<p>If I learn all the SAT words , which I plan to do, is there a higher chance of scoring high on the Critical Reading section. Or is there much more to it?</p>
<p>Yes. There are 19 sentcoms & if you miss some you’re giving away points. In addition, passages often feature vocab words, and not knowing them will lead to comprehension errors. If you know all the vocab it’s virtually impossible to get below 680-700 or so–I know because this even works with very low fluency international kids.</p>
<p>Vocabulary makes up little of the reading section but you’re aiming high, for example 750…not knowing those words will hurt you a lot.</p>
<p>There will be, inevitably, words that you don’t know on the SAT. There’s no way of “knowing all the vocab”. Also, some of those questions don’t even really test vocabulary knowledge as much as they test reading comprehension (some). There are about 12 questions or so that deal with sentence completion (correct me if I’m wrong), and getting all 12 right does improve your score by a lot. So yeah, relatively, knowing SAT vocab should improve your score, but that’s just the same as “knowing” the reading comprehension section and “knowing” the SAT Math section.</p>
<p>The last time I took the SAT, I sadly only got a 680 on the SAT (with a 800 and 760 on writing and math). I only scored so “low” because I didn’t know vocab. I got 4 vocab comp. wrong and 3 reading ones wrong with 1 omit, making my raw score a -10. If I got all the vocab ones right, I would have a -5 raw score, making my score a 750ish. As you can see, vocab makes a big difference. All I’m doing for my next SAT is studying vocab, so I can raise my CR score.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t disagree more. There is a pool of sth like 8000 words that can be used on SATs, and an average teenager already knows 4000 or so without any studying. It’s definitely possible to learn the rest and doing so might be the difference between a 750 and an 800 or a 700 and a 750. It takes time, but if you’re really going for maximum improvement, vocab is the easiest way to improve in CR. You don’t even have to be smart; anyone can memorize words.</p>
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<p>Good call. I bet it works.</p>
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<p>I said that in the bluntest way possible. These lists only provide words from past tests, they don’t predict ones that will appear in the future. The College Board always uses new ones. It would also be stupid for someone to study and memorize, according to you, 4000 words when, even if the stars align, only a couple will appear on the real SAT. You don’t even have to know all the vocab to get a sentence completion question right sometimes anyways. </p>
<p>Either way, knowing words doesn’t guarantee getting the right answer. Remember, the SAT can’t and doesn’t standardize vocabulary. But again, these are just generalizations. Studying and memorizing vocab words is still important if you want to score high on Critical Reading, it’s just not likely at all that you’ll know every single word you come across when you face the real SAT.</p>
<p>MyRealName:</p>
<p>Students I consider “finished” with prep never miss a sentcom. It does take time, but you can definitely learn all the vocab. </p>
<p>It’s the worst way to learn vocab, of course, but if English isn’t your first language and/or you haven’t read a ton of books in English (esp. ones with fairly sophisticated diction), it’s the best option.</p>
<p>Most importantly, memorizing vocab is way easier than becoming a great reader, so it’s the most efficient way to make big gains fast in the CR section.</p>