<p>Ok,</p>
<p>I have done a lot of ... 'climbing' with my CR score. I started with a 530, and am now in the 750 range. My question, how can you perfect this section and stop getting the one question per section wrong? How do you top it of for the elusive 800?</p>
<p>My only advice is to memorize as much vocabulary as you can.</p>
<p>Sorry, I forgot to mention, SCs are not a problem, vocabulary and memorizing I can do.</p>
<p>The thing is, there is the one question on the passages that I get wrong, and when I check my answer I feel stupid, and it seems obvious why the right answer is the right answer but just no when it counts: WHILE I AM TAKING THE TEST!! </p>
<p>any input ...</p>
<p>I guess you can keep doing practice questions on passage reading. You'll notice the pattern of your errors soon enough.</p>
<p>Oh I have done my share of practicing, and have nearly exhausted my resources. I'll keep practicing, but, the thing is, If I can later understand why the right answer is right and why mine was wrong, why don't I have that capability while I am testing? Is this a focus or concentration issue?</p>
<p>I have the exact same problem...except I get more questions wrong...lke 4 per section..</p>
<p>@Akahmed, how did you improve from 530 to 750? Did you just practice and analyse what you got wrong and repeat this cycle? thanks.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm very curious how you got from 530 to 750.</p>
<p>How long did it take?</p>
<p>I too would also like to know. </p>
<p>Share your secret with us, akahmed. :)</p>
<p>I have the same problem too... it sucks.</p>
<p>yes...share your secret</p>
<p>Yeah, we would would all like to know how you improved so much. My initial score is a somewhat higher, but I can't imagine moving up to your level. As a beginning junior, I'm working on vocabulary because that is why I'm missing most of my problems.</p>
<p>Please, please, share your method!</p>
<p>Whoa,</p>
<p>Ok, First off, it took a long, long time, When I took the test I was in Sophomore Honors English, thats when I got a 530. Well, I had used PR and I guess that didn't really work. Then after AP English, as a Junior we analyzed mny many texts and novels and that really improved my reading comprehension. I started studying for the SAT CR after the 530, and now, 1.5 years later I have become better. I have analyzed many companies techniques and just decided to use my own strategy, since English wasn't my first language, I still didn't have an innate ability to pick out nuances and subtleties between texts, and I still don't, thus the 750. I sort of morphed my own method from Grammatix, from Barrons and others. I think that is the most important procedure- to come up with a methods to suit your own needs instead of molding your mind to fit a certain companies method- NO! mold their methods for your mind. For me, I can't retain information long, and I need to read the whole text to understand it. So, I read paragraph by paragraph, at the end of each i would answer all line ref questions I had marked in. Then i would attack the general Q's. After a while I started noticing the wrong answer types- skewed info, distorted facts, half right half wrong answers, irrelevant answers ... And now I can confidently cross out 3 or four answer choices and narrow it down to the right answer.</p>
<p>I feel though that 750 might be y plateau, and I really want an 800, so I really don't know how to... "sharpen the knife more".</p>
<p>You have to get lucky, as you're not going to know all the vocab on a test, as much as you work at it. My advice would be to go with your first instinct on the one(s) you don't know.</p>
<p>I usually narrow it down to 1 or 2 choices. When I have two choices though, I can't seem to weed it out further. I try going with my instincts but my brain tells me both answers are possible. I need to know the subtleties College Board uses to justify the right answer.</p>
<p>akahmed, can you clear your in-box? I am trying to send you a message. thanks</p>
<p>@akahmed--</p>
<p>i agree with you that developing your own method is the key to mastering the test. good job with that.</p>
<p>remember that there are diminishing returns as you get better and better at anything. the last 50 points will be harder to get than the first 50. since that's the case, it could be that you just need to keep working a little more to push through your current plateau.</p>
<p>are there any similarities you can see among the questions you tend to miss? does the CB rank them all with similar difficulty levels or anything like that? do they appear on the same kinds of passages? do they have similar question numbers (not because CR questions follow an order of difficulty--they don't--but because your concentration/focus might be dipping at the same point in every section)?</p>
<p>if there are no discernible similarities, it might be an issue with consistency, in which case i'd recommend further practice (as mind-numbing as i know that can be). if you can find some similarities in the questions you're missing, i'd say you might need to tinker with the method.</p>
<p>I agree fully about the diminishing returns, and understand it will be the hardest to improve from a 750+. </p>
<p>I think the general question type I get wrong is the inference type. There will be only one or sadly, two per section I get wrong and it can be either Medium or Difficult in level. </p>
<p>If it is a dip in concentration or focus, is practice the only way? The questions I get wrong seem to be inference questions but they are in random places. Sometimes I just can't see the right answer.</p>
<p>A general pointer: The difference between a 750 and an 800 usually has to do with how well you are reading the question choices, not how well you are reading the passage itself. (This is kind of true in any score range but especially true above 720 or so, I think.) Make sure that you devise some kind of system for forcing yourself to break down the choices: some people like to break each answer choice in two, other people like to cross out individual words or phrases instead of the letter as they eliminate. Whatever works for you, make sure you're forcing yourself to take that step consistently. </p>
<p>I would also consider practicing with some College Board GRE passages--I can tell you which ones if you're curious. There are more inference questions on that test than on the SAT, and the level of the exam is harder, which means your study time will be better spent (if you're at a 750, many of the SAT questions are too easy for you to be learning much from doing them). If you spent some quality time with those questions and master them and come back to the SAT, you may find that the inference questions seem much easier.</p>
<p>I think you are right, I have to better understand the answer choices and what they mean. I actually did get GRE passages from someone that were sorted so they were good for the SAT. i think I will try those, thanks!</p>
<p>Any other suggestions would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Hey, nice improvement akahmed. Also, can someone pass me some GRE passages, if possible?</p>