Critical reading "19th century British novel" passages!

Test Preparation
1

<p>Hi all!</p>

<p>I still have a problem that has always been my Achilles heal:</p>

<p>CR novel-based passages, especially 19th century British novels, are a killer.</p>

<p>If I don't have a British novel based passage I would normally score about 650, but I get around 550 if the paper includes a novel passage!</p>

<p>I partly blame myself for not reading and as I am studying the British curriculum I don't have to read as much... What an irony.</p>

<p>Would you be nice enough to help me with this problem? I've only dreamt of breaking 2100 and you can help me make it come true!</p>

<p>When I approach critical reading, I read the question the passage first and do it <em>it by bit using line references because I'm a slow reader and interpreter . However, when I use this method for British novel based questions, I almost always have no sense of what is going on because the story is very obscure, and when it is in first person narrative the narrator (character too) I take it too literally.</em></p>

<p>I.e. the character blames the principle for firing him and describes him with such animosity. However, in reality he was being perfectly reasonable and the first narrator (character) is a deluded person! </p>

<p>Like how! :'( especially trabb's boy passage in bluebook #10 was a killer!</p>

<p>Thanks Rob :) sorry this was pretty long (;</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

2

<p>Hello,
Have you taken the SAT itself before? If you sit for it a number of times, your problem may be mitigated through the magic of superscoring. It’s statistically likely that at least one of your tests won’t have any 19th century brit lit. </p>

<p>As for dealing with the passages themselves, there’s not much you can do other than practice, practice, practice. If you haven’t got one already, buy a book with detailed explanations of every CR question. It’s all about developing an eye for the tonal/implicative elements many of the questions revolve around. I’m an obsessive reader (always have been), and my familiarity with distinguishing tone led to an 800.</p>

<p>Read, read, read! There are no shortcuts regardless of what Barron’s might tell you!</p>

3

<p>great tip! what do I do if the language is so obscure and archaic?</p>