<p>How do you all answer the questions? Do you read the questions first, read the whole passage, or skim the passage and then answer the questions? This woud be a lot of help to anyone who has questions on this section.</p>
<p>read the italicized words at the top, skim the passage in about 10-20 secs, then do questions that give you a line to look at, which helps build my understanding of the passage, and then do the questions about the authors tone, mood, message ect. last.</p>
<p>and in 2 passage same thing a above but do that questions that involve passage 1 and 2 last</p>
<p>it works pretty well for me because i run out of time otherwise, but it only gets me around 650 +/- 50 on the practice tests, which i hope will increase with more practice</p>
<p>Honestly, I just read the passages and then go on to the questions. Just to what feels natural to you. Your score, in the end, won't vary much. I fortunately got 800, and I didn't use any skimming-the-passage-go-to-line-questions or read-the-questions-then-do-block-at-a-time tricks. Best luck to you.</p>
<p>kyun, were you a "big" reader during your younger years? or was it just your ability to analyze that helped you through?</p>
<p>ps. any special prep books?</p>
<p>Well, I "used" to read a lot. But not really those Dickens or Thoreau type of reading.. Just a lot of stupid things like goosebump series and stuff like that. I am good at logical reasoning, and I think that helped me. After passing the time-limit issue of the SAT, your "reading skills"(ability to read faster while accurately retaining information) don't really matter.</p>
<p>I used the blue book and bunch other books.. Btw, Barrons 2400 is ridiculously hard. I always get like 30% of them wrong, but I ended up w/ a good score. They might help you when you are at the low 700s and want to go beyond 750s.</p>
<p>Sometimes I'll quickly skim through the questions before I read the passage, just to get an idea of what to look for as I'm reading.</p>
<p>Yeah, I do what kyun does. I read the passage, then answer the questions one at a time. Once in a while I have to turn back to the passage to check my answer, but usually CR takes me the least time.</p>
<p>I haven't gotten my scores back yet but I got a 780 on CR on the PSAT. Math is a whole other story....</p>
<p>I used to have a similar problem on the CR but I think I'm beginning to understand how this all works... I don't know about you but for me, it's almost impossible to read the whole passage first. I usually read the blurb at the top and skim the questions just to get a feel of it. Then I do the "block" reading- i read a section, then answer questions that are pertinent to it. I usually save the tone, mood, big picture ones last because it's really hard for me to go back and forth between specifics and general ideas. As for the two passage one, it really depends on the types of questions they ask but I generally try to answer every question that pertains to each passage first. Sometimes the questions would be out of order, which means that you will need to do some figuring out to decide how you were going to answer the questions. If there aren't that many questions(like if there are only four or five for the passage reading questions), I would first skim each passage, answer the general answer question for each passage and then go into the specifics. Repeat the procedure for passage 2, then answer the questions that require your understanding of the passages as a whole. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>My problem was overanalyzing. I didn't ever have a time issue. I was capable of having twenty minutes left on a practice test, but being unsure about ten of my answers. I'd be like, "Well, in theory, this COULD mean..." etc. This is why I found tips/tricks from books + sort of shutting my brain OFF to be helpful. However, that merely pushed me over the edge to 800. My practice tests in CR were never lower than 730 to begin with, which is probably because I read a lot, and a lot of classics. If it's on a high school reading list, I'll probably love it. If it's so dry that most human beings would need to bathe in lotion just from contemplating it, I will probably love it. So maybe a good thing to do would be to try REALLY hard to psych yourself up and lie to yourself that the passages interest you.</p>
<p>i work similarly to southeasttitan...</p>
<p>^you can pretend that the passages are exciting or you can just simply read more on your own time. What I would do is pay more attention in your history and english classes and try to put my best effort into both of them... When you're reading, make sure you're ACTIVELY READING... Like for ex if you have a passage that you're having trouble with, think about WHat could it be that is giving you so much trouble. When I read, I don't just merely read... I first read to get the information, and I also read for the grammar, syntax, and the style of the author.... Then I start thinking about the how "effective" the writing is in general... hope that helps!</p>
<p>This is a strategy I picked up from these boards, although I believe it is discussed in some prep book (most likely Barron's). I first look at the "micro" questions and underline the sentences they refer to. Next, I read the passage. When I come across a sentence that is underlined, I make sure to pay special attention to it (ie. syntax, diction, meaning, secondary meanings). I then answer the question that asks about that particular sentence. I go through the passage like this until I finish it. Then I attempt the "macro" questions. I sometimes read the concluding and intro sentences with the macro questions to get a feeling for the passage as a whole. </p>
<p>I do this with long passages only, including double passages. As for shorter passages (including short double passages), I simply read through and answer questions in order. I find that the above strategy is not necessary with the shorter passages because the passages are so brief you waste time if you try to separate macro and micro. Personally the benefit of separating macro and micro questions is negligible in the shorter passages</p>
