How to Attack the SAT Critical Reading Section Effectively

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<p>Keep practicing. Eventually it will feel very natural. If you’ve been used to one certain way before switching, it’s likely the first time won’t go so well or will feel unusual. Try to stay open to new methods.</p>

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<p>So I got my 2400 single sitting first time - I took it in March 2008 and had started studying in the July before. I really don’t advocate sitting in on an SAT until you’re really ready. Otherwise it’s a waste of time and it could look bad if you do badly (you guys have score choice now, but some colleges choose to ignore it). I didn’t study every day, but I had a pretty routine schedule I stuck to - it became easy after a while. Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays. I took a practice test almost every Saturday after lunch. I either reviewed it right after or the next day. Review of the test can often take 1-2 hours and you have to really understand each question (well, you guys know all of this). Monday and Thursday study sessions, which were very focused on a specific aspect of the test, were about two hours each.</p>

<p>If you have trouble with vocab, I recommend studying vocab every day with 10 NEW words each day. Go through them until you can recall each definition and use each one in a sentence. The next day do 10 more words and review the 10 from yesterday - again you must recall each definition and use each word in a sentence.</p>

<p>On Saturdays I took the entire practice test, but on the Monday and Thursday study days I focused on a single section, sometimes even a single type of question in a single section (for example, in Writing, I might have focused on sentence corrections for one day). If it’s too scattered, then it’s not useful.</p>

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<p>Messing up bubbling isn’t really your main concern (although I did put it in the article) because these incidents are rare. Also, I think you’re less likely to mess it up with this method, because you are looking at the question number and your letter answer, and therefore you are more likely to note when you skip a question (most common source of bubbling error). I’ve never had a problem with my bubbling using this method. The switching/inconsistency is fine because you’re used to that after some practice. Primarily, it’s the focus you must maintain on the CR passage and the questions, since by bubbling in on the other sheet after every question you switch your focus to another page each question. During the test, I didn’t have space on my table for my bubbling sheet so I had to put it on my lap and pick it up every time I had to fill it. Therefore my method helped me out a lot in terms of my focus then. And yes, I do it for Math and Writing as well, though it’s probably less crucial you do so for those sections, seeing as how most of the questions are disjointed and individual.</p>

<p>So… you raised up 300 points in just about 8 months? That’s soo good… like genius. haha. I have more questions though. On the reading, what exactly should your focus be? Understanding the passage, and the tone? Or just finding key words that would lead you to a correct answer choice? Cause when I try to understand the passage and the meaning of every sentence, I end up missing important key words and find my self re-reading the passage and the question again…
And also, would you say that on the math section, it’s more important to understand math or just get used to the sat questions? I don’t exactly have the strongest problem solving skills. :O</p>

<p>^Well to be honest I didn’t have much trouble with math (and writing was okay) - it was mostly just CR that killed me so I had the luxury of being able to focus largely on one section.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, understanding the passage includes getting down the key ideas as well. Fortunately, it’s much easier to get the key ideas if, as described by the method, after reading up to the reference point you go to the marked up question to re-focus on what you have just read. By making those small stops, trust me, you get a much better idea of the passage than if you read straight through - I retain very little by that. Practicing with the method should lead to really good retention of the material.</p>

<p>I’m not going to address SAT Math here, but I find practicing math sections helps a lot, because so many questions are similar from administration to administration. For example, I’ve seen many absolute value inequalities when referring to a bounded range of values, and that even came up on my real SAT.</p>

<p>^ what about for sat writing?</p>

<p>noita: thanks for helping. so you’re absolutely sure there is a distinguishable, significant difference if i switch to this new bubbling method in terms of focus? oh, and i cross out answers a lot so its a big mess after im done, so id have to spend extra time circling the correct answer to distinguish, as opposed to if i do it per individual i dont have to do that since im going directly to the answer sheet. do you still think it will be more beneficial if i switched method?
p.s. on a more important note, for CR: I used to get around 4-7 wrong total, now im got 8+ wrong on 1 official test I just took. Any advice? I thought I was getting better but I dunno anymore. should i just keep persevering and doing more because I will get better even though it may not look like it? I am infact reviewing diligently afterwards</p>

<p>Wow! Thanks Noitaraperp! I feel much more confident that I can kick some butt on these CR passages after reading all your suggestions. I usually miss around 5 or so in CR but I would like to get 750+ so I need to cut that down just a bit. I do better on the passages I’m more interested in but I’m gonna take your advice and make myself engaged and interested in all the passages…I’m sure that’ll make a difference. In fact, I’m gonna do some CR passages right after this and test out the marking the references along the way strategy you mentioned :)</p>

<p>Again, thanks a lot for all your help!</p>

<p>Oh, and like the other posters, could you tell us some of the other prep books you used besides the BB? How was Grubers? Barrons, PR? I’m taking the SAT in Oct and I would love to know what other books I can use for practice tests.</p>

<p>noita