<p>My son got his SAT results today.
He did well on the writing, OK on the math but "not exactly great" on the critical reading portion. He is a junior and this is his first SAT test, he will probably take the test again in January or in March - for those of you who did well on the critical reading portion what is the best advice you can share with him?
Thanks</p>
<p>Maybe read a lot? Memorize vocabulary words by the hundreds?? I'm not sure.</p>
<p>For passage analysis, make sure you can directly support every answer you pick by pointing out the corresponding evidence in the text. If your son can underline a sentence or two that supports an answer choice correctly, he's probably got the right answer. Sometimes kids are too hasty to choose trick answers that sound good, but don't capture all the nuances of the text.</p>
<p>I went from 690 to 800 CR.
read a lot, and always ALWAYS look up words you don't know. memorizing vocab lists is good quick way. and I guess I just got smarter from reading a lot. oh and do LOTS of practice questions, and always ALWAYS figure out why you got questions wrong CAREFULLY. I would spend like an hour just going over missed quesitons after taking a practice test. it's raelly the most important part -- the whole point actually -- of doing practice tests. oh and don't just look at ones you got wrong. also look at ones you weren't sure on (even if you got them right)</p>
<p>I agree with JohnC613 for the most part. I didn't find vocab lists too helpful, though, since I already knew all the words. Along with the looking up the words, it helps to write them down... I know that after writing them down, I never forgot them.</p>
<p>I don't think reading a lot is necessary, though... I pretty much never read. The thing I think is most important (and what I think got me from a 70 PSAT to 800 SAT) is to focus as hard as you can and realize that the passages are actually really easy. I think the fact that I looked over roots, prefixes, and suffixes from Gruber's helped, too. That way, you can just reason out the meaning of a word.</p>
<p>Amber's exactly right... almost every answer is stated explicitly. Others have a lot of implicit evidence supporting them.</p>
<p>Another key is for your son to be self-motivated. If he's not on here asking these questions himself, who knows if he wants a good score as much as you think he does.</p>
<p>What is gruber's?</p>
<p>It's a prep book. idk if new ones are being published... I used one that was like 10 years old when my brother--who's out of college--bought it for <em>his</em> SAT.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to mention: [url=<a href="http://www.freerice.com/index.php%5DFreeRice%5B/url">http://www.freerice.com/index.php]FreeRice[/url</a>].</p>
<p>junior here, took Oct, yay early people, but anyways, I got an 800 on CR:</p>
<p>While obviously he should read, I found the Barron's 2400 book to be a godsend. Honestly, it really helped me figure out how to answer CR questions, and the vocab list was a great, too. Also, the shostak vocabulary books-if that's his weak section-is good...most people forget about vocab, but it really is important (at least 20 questions! not including in the passage). </p>
<p>The most important thing is to remind your son (as I'm reminding myself) that he has a year to prepare and do his best superscored.</p>
<p>i feel real dumb compared to everyone else im at 590 but im up from a 570. Thanks for the help. I'm working on bringing that up to a 650.</p>
<p>BTW I like that rice website a lot.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great advice everybody!
Please feel free to add even more.........</p>
<p>I've heard Barrons CR book is good.. im getting it.</p>