<p>I used to have the problem dis-grace described of over-analyzing these passages. I'd think "well really it should be this one, but I'm guessing there is some hidden meaning so I'll go with this one." Well that didn't work because these really don't have any deep meaning most of the time and the answer is pretty straight-forward. Unless it says 'infer' in the question the answer is normally in the passage itself. I had to be able to distinguish between these types of passages and AP Language type passages because they are pretty different in what they are looking for. </p>
<p>Best advice I've gotten: These passages aren't out to make a political statement, they aren't meant to trick you, and the answer is somewhere in the passage.</p>
<p>Green1, you make some great points.</p>
<p>Don't think about he passages like a literary critic. Think about the passage like somebody writing a test for high schoolers who will have to find the simplest answers.</p>
<p>i just read the whole passage first. my reading speed is pretty decent and usually during practice tests, i can finish a 25-minute session in 15~20 minutes. i think its good to get a overall "feel" of the passage before "contaminating" my mind with detailed questions.</p>
<p>**I can't take credit for this great advice, which is why I am crediting "FellowCCViewer", who is the one who wrote this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The questions themselves are worded in significant ways. If a question states that the passage "suggests" or that "it can be inferred," the answer is usually not explicitly in the passage. This means that you will have to rely on general reading skill. What I mean by this is that you will have to pick up things like tone and implication without their being explicitly stated. For example, an author might use hyperbole to indicate sarcasm or irony. These questions can be the hardest, and the best advice, I'm afraid, is to read more. I know that's not much help now or even a month ago, but there it is. One important point: Don't eliminate an answer to such a question because it IS stated explicitly. There have been inference questions with explicit answers. Do make sure, though, that the explicit portion is in response to the right question.</p></li>
<li><p>Vocabulary questions always refer you to a line number, but this line number usually does not hold the answer. Very often, the answer is given in the same sentence, the next sentence, or the preceding sentence. Look for a synonym or a definition. If that fails, just go with the word that best fits the context.</p></li>
<li><p>Questions that refer to line numbers but are not vocabulary questions come in two types. The first type refers to a line or lines in which a phrase is use or a concept mentioned. (For example: The author refers to "unsolicited praise" (line 30) to indicate For such questions, the answer is usually within five lines either way. For the example, that would mean that you should look between lines 25 and 35. The other type of line reference asks what the function of a group of lines (or a paragraph) is. For example, "The author's point in the second paragraph (lines 13 to 19) is most nearly:". For these questions, restrict yourself to the lines mentioned.</p></li>
<li><p>Correct answers are often vague or weakly worded. By vague, I mean things like "explain a concept" rather than "identify the three primary difficulties with quantum research." By "weakly worded," I mean that the answers tend to contain words like "some," "can," or "suggest." The idea here is fairly simple. Weakly worded statements are more likely to be true than strongly worded statements. Consider, for example, the following two statements about the summer:
A. Mr. Mann taught his class dozens of world-class magical illusions.
B. Mr. Mann covered some topics that are not on the SAT.
The second statement is weak and clearly true. The first one, however, is debatable. Were there truly "dozens" of tricks? Were they world-class? Did I truly teach them or just show them? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then the statement is false. And a false statement is not a correct answer. So when you read a vague or weakly-worded answer, you should be drawn to it. Not all of them are correct, of course, but they are more likely to be correct than the strongly-worded, specific answers.</p></li>
<li><p>There are exceptions to rule 4, and they tend to occur in clusters. In other words, if you find that one answer for a particular passage is strong but clearly correct, there may be others for the same passage. (The reason for this, I think, is that one group does each passage. So if the group indicates a tendency toward a strong answer, there may be others. The very next passage, though, is probably put together by a different group and may revert back to the weak rule.)</p></li>
<li><p>While you're reading, you should look for words that indicate the author's opinion or are not literal. Authors' opinions are often conveyed through adjectives and adverbs, so be on the lookout for those. Things that are not literal include metaphors and hyperbole. Both of these types of statements are frequently tested.</p></li>
<li><p>In the section with two long passages, glance at both and do the one that better fits your interests first. So if there's a passage about French literature and once about physics, do the physics one if science is your forte.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I scored an 800 on the Critical Reading section my first time taking the SAT and I used the strategies in Barron's SAT 2400.
For the passage reading, I quickly skimmed the questions and marked the part of the passage they were asking about.
For example, if the question was "In Line 23, the word "insertwordhere" most closely means" I'd go back and mark line 23.
This all takes like 5 seconds to do. Then, I'd read the entire passage and made sure I read the parts that were marked and the few lines before and after them closely. I just answered the questions after that, and it really helped. :]</p>