Critical Reading Help + Anyone here taken the online practice test from Collegeboard?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>I was just wondering if anyone has taken the online practice test from Collegeboard. I just had few questions regarding this online practice test.
I am taking my first SATs in JAnuary (I am a junior right now), and the e-rater(online) gives me a score of 6 (the perfect score online) every time I write an essay. But the thing is that I don't think I'm that good of a writer, and am quite dubious of the evaluation systerm.
So I was wondering if anyone has been rated by the e-rater, and has taken SAT's afterwards, how much the scores differ by? (Are they almost similar or is E-rater completely off?)
Also, I seem to get around 10 wrong on the Critical Reading section, and I am memorizing the BArron's 3500 and doing the practice test every day. However, I was wondering for those of you in the 700 score range how to improve on the critical reading section within in 20 days. (Wow, time's going by so fast!! :0)
Lastly, I have done lots of practice tests, and I usually do well on the writing section, like I used to get 3 or 4 wrong. But, as I started doing the tests online from the collegeboard, I am getting around 10 wrong. How accurate are the collegeboard practice tests? Or do you think I have been just practicing dumb writing questions?</p>

<p>Sorry for such a long post, but I would appreciate it very much if any of you decided to help by replying to my thread. THANX :)</p>

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<p>The Collegeboard tests are very accurate, afterall its from the real makers of the test.</p>

<p>The essay graders however, I would take with a grain of salt. Just to see what I would get, I inputted random disjointed paragraphs from essaygenerator.com and got an 11.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I am memorizing the BArron's 3500

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Noooo. Bad! </p>

<p>The vast majority of those words ARE NOT words that have appeared in any administered version of the SAT. They are words that the writers of Barron's (who desperately want your money) <em>think</em> <em>could</em> appear on future SAT's. Take a moment to comprehend what they're claiming. They are claiming that they can predict what words, which have NEVER APPEARED IN AN SAT, ETS will decide to put in their test. </p>

<p>As Xiggy put it, only about 20% of CR questions are directly testing your vocabulary. Learning these words is a complete waste time that would be much better spent reading or learning vocab that has actually appeared in a previous version of an administered SAT or official SAT practice test. It's a READING test, not a memorizing of Barron's favorite words test.</p>