<p>For short ones, you always want to read the entire thing and then answer. But for long ones, do you do the same thing? Read it really quickly to get the basic idea, and then when you answer the questions, read slowly up to that line reference. </p>
<p>For double passages, do you skim Passage 1 and then read that closely and answer all passage 1 questions, and then repeat for passage 2? Then something I should consider, with the questions pertaining to both passages, try and cross out the answer choices that give wrong descriptions to passage 1(ie one answe choice is passage 1 is critical and passage 2 is laudatory, and you read passage 1 and know that passage 1 wasn't critical, so you cross that off).</p>
<p>What RR suggests and I do is for long passages is to read the first paragraph slowly, then skim very fast over the rest. Then go to the questions and go back as needed.</p>
<p>There are lots of different methods for tackling these passages. It's not like there's only one authoritative method and all the other ones don't work. For me, I read the first paragraph and answer all the questions about the first paragraph. Then I read the second paragraph and answer all the questions about the second paragraph, and so on until I've read the entire passage and can answer all the questions. But you might not like this strategy. A bunch of prep books told me to read passages a certain way, but they didn't work for me. I had to experiment on my own until I found a method I liked. That's what you should do. I absolutely hate skimming, so I didn't like RocketReview's suggestion. But other people do.</p>
<p>I tried tackling passages using a similar method to dchow08 at first but it didn't work out for me and I scored in the low 600s.</p>
<p>So I decided to try varying methods and decided upon reading the whole passage first and then answer the questions because this helps me get a better idea of the Main Idea of the whole passage and get the gist of what the author is talking about. I just took a practice SAT and received a 760 on CR and only missed 1 passage based question (guess I need to work on SC).</p>
<p>Anyways, it's up to you whether a kind of method works for you. You just have to experiment and see because everyone is different.</p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>P.S. I agree with dcho08; skimming is a waste of time.</p>
<p>I used to underline the lines that have questions to answer the questions mid-reading but it wasn't helping me at all. I realized that it just made it harder to understand the whole point of the passage. But hey, if it works for you then thats great. And for the double passages I answer the questions for the first passage then read the second passage.</p>