Help me with Critical Reading section!! It's urgent!!!

<p>Hi, I studied SAT over the summer and I still have trouble with time in the critical reading section. :(
A friend of mine told me that in the beginning of SAT prep, I should not time myself and just try to understand the passage and the questions...
So, that's what I've been doing and I think that was a BIG mistake!</p>

<p>For each section, I go overboard for around 5-10minutes.
But that's gonna be a problem for me in the october test</p>

<p>What do you guys do when you don't seem to have enough time to do all the questions???
What other strategies should I try to finish everything in time?</p>

<p>It seems that when I don't time myself (and allow myself 5-10more minutes) I get aroud 690-750, but then when I do time myself, I tend to rush and end up getting lmid 600s.</p>

<p>How can I get rid of this problem before the october test????</p>

<p>bump… anyone? any advice?</p>

<p>Read the questions first. That way, you know what you’re looking for. Then, read the
1st sentences of each para. to understand the passage. Then, read it all again. Sounds like extra work, but it saves time.</p>

<p>PS: there are tons of books out there that are about the strategies. Read those too.</p>

<p>Read the stickies.</p>

<p>I’ve had that problem before…I used to read the whole passage and then attempt the questions, referring to the passage again when I couldn’t answer a question. That method really wastes a lot of time. What you could try to do is read the question, then read the specific line that the question is pointing to. It is also a good idea to briefly read through that specific paragraph to get an idea of what the paragraph is all about. This method saves a lot of time. For the questions asking you stuff like “What is the main idea expressed, etc”, which doesn’t specify a certain line, skip it and attempt it after you have completed the specific questions. That way you would have briefly read most of the passage and should have a good idea about what the whole passage is about. Hope this helps.</p>

<p>thanks guys. actually the strategy I’m using now is looking at the questions that have line references and mark them in the passage first then I’ll do the questions as I read… But I still don’t have enough time. The thing is I don’t think I’m reading the passage itself slow, but I think I take too long to choose an answer for each question. Approximately, how long should I take to answer in each question? And also, around how much time should I spend on doing sentence completion and the short passage questions?</p>