<p>I got a 620 CR, 740 M, 790 W - 2150 in March</p>
<p>I really need to work on my CR and i want to raise it 100 points by October. I am willing to put in the work but what kind of work do I do? I have already gone thru Princeton review (before March) but it didn't seem to help that much. I am getting better with practice on the actual reading comprehension but my score doesn't improve much because I keep getting sentence completions wrong. On the actual SAT I skipped/got wrong 7/19 sent completions. So what advice can you offer me for them? What are the best words to memorize and what are the best roots to memorize? Also what kind of strategies can I use to improve? Thank you!</p>
<p>Did you take the PSAT? How does your verbal score on the PSAT compare to your CR score? My son did great on the verbal part of the PSAT in 10th grade. After the review course, his verbal PSAT and CR went down. The review course had taught him to second guess himself. I told him to forget everything they taught him. He waited a few months and with zero prep in CR, his score went up 50 points.</p>
<p>well, I did not take a prep course but I did have some tutoring. My tutor helped me to do a lot better on the reading comp questions but it's the sentence completions on which I struggle the most. She didn't really focus on the s.c. and just said fill in what you know, guess if you can eliminate 2, etc. (didn't give it much attention).</p>
<p>I got a 52 on the PSAT in 9th grade and did not take it in 10th grade since I was out of the country so 620 is actually an improvement. I don't really think I have a bad vocabulary though, I mean I've had great teachers who drill vocab words into us. And in casual conversations I know a lot of words that others don't. </p>
<p>However, since I'm struggling this much on the s.c., i MUST have a bad vocabulary. So any suggestions on what to do about it?</p>
<p>well actually my Reading comp varies. On one section i got everything right, and on another i got 2 or 3 wrong. But the point is that I really believe I can improve that part of it with some practice. Vocab on the other hand...... </p>
<p>Do you have any lists you might recommend, roots/prefixes I should know, etc?<br>
The thing that scares me is that there are these lists of 2,500 words and I would have to imagine that 95% of them simply won't show up on the test. </p>
<p>I really really REALLY want to break 700, hopefully 720, in October.</p>
<p>Just do as many practice tests that you can get your hands on. I started out at a 580 on CR and my score is already up like 100 points after just doing old tests religiously for a month or so.
There are patterns in the tests and once you start getting in the mind set of the college board I think it makes everything a lot easier.</p>
<p>Read books. For real. lots of them. Actually read books. You get faster. It works.</p>
<p>Do vocab. They will show up. Memorizes tons and tons of flashcards. </p>
<p>Do as many practice sections as possible. You get used to them. You get better at them.</p>
<p>Focus on the passage, use good test taking strategies, process of elimination, think about what you're reading. Understand what you're reading, but still give it a very close reading. I found it best to answer the questions as I went through the passage (of course leave broad questions about the whole passage until the end).</p>
<p>They always indicate what the word should be in the sentence. Don't simply look at what fits best. Usually the sentence begs for you to pick one answer.</p>
<p>The ACT does not have much vocabulary so give it a try! My son hates reading so over the summer, he forced himself to sit and read for increasing amounts of time. That seemed to help him.</p>
<p>800, first try junior sat in oct
most questions follow a pattern. If it helps, write down how you were feeling about each question. For example, you might have narrowed it down to 2 answers (remember: no part of an answer can be untrue), and then chose the "smarter" answer. However, if your "smarter" answers are always wrong and the other one is right, you can tell if your intuition is wrong. So, you'd pick the OTHER answer.</p>
<p>Also, a great tip is that you should be able to use evidence from the paragraph to substantiate it. Pretend a person is hounding you and saying, "Uh huh. And WHY is that the answer?"..if you can't find direct proof, it's wrong.</p>
<p>I'm skeptical of the all-encompassing "read books" advice that is posted countless times in these threads because it's so vague. What kind of books? What would you do when reading these books--would you just read them as you would anything else or would you read them with the Critical Reading section in mind? What in particular would help you--the vocabulary, the structure?</p>
<p>If your goal is to improve your score on sentence completions, reading novels is a bad idea; the easiest way to boost your score on sentence completions is to study vocabulary en masse. Get a flashcard program such as rememorizer or Granule and learn as many words as you can--preferably several hundred--in a short period of time. The best books you can get for these are the "Word Smart" series and Kaplan's Critical Reading book because they list words that frequently appear on the SAT. You don't need to know the intricacies of each word that much because even if you only know the most basic definition of the word it's enough to determine that all of the other words provided are likely wrong. Remember: it's pure knowledge, so it's the easiest to fix and the easiest to be consistent on.</p>
<p>I have the same problem! My CR scores are over 100 points lower than everything else. My writing and and math matches up to get into good schools, but my CR is sooo low. Can i bring it up enough? or do i need to be looking at lesser schools?</p>
<p>well, that is kind of why I started this post. haha. But I'm just going to memorize vocabulary like none other, and practice the RC questions. I'm not as worried about the actual RC than I am about sentence completion. I'm going to work as much as is necessary this summer to get my vocabulary on track for a 720- that is my goal.</p>
<p>ur actually better off than i am.
i got 730 r 710 m 710 writing in march, so i don't really know WHAT to focus on. even worse, i have this miserable thing in like EIGHT DAMN HOURS.</p>
<p>hmm well at least yours is well balanced. Best of luck, you're probably taking them right now so I'm a little late. I hope you do well, let us know how they were.</p>