<p>Does anybody who got an 800 or mid 700s on SAT critical reading have any advice. I mean one thing I've never worked on much is vocab, that might be my downfall.</p>
<p>I only got a 700 crit reading, but maybe thats bc they were burning incense in my exam room</p>
<p>i want to know too. i would be happy with a low or mid 700s.</p>
<p>Lol incense ought to help you :)</p>
<p>Well, it helps to be an avid reader (that is such a cliche phrase but whatever). If you're not one, become one.
Study vocab lists. They're actually pretty good at preparing you.
Pay attention in lit class.
Don't stress out.
Don't pick the multiple choice answer that is meant for the over-thinkers. Don't overanalyze, even if it's tempting--there is always a choice like that, and overcoming this hurdle got me to the 800!</p>
<p>yeah i never really studied vocab that much and <surprise!!!> the questions i most often miss are the sentence completions</surprise!!!></p>
<p>oh, and over analysis is my middle name. I'm the guy that'll pick an answer and then go "wait a minute, but what if..."
you know? like i'll have a hunch, but i'll always end up choosing the one i don't have a hunch about bc somehow i think its too "risky" to go with my instinct</p>
<p>i just try not to get distracted</p>
<p>I think it is all about figuring out 'the system.'</p>
<p>The SAT is actually quite limited in its choice of CR questions. If you study the Blue Book extensively, you will recognize more than 90% of the question types on your SAT.</p>
<p>Four big tips:
1) Do Blue Book over and over again (I never did but I think it helps to familarize yourself with the problem types)
2) Don't look for things that aren't there in the passage
3) If you are getting sentence completions wrong, get a good vocab source (please no Barrons 3000 words, you won't use 9/10 of that list -- get something practical like PR's word smart or Rocket Review's word list (albeit RR is a bit simple).
4) Don't read through the entire passage once in the beginning. Read them in chucks and pieces (for example, if the first question asks you about something in line 18: read from the beginning to line 18, stop, answer the question, then move on).</p>
<p>memorize vocab!!
that's the key to getting all your sentence completion questions.</p>
<p>and Read</p>
<p>Once you practice enough, vocab becomes really more intuitive than anything. I can usually get every single vocab right even when I don't know what most of the choices mean.</p>
<p>Vocab is really more intuition than anything. Knowing the roots as well as knowing if the word is positive or negative means more than knowing what the word means. No matter how much you study, you will probably never know what every single word on the SAT means. I got 760, but I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any vocab on the SAT. I didn't memorize a single minute of vocab and I haven't read a book since the last Harry Potter.</p>
<p>Edit: stupid double post</p>