<p>I'm up to par on Math and Writing (I got 760 each on the most recent practise paper), but I'm losing a lot of marks on the CR questions. I have the Official Study Guide and the Barron's 2400 Club book, and I've read the tips they have on this section, but I still don't do very well on CR, particularly reading long and short paragraphs. </p>
<p>I read classics, as part of my Literature, quite often nowadays - should I continue with that or start reading articles off the New York Times, etc? Or should I Google this and try to find some more tips? I don't have much time before the SAT. Any advice would be much appreciated. </p>
<p>It’s not how to read (e.g. piece by piece or all in one go) that I’m having trouble with; it’s more a problem of reading into the minor differences between certain answers. Questions that rely on assumptions and spotting the nuances in a passage are what I’m losing marks on. I’m also doing fairly well time-wise, although I sometimes find it hard to concentrate.</p>
<p>What helped me with that type of question was going through each answer choice word by word and crossing off the specific word that made each choice wrong. Remember that one wrong word will make an entire answer choice incorrect. If two answer choices still seem viable after you do this, referring back to the passage again will often clear things up.</p>
<p>Other than that, all you can really do is go back over your incorrect answers and try to figure out what made you get them wrong. Hopefully, with time you’ll start understanding how CB tends to interpret passages and what kind of answers they’re looking for.</p>
<p>Read the questions that correspond with the earliest portions of the passage (one or two). THEN read the part of the passage that answers those questions.</p>
<p>Answer the questions, then look onto the next questions and read the next section.</p>
<p>Only answer overall, comprehensive questions at the end (“What was the point of this piece?..etc”</p>
<p>If a question takes me to a specific line, and I have a choice between 2 answers, I look at the paragraphs individually and refer the topic sentence of the paragraph containing the specific line (usually the 1st sentence of each paragraph). This gives me a better idea of author’s purpose and reveals the answer.</p>
<p>Probably the one thing that helped me (it made a 190 point difference on my CR score) was the tip I got from an SAT book that there will always be some evidence for the correct answer. I may sound obvious, but it is really easy to make inferences about the passages, and they don’t expect you to do that. If the passage contains solid evidence for one answer, that is probably the answer.</p>