Critical reading is killing me!!!!!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>I have taken about 10 tests so far, and the general trend seems to be my critical reading score, which is around 600. I always get like 20 wrong. </p>

<p>Can you guys help me? I don't read a lot of novels but I do force myself to read some NewYork Times articles each day.</p>

2

<p>Start thinking why you make those mistakes you are making. Ask yourself where does your thinking go wrong. Do some tests without timing, carefully inspecting the text, questions and answer choices. After you are finished, look what kind of mistakes you did and why you did them. Explain yourself every single choice of ALL the questions; why those 4 answer choices are wrong and why that 1 is right. You need to learn how to discern wrong answers.
Always answer questions by determining the wrong choices until you are left with one right answer. Do not start by searching the correct answer because you will give in to the suggestions of answer choices and will be trapped.</p>

<p>Usual reasons why some choices are wrong:

  • it is not related to the topic
  • it is correct for the text but does not answer the question
  • it looks logical but is too general; the questions usually want specific answers
  • the choice is too extreme; no extreme emotions, no words like “always”, “never”…
  • the answer is partly correct; there is something that makes the answer not precise enough; always carefully check every single word in the answer choice.</p>
3

<p>I think the main problem is understanding the text. Sometimes I ask myself what da **** did you just read and I don’t know</p>

4

<p>Same, I am also stuck with around a 600. I get a lot of those moments too where I read it and am just asking myself what did I just read. I’m beginning to think that the critical reading is sort of like an IQ test in a lot of ways.</p>

5

<p>Then you must enhance your “quality reading” experience… have in mind that improving reading comprehension takes time. The best trainers are science books, in my opinion.</p>

6

<p>Honestly, read stuff you like. If you have to “force yourself” to read things you may not be getting everything you should out of it. If you like reading the sports pages, read lots of sports articles. If you like science, read science textbooks. If you like trashy novels, read trashy novels. Obviously on top of this read some of what they call “quality literature”, but the most important thing is reading anything. This will help you be able to get the gist of the passage, read faster, and focus on the topic at hand.</p>

7

<p>i’m in the same situation as you. i usually score around 650-700, but rarely more. i feel for me it depends more on the type of passage and the type of question. my tutor had me determine what kinds of questions i was getting wrong (mostly inference) and we are working really hard on mastering these.</p>

8

<p>I found an article that names the problem exactly. A tutor for SAT wrote the entry.</p>

<p>You can find it in thecriticalreader com, the name of the entry is “Critical Reading Tutoring as Remediation: the Limits of Test Prep”. Note that the limits apply for short term preparation only. You can develop the required skills in the long run. It can take a year or more.</p>