<p>On the old SAT, I used to do pretty well on the verbal sections. I scored from 760-780 no problem. On the real old SAT, I scored 760 on verbal. Yet, I cannot understand why I cannot achieve the same on the new SAT. The highest verbal I have ever scored is a 730 from the Princeton Review book. In CB blue book, I usually always end up getting 6 out of 67 wrong (about 720). The ones I miss are never vocab, but passages. I've been trying the so-called "Xiggi" method, but to little success. I have been reading NY Times daily for last 3 years, and other magazines. I am clueless...How should I get this down to 3 or less errors?</p>
<p>Maybe this fits in to my theory. At my school, everyone who did well on old SAT 1460+, did about 2000-2100 on new SAT. The people who did between 1400-1450, did 2100+. And it also seemed that the white kids were the ones who did better on the new test, but worse on the old one. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>the problem i find is that sometimes they dont analyze them consistently. Something that is implicit is used as the basis for the answer in one question, then in a similar question elsewhere, they wanted the more explicit answer. Sometimes, their answers just don't make sense. Here's an example.</p>
<p>There was a story about a girl who left Poland to Canada. It describes how here parents were agitated about being searched by customs. The author explains how she had snuck illegal items (silverware or something) in their clothes, and was not suspected by the officers. The question asks how does the author view the customs officers. I said with caution. The other answers included paranoia, disrespect, and two others. The answer was disrespect. I mean, to me, that just seems so random and incorrect. I can see how sneaking something past someone could in one weird way be seen as disrespecting them, but it seems like it would be more "cautious" to sneak it past them to avoid getting into any trouble. </p>
<p>I have found that if you can communicate the gist of an idea to someone you will understand it more clearly yourself. When reading the NYT, spend a few moments at the end of each article summarizing what it was about, important points the author made, weaknesses in logic, whatever. Nothing format - just a synopsis that you might provide someone that was interested in the subject. I would also suggest verbalizing your synopsis (or at least subvocalizing it) - that sets an additional set of neurons into play - and lets you hear your mistakes. Another method that may help you is underlining important points or concepts - it makes the process of reading more active and less passive. </p>
<p>For practice with the SAT, if you have someone that you can work with on this it may help - ideally an adult who teaches or works with words/communications as a vocation or avocation. Find a section that you made an error on - and even after reviewing it, the error is not obvious. Have your helper do the section. Even it they miss the same question you did, chances are they will be able to communicate to you what their thought processes was when they understood what was going on. Questions regarding the tone and purpose of the selection are difficult: in talking about a passage with someone you may be more likely to answer your own question, and be better clued in for next time. </p>
<p>Best wishes on this. My son's verbal went from 710 to 790, due in part to seeing where he was going astray on the tone and meaning questions.</p>
<p>I would guess that your example is a tone thing. The parents would have cautious. You would have been cautious. The author thought she could get away with this - because she respected her intelligence more than custom's abilities (note - I don't have the passage - I could be totally wrong!).</p>
<p>I think the clue in this passage is found in the question - what does the AUTHOR think of the custom's officers, not what does the girl think and not what do YOU think. I would bet that the way it was written, it was apparent that the author had little respect for the custom's people because they didn't check carefully enough under the circumstances.</p>
<p>Just a guess, but I haven't read the passage.</p>
<p>the girl is the author, she is traveling with her sister. This passage is in the practice section of the CB blue book, before any of the whole tests.</p>
<p>The girl is the main character. Just because the author is writing in the first person doesn't always mean that the main character and the author are the same.</p>
<p>The question asks:
In lines 17-19, the author's description of the customs police suggests that the author views them with
A) alarm
B) skepticism
C) disrespect
D) caution
E) paranoia</p>
<p>It's not A, D, or E, because the girl does not think the officers are good at their job, she says "Still, the officials weren't clever enough, or suspicious enough, to check my sister and me" no where does it imply that she was afraid of the police officers.</p>
<p>She did not doubt the police officers either, because they had in fact searched her parents. So it's not B.</p>
<p>She does however, show signs of disrespecting them, because she says that "lucky for us, since we are both carrying some silverware we were not allowed to take out of Poland in large pockets sewn onto our skirts especially for this purpose, and hidden under capacious sweaters" which again goes back to them not being "clever enough." Also, the fact that the police officers caused her parents to be "highly agitated," could have caused her to disrepsect them, thus making the answer C.</p>
<p>You can't assume that she'll be afraid or proceed with caution simply because she is hiding something from the officers, you have to go by what the passage says.</p>
<p>I thinki your problem is that you are better at identifying vocabulary, and have a strong word base, but aren't as good at analyzing passages. THat would explain why you did higher on the old SAT (analogies, less reading passages) and worse on the new one. </p>
<p>That is also the reason why minority students are rumored to score lower on the New SAT - studying vocabulary lists is far easier than developing critical reading skills that usually come over time.</p>
<p>thanks for the explanation xeo. Actually, I stand corrected. The Xiggi method seems to have helped. I went from 8 wrong on first 2 tests, to 6 wrong, and now finally to only 3 wrong (2 of which I could have gotten if I spent more time). I guess that is from a 680 to 710 to a 750 (not sure). What score would you guys give to getting 3 wrong and no skipped?</p>
<p>i took too that question too somewhere, in one of the practice tests. i put disrespect because the story doesn't mention anything about caution, even though they are smuggling in silverware. the way i looked at it was the author showed disrespect for the officers by disrespecting their authortiy, and she says that the gaurds were not clever or suspicous enough to think of searching the childs. from that, i got a sense of disrespect.</p>