<p>Someone...anyone...human beings.... I truly struggle with Critical reading. I need help. I've used the black book for advice, but I'm just not seeing results. Anything I'm missing to get that 700+ ??
Anybody know any threads or common advice. Anybody who got 650+ wanna share their tips and what they did to conquer that section especially with hard vocab.
Please post here!</p>
<p>I feel your struggle man, CR is a real pain in the buttocks.</p>
<p>Best thing to do is to just keep doing CR questions. After passage I go back and re-read the passages and determine why I got the wrong answer and why the correct answer is correct.</p>
<p>Here is a good guide someone posted on this forum:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1024138-how-i-got-800-sat-critical-reading-story-guide.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1024138-how-i-got-800-sat-critical-reading-story-guide.html</a></p>
<p>By the way, don’t be ashamed if you have a low score. Everyone on this forum assume they have 2400 sat scores and are all future Harvard/Princeton students lol.</p>
<p>Thanks @ TheOmnipotent . This helped. I will use those tips. I kind of knew half of them, they just weren’t working for me. I took a practice section today and got a 450-510 from college board blue book. Same with math. But writing I managed (as practice & timed) to get a 610. I just feel like I’m doing something wrong when it comes to those passages. Many times, it feels like the answer isn’t in the text!</p>
<p>Progress may be slow, but slow progress is still progress!</p>
<p>Let me have hope. True that.</p>
<p>If you’re still getting under 600 in CR, that means you need to learn a ton of vocab. I’d address that ASAP. It takes a while but will get you to 650 faster than anything else–in fact, without vocab, other methods won’t really help much.</p>
<p>You’re not alone- CR’s tough.
I got a 770 last Jan and here are some of my tips:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s not about memorization. The reading strategies you learned in AP lit or English honors help you retain information for tomorrow’s quiz. That’s not what the sat is about. Instead, learn to quickly spot what’s important (like author’s views, topic sentences, etc) and make a good passage map. </p></li>
<li><p>vocab is a beast and it’s impossible to know every single possible word. What I did to study vocab was do the Princeton review’s SAT vocab word app (it’s pretty cheap). it helped a ton. Other than that, use a lot of process of elimination. Sometimes words have a negative feel (like prefixes de- and mal-). Don’t worry about prefixes, roots, etc though. Reading and using common sense is about all you need to do. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also, get a good prep book like Kaplan or Princeton, and feel free to PM me if you have any questions.</p>
<p>Sorry for any spelling or capitalization errors; I’m posting from an iPod.</p>
<p>Thanks Marvin and SG12909
Big help!!</p>