Critical reading stuck in the low 600s?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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I did the SAT this June and my score was 600. After practice, my score seems to be stuck at this range till now…

But I read one of the guides on how someone raised his score from 480 to 770 and tried his way. He basically did his tests untimed and learned from his mistakes. He continued to do so until he broke past the 700s.

I tried this way because I seemed to not learn from timed practice. In the untimed, my score was 700! I am now learning from my mistakes, but I also seem to have huge time management issues. These are the problems I recognized so far:

  1. Comprehension speed. I do not seem to understand the passages easily and fully. I have to read it very slowly and then come back to it and read parts of it again every time I do a question. Before, I used to read it as I went through questions, but this way “distracts” my comprehension. I now combine both ways. (Does reading a Charles Dickens Victorian novel help?)

  2. function questions “serves to”. I do not understand what should I exactly be looking for or doing, and what strategies help.

  3. vocab in context questions. I do worst at this one. I try to look for the definition in the passage for the word. However, I only succeed 50% of the time. One of my hindrances is not knowing exact literal definitions of each word in the choices.

Please, share any advices you have for me to solve these three problems and how to increase my speed. I got a 700 when I took fifteen extra minutes on each section.

I’d also like to know some critical reading studying plans that worked for you! I have till October and I want to do my very best to get the score I want.

Now I’m:
studying Direct Hits vocab. Studied Barron’s high freq and hot prospect lists already. (I think this would suffice?)
Doing 3 critical reading sections daily, untimed, and learning from my mistakes very carefully. (except those mentioned above, I’m not sure how to fix those.)

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These are often known as “purpose questions,” and the trap is to choose an answer that demonstrates what the line means. Instead, you must figure out what the line is doing–in other words, what it’s role in the paragraph is. Pretty much every time the answer will correspond to a claim that either precedes or follows the line referenced in the question.

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its good that ur doing barrons cuz its overkill! it should prepare you well. however, make sure to continue doing official collegeboard tests cuz although they say its “easier”, sometimes people are not used to the official sat after doing so much barrons haha. good luck though

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same here. :frowning:
one question, how do you review your mistakes, do you tape it into a notebook?
knowing that it’s important to understand mistakes, I am confused as to how to do so…

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@marvin100 what a valuable tip. I’ve just tried your tip and it really helps. I noticed that in one of these questions my answer was what IS the phrase, not what it IS DOING in the passage. You’ve cleared up my confusion! Thank you so much, and I’d appreciate more of your advices.

@46Tennis34 Barron’s is amazing. It really helped so much. I’d advice any SAT taker to master both lists and prefixes, suffixes, and roots for a high sentence completion grade. I agree. I’m working only with real tests. Thank you.

@whateverhahah That’s an important question! I advise you to keep a small notebook only for the sat critical rading section. Take tests untimed (this sounds wrong, but doing so is extremely helpful. Doing this gives you a good chance to think well and know how to approach questions, and it helps you locate your mistake and think in the right way when approaching a question) After you totally finish everything and are sure of your answers, correct them. Try to re-solve the questions you got wrong. Then think hard to check why is your answer wrong, why is the correct answer right, and how to think the right way next time.

If you’re confused about your wrong answers, you can ask yourself these two questions: is my answer directly supported by the passage? (the answers are mostly paraphrasing of the passage parts, by the way) and did I really answer the question? Perhaps you think you did because your answer is supported by the passage, but it might not be the ANSWER TO THE QUESTION.

Example: Today, I was reviewing a lvl 5 question. My answer WAS in the passage. Why is it wrong?!
Because it didn’t answer the question itself!!

Passage said: The circus did not have animals. However, it was successful. These decisions of not using animals were brilliant, avoiding controversy and high costs. They also helped change the genre. Because there was a new genre, this circus bore audience not seen in any circus: not children, but adults, enjoying this unique circus.

Question asked: Why was this circus successful?
A) it provided a new source of entertainment for parents
B) It made a number of shrewd financial decisions

I answered A. Wrong.

WHY was it successful? Because it avoided buying animals, shrewd financial decisions of not spending a lot on controversial features.

B is the RESULT of what made it successful. Because of eliminating animals, circus managers had a different audience - an adult audience.

Had not the circus avoided animals, there’d be no success in the first place, consequently, no adult audience.

In your Notebook, write how to approach the question next time and what trap the SAT can have for you. (Like my choice A)

This helps so much.

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Great–very glad it helped! But since you asked for more, “advice” is uncountable :slight_smile:

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Another one for grammar, thanks! :stuck_out_tongue:

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@marvin100 wow o.o

it makes me wonder whether or not the SAT is filled with tricks like this

please, unload all critical reading advices like those here. it’d mean a lot to me and many other 600 scoring critical readerererers

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@OneDoubleThree -

[url=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18690073/#Comment_18690073]Um…[/url]

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LOL xD

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@marvin100 more ADVICE please?! :stuck_out_tongue:

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haha sorry–I don’t have time or inclination to write a book about CR here on CC, but when people ask specific questions, I’ll do my best to help!

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  1. There's nothing better for improving your ability to soak in the information quickly and efficiently than just doing a ton of CR passage sections. Also, reading moderately difficult books (not too difficult) in your free time, or even the local newspaper in the morning can help with comprehension ability. Keep in mind that just reading a single victorian novel is not going to do much. The more you read, the better you are able to understand. Find things that you ENJOY reading. If you don't think Charles Dickens is a worthwhile author to be reading, or for some reason dislike his style of writing, then find something else to read. An important tip during the critical reading sections is to force yourself to love the passage. Force yourself to believe that they are the most beautiful and intriguing paragraphs you have ever read. Don't think to yourself "wow this passage is boring, I hate it". Mindset is such an important thing going into these kinds of tests. Also, reading the little blurb of background information located above the start of each passage is a great way to get a basic idea of what the passage will contain. Never ignore it.
  2. For the vocab passage questions, make sure you don't only read the sentence that the specific word is in. Instead, read again 1-2 sentences before, and 1-2 sentences after to give yourself a good idea of just what that section of the passage is talking about. If you don't know what a word in a sentence means, try imagining that it's not there, and use a word in your vocabulary that can replace it. Check the answers for a word similar to the one you chose. To do this you MUST be sure that you completely understand what the passage is about and the author's tone. This goes back to the whole comprehension thing. Reading more/doing more CR passages will help with this as well.
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@marvin100 haha well at least now you know why I fail the essay portion xD

it’s okay, Stanucbear got me covered. (thanks a lot)

and marvin I do have a specific question actually, how do you tackle the improving paragraphs portion? I don’t really understand that part.

sorry for asking so much stuff btw.

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@BethanyD thanks a ton, though sometimes I cannot understand why I got the qs wrong, then I sit for like half an hour starring at the qs and end up falling asleep lol