried to translate it in a way that was faithful to the original's use of language. that was a great book. also, from a literary perspective, it has one of the best structures i've ever seen. the last sentence makes the book.</p>