<p>ok. english/reading has always been my worst subject. i really never enjoyed reading, and, thus, i never read. unfortunately, this is now starting to catch up to me. on the 2008 PSAT i got a 70 on reading. not bad. i just took the january 2009 sat, though, and i scored a 680 on critical reading, my worst section. so my question really is : DOES ANYONE HAVE SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW I CAN RAISE MY CRITICAL READING SCORE BEFORE THE MARCH SAT ?!</p>
<p>find a good list of SAT vocabulary words and learn them all.
i used the yellow flash cards in the back of the barron’s book and direct hits.</p>
<p>sorry … i forgot to mention that on he jan09 sat i got 19/19 sentence completion questions. that’s not my problem. it’s the reading comp that i bombed. any helpful books or techniques that work QUICKLY?! thankssss :]</p>
<p>Your situation is very similar to mine. I also scored a 70 on the 2008 PSAT, and like you, my problem is not vocab but reading comprehension. All I’ve been doing is the BB practice tests, and it’s helped. So far it’s brought me up to the 740-760 range, and I even got an 800 on one of them. Just do the tests and figure out what you did wrong; not just why the answer was wrong, but come up with a technique to help you avoid making the same mistake in the future.</p>
<p>^ And that’s only been over the past two weeks or so, so with two weeks left you should be able to improve. Of course, I haven’t taken the test for real yet, but I feel much more comfortable with the CR section than previously.</p>
<p>If you have any sort of epiphany in the next two weeks, I hope it is this: the answers are in the text. That’s it.</p>
<p>That realization brought my score from a 660 to a 740 to a ____ this March.</p>
<p>What I do is I look at the question, find the line numbers it references, then read a little through those line numbers and tell myself what I think the answer is. I then look at the answer choices and try to match up what I found in the text (I underline what I believe to be the answers) with one of the answer choices.</p>
<p>Really, it’s just a matching game. You have to find the answer choice that corresponds with what is given/implied/stated in the text.</p>
<p>What about the broader questions? Are there specific places to look for those?</p>
<p>I’ve found that for the line reference questions, one can generally find the answer within 5 or so lines below and 5 or so lines above the exact lines mentioned in the questions.</p>
<p>For the broader questions that don’t have line references (like ones about “the author is implying _____”, etc), I save them for last, as one usually needs to get a sense of what the passage is about to answer the question. For these broader questions, I’ve found that the answers are usually in the first 10 lines (intro, usually) or the last 10 lines (conclusion), or both.</p>
<p>For the broader questions, I just “feel” the tone and the emotions the character/author is expressing after I read a few paragraphs.</p>
<p>thanksss SO MUCH. ill start doing the blue book practice cr parts, one a nightt, and i’ll postt what i get on the marchh when i find out ;]</p>
<p>I have the same problem everyone says these reading passages are easy but they are not! I own the sentence completion sentences I can get like 15 out of 19 atleast but I do poorly on the passages. Why is this?</p>
<p>I read the question and the text at the same time.For example,i read question #1 and see that it refers to line 7.THen i read everything to line 7 (or more) ,and answer the question.Then read the next one,read to line 15 ,for example ,and answer the question.THen i save the general questions for the end.I am not a fast reader ,so i cant afford to read the passage,and then read the line references again</p>
<p>^ My method is similar, but a bit different. Instead of stopping at each line reference, I stop after every couple of paragraphs and answer the relevant question(s). I find that working this way without as many pauses helps me keep track of the overall flow and meaning of the passage.</p>