<p>I was just wondering how most of you approach these passages. I keep hovering around 580-670 on my practice tests and would like more suggestions for change. My plan is usually:</p>
<ol>
<li>Look at the questions</li>
<li>Underline line references</li>
<li>Read paragraph pertaining to questions in chronological order</li>
<li>Answer Questions relating to the paragraphs read</li>
<li>Repeat until only Main Idea questions or passage comparisons are left</li>
</ol>
<p>What about you guys? Please! I'd love to know!</p>
<p>My CR scores: </p>
<p>PSAT 70 → 1st SAT 580 → 2nd SAT 650 → 3rd SAT 710</p>
<p>Now here’s what I learned:</p>
<p>There isn’t any rhyme or reason to it (from what I’ve gathered)-- you simply have to just read and hope for the best. My honest belief is that it is all about luck of the test. On my first SAT there was this extremely confusing passage about a croatian family comparing themselves to Caribbean culture (or something like that). I am almost 100% sure that that passage killed my score because I nearly aced the vocab (only 2 wrong). On the next SAT, I tried to pay more attention to my reading, but got crushed by the vocab. Finally the third try it all came together. </p>
<p>You just need to know your strengths/weakness. For example, science and culturual type passages tend to really throw me off; whereas, prose and personal stories are what I accel with. </p>
<p>First and foremost you need to have the vocab down. IMO, the actual reading is too challenging to give away free points on the vocab. The vocab can be studied (I used princeton review 500 flashcards and learned every word). As for the reading, the only secret is to read. Occasionally I would answer questions as I read, and other times I would just read the passage then take on the questions. I am no CR expert, but IMO there really is no systematic trick to it. BUT the vocab is even important for the reading. I later realized that I was missing many questions on the actual reading because I did not understand all the answer choices. For example, if I did not know what a “predicament” was then I could not identify that as the right answer even though it was obvious that the reader was in a tough situation. Instances like this show up a LOT! </p>
<p>But what I would say is try the ACT if you haven’t already. I got a 35 on the reading (twice) even though CR on the SAT is my weakness. They are very different! I always thought I would be better at the SAT, but it turns out I’m not even sending send my SAT score to colleges (after all that work!) thanks to the ACT. </p>
<p>Good luck :)</p>