<p>If I'm in the 500-550 reading range....do you think I'd benefit tremendously from SparkNote's CR Workbook? I bought it already, but I'm just asking now. :-)</p>
<p>i'll tell you my story. Last year I was exactly the same way as you are right now, scoring consistent 500s on CR. I was so frustrated that i quit test prep and just started reading New Yorker. Now i'm here, 4 months later, with 650s (still not very good). The questions make much more sense too. Now all I have do is conquer the time factor.</p>
<p>Does reading the New Yorker really help? I find some of the articles interesting, but I dont' always have time to read them, which is why I never buy it. Do you think it's ok to only read the articles you like? Like out of the whole magazine you only read like 2?</p>
<p>hmmm....let me tell you something about myself
i came to America in early 2004, with very limited understanding of english...the first time i made contact with SAT CR was early 2005--a Kaplan free practice test, on which i got 530 for CR
but in the jan 28th test my CR went up to 730, and should be even higher in the april one..
basically two steps must be undertaken to raise your CR score substantially...
first of all, spend a great deal of time with vocab list. but dont just cram them in. the words learned from vocab list must be reinforced by seeing how these words are used in literary works, either fiction or non-fiction. i recommend you victorian novels, especially those by G.Eliot and W.Thackeray...in addition to vocab, these readings also help you (at least they did for me) to understand many of the sentences with convoluted structures constantly appearing on CR..
second step to do well on CR is to carefully, calmly, and clearly read the question, while constantly reminding yourself that there s only one answer correct and it is very obvious in the passage. the point is, every answer, except for inference ones, must be found in the passage. for inference ones, i have no special way, but i always get them right by intution...^_^</p>
<p>New Yorker articles are generally harder than Time, Newsweek...etc.</p>
<p>But read what u love, reading for SAT's sake is miserable.</p>
<p>I used to get around in the very low 600's but now I consistently get in the 700's. </p>
<p>That's because I practiced the critical reading sections in the blue book. For the first few, I did the passages with unlimited amount of time. Then, when I got used to doing them, I timed myself with 30 minutes and slowly lowered the time from there.</p>