<p>I'm a rising junior who's gonna take the SAT in january... my math will end up well above the 700 level and writing too. Unfortunatly, im in the mid-low 600s in CR. I was around 620 and then went through the whole barrons SAT CR prep book and am still at 620. I read a good amount for school and am in pretty vigorous classes at my pretty vigorous private school. What should I do? I just cant score well on the tests!? How can I improve my scores because I want to get it above 700..</p>
<p>i would like to know this as well.</p>
<p>(posting to subscribe to this thread. sorry if you were expecting an answer)</p>
<p>If youre getting that in barrons, expect mid 700s on the real thing. Barrons tends to be a lot harder than the actual test</p>
<p>i have heard about that for their sat 2 math (which is INSANE…im using it now its aggravating), but it that also true for their crit reading? I can’t imagine 620 being good in any basic SAT book?</p>
<p>Were the 620 scores on tests from the same source? Or was one from BB and the other from Barrons? You should be comparing apples to apples.</p>
<p>Are you a native English speaker?</p>
<p>How much time has gone by between the two tests?</p>
<p>I generally find any barrons study books to be harder than the actual test.</p>
<p>Try studying more vocab</p>
<p>Well I know one part is fill-in (Vocab), and the other is reading comprehension.
One short passage/two shorter passages with questions and one longer one or two passages with questions that follow.</p>
<p>If you struggle with the fill-in, study vocab.</p>
<p>If you struggle with the reading passages, try to read more often independently.
(There are many studies that support this claim)</p>
<p>Study a lot of vocabulary. Don’t sit down for hours upon hours studying and studying and studying and studying in a monotonously disastrous fashion. That would just be a huge waste of your time, and if you have work/a life/ecs/friends/hobbies/etc, then I’m sure you’d MUCH rather enjoy those than sacrifice your day cramming vocabulary. Just make lists with the maximum # of words you think you can learn in a day. In the morning, read them over thoroughly once. Then, throughout the day, just intermittently scan it for 5-10 minute periods. If it helps at all, use them in random or stupid sentences that will allow them to stick in your head more easily. Make one vocab list per day, and then at the end of each week, review all of your vocab words.</p>
<p>Also, reading novels/poetry/news/etc isn’t necessary. It would help, but again, it’s not necessary. If you despise reading, then don’t do it. Try to make your SAT studying enjoyable. (well not that my recommendation is an enjoyable method, but it’s certainly very lax since I don’t sit down studying for eternity… this excludes the SAT practice tests I take, which take ~4 hours lol) </p>
<p>The best way to improve your critical reading is to practice. Take several practice tests (depending on how much time you have left, you may want to take 1 or 2 a week. If you’re taking the October one, it might be better to take more though), and after you finish, review ALL of the incorrect answers and the ones you were unsure about (while you take the test, star the ones you have even the slightest bit of doubt on).</p>
<p>After practicing, you’ll realize that most of the answers were blatantly thrown in front of you, you just didn’t realize it. Back when I was scoring in the 600s, I asked my cousin and friends how they managed to do so well on the CR. They told me that the answer was obvious, and that they couldn’t explain why, since it just was. This didn’t really help me, but I get what they mean now. If you practice enough, questions will become easier, answers will become more obvious, and you will also start to speed up in your reading so you’ll have plenty of time left over to review answers you were extremely unsure about. or doodle. either is fine hah.</p>
<p>Though I haven’t taken the actual SAT yet (I’m an upcoming junior, and I’m planning to take the SAT in October/November), I have been taking timed practice tests at a table to emulate the actual SAT. On my first CR, I got a scaled score of ~490-530, but for the last few practice tests I’ve been scoring 800s. (: It’s all about practice… and nonchalant study. /lazybum</p>
<p>The above posts, especially Gomdorri’s, have really helpful ideas. I just want to add that you may find it helpful to bracket the passage based on the line references in the questions (this strategy came from the stickied thread). It helps you focus better while you’re reading the passage. It helped me; I improved from a low 600 to a low 700 by using this strategy.
Just so you know, I got low 600 scores using the strategy of going right to answering the questions rather than reading the entire passage.</p>
<p>There is so much vocabulary to learn. Is there any online resource that DOESNt just give definitions. And has a list that doesn’t have unnecessary words</p>
<p>The way I study is this: I make words on Word Dynamo. I go to the matching section. I read some stuff on the word presented on vocabulary.com. I go to dictionary.com to search up the roots. After I’ve mastered a list, I do some crosswords with them. Then I make a new word list with sentences occasionally. I repeat.</p>
<p>hmm interesting site… another problem i have is secondary definitions. like faculty can mean ability. i did not know that. should i learn these cause ive seen them on practice tests.</p>
<p>Memorize vocab and take several practice tests. That’s what made me go from 490-530 range to 760+</p>
<p>Secondary definitions are characteristic of higher level questions.</p>
<p>@eswara20: try McGraw Hill’s lists and see if they help you. And try Direct Hits as well</p>