<p>I REALLY REALLY NEED HELP... WITH MY CR!Its a 550! I CANT SEEM TO IMPROVE IT NO MATTER WHAT!!! MY MATH IS 740... W 710... IM NOT TOUCHING WRITING ANYMORE BUT I NEED HELP WITH CR ... MATH I WILL PRACTICE BY MYSELF!! </p>
<p>I took teh sat's twice and got a 550 both times... how can i improve... i have been doing the vocab cards but still!</p>
<p>Read a ton, and do all of your practice tests and read what the answer was and why they got it. Understand, don't just get it right. I did that and I went from a 670 to a 760.</p>
<p>Anyone else got some helpful ideas for CR?</p>
<p>Did you try review books yet? I use Rocket Review and I think it is really good. I would check that out or this other review book called Grammatix. They have different approaches to the critical reading section so you could just use which ever works best. Also, for vocab, try a book called Direct Hits Vocab. I hear the words in that book appear frequently on the SAT sentence completion portion of the Critical reading section. It uses contemporary examples to help you remember vocab words instead of boring flash cards so they stand out in your mind.
Good Luck</p>
<p>Yeah-- it's hard when you haven't been reading much for 11 years and then try to get good at reading in a few months...</p>
<p>Poor readers generally do poorly on the reading section, and I haven't known a good reader who has done poorly on the reading section.</p>
<p>well anyone that had a 550... were you able to raise it to like a 650? and how did you do it?</p>
<p>so anyone got some more advice?</p>
<p>Get the book "10 Real SATs." I think the most recent edition was 2003, but that's OK since your concern isn't with the Writing section. It offers short-term (test-taking strategy) advice as well as long-term (content mastery) advice, plus practice tests from 10 real SAT booklets. Other than that, IR09's advice is right on target. Avid readers should get good CR scores with little prep, but it's hard for those who read less to get high scores in the short term. The 10 Real SATs approach is probably the most realistic way to improve quickly.</p>
<p>Just start reading more books, especially ones that are relatively challenging.
I also bought barron's vocabulary flashcards which helped a little bit.
I'm sure you'll be able to improve.
I went from a 670 to a 720 without studying for anything.</p>
<p>I have a 570 originally and i got my score up to a 680 in about 3 months.
I just did tons and tons or practice problems. and also i think the key is finding a way to tackle the problems that fits your style. For example, read the questions then only focus on those lines....or maybe read the whole passage....or a little bit of skimming up to the lines where questions are.
the key for me was timing and just knowing what kind of questions CB was going to ask me. I know a 680 isnt perfect by any means and I could stil improve. I just think that even a 100 point increase in CR is pretty significant. Also as someone posted a couple of weeks ago. to get a 650+ vocab becomes extremely important.</p>
<p>What i've found is the only way to improve is to do lots and lots of practice tests - as many as you can do. I got some SAT books like the Barrons one and did as many practice passages i could fit and in around a month, my score went up by 230. Also, reading a lot generally is really helpful, ive found.</p>
<p>read the newspaper--the boring articles.</p>
<p>So far... i want books that are short and well written... right now i just finished...</p>
<p>Slaughterhouse-Five</p>
<p>and about half way through Empire of Lies and 120 pages into Catch 22... </p>
<p>How many books should i read over the summer for the october sat? and i am doing vocab words & some practice test inbetween!...</p>
<p>anymore advice?</p>
<p>i went from a 580 to 610..pretty disappointed</p>
<p>I'd encourage you to spend some time stopping and trying to picture exactly what's going on in what you're reading. I'd also encourage you to carry a dictionary with you and look up every word that you're not sure of.</p>
<p>As far as recommending books, a lot of that is going to depend on what sorts of things interest you. I think Stephen King writes well, for example, but if you don't like horror you won't want to read his stuff.</p>
<p>If you give us some more idea of what you like we might be able to make better suggestions.</p>
<p>lowriders715: the answer is as many as you can. You should be reading good books that interest you. Right now I'm reading Anna Karenina (pevear translation), and it's really good. But I'm doing so because I like the book. I took the SAT already. Make sure you try to read the newspaper or Time or National Geographic or whatever. I like the Atlantic monthly and the New York Times. The goal is to become a good reader. You've kind of shot yourself in the foot if you haven't read any real literature for most of your life and are trying to catch up because you want to do well on the SAT.</p>
<p>Take a **** load of timed practice SATs and study the answers you got wrong. It will raise your score much faster than reading a bunch of books, although I would encourage you to do that as well.</p>
<p>Better make a habit of reading for pleasure at least an hour (2 hrs is better) before bedtime, and keep this going from now on. Not during exam week, of course.<br>
the more you read, the better your reading comprehension, but reading comprehension improves SLOWLY. You have to be patient and stick to the reading habit for several years.<br>
You know, the point of SATs is to assess where your reading comprehension level is. The bigger picture here is that if you don't comprehend that well, as evidenced by an average SAT score, college reading is going to go slowly. So start reading every chance you get from now on and go for quantity of time--3 hours at a stretch, that sort of thing, esp this summer. That is the only sure way to improve in reading comprehension, which will then be borne out by your SAT test performance.</p>
<p>What to read: try John Grisham's stuff, Madame Curie by Eve Curie, Nickel and Dimed (that book is scary). Experiment with whatever will absorb you, since you haven't done a lot of reading for fun and don't know your tastes. I will say that anything will help your comprehension, believe it or not. Easy reading works as well as tomes. Since you want to hurry along, try to find books with a fair amount of unfamiliar vocabulary. What my husband did was write down the word as he came to a new one, then looked it up later. </p>
<p>You do have to be patient. Our culture doesn't encourage reading for fun, and you didn't realize that this was going to slow down your reading comprehension and affect your SAT scores. This is a common problem, esp for folks who like math.</p>
<p>Try The Day of the Triffids. Gripping story about carnivorous plants that walk that escape from a research lab and take over the Earth.</p>
<p>reading seems like a good option, but its not necessary for a good CR score.</p>
<p>there are some techniques and strategies that can get you a higher score.</p>
<p>one of them, is to cross out the "extreme" answers; the answers that have "always" , "totally" , "every", "all" etc. </p>
<p>CR, is in fact, a test of how well you understand what is being asked. The Answers are MORE important than the questions! The passage is simply a "fact" bank to answer the questions. You actually do not need to read the entire passage to get any question- just the parts that are referred to by the Questions. </p>
<p>Anyways. buy a strategy guide. i suggest Princeton Review or McGraw Hill. </p>
<p>They will help improve your score.</p>
<p>Like a few others have said, there is only one solution:
READ. I don't mean Harry Potter, or even the newspaper.
I mean Thoreau. Dickens. Shakespeare. Keep a reading journal and jot down your impressions/thoughts of the works you read. It'll both increase your vocab and teach you to understand texts.</p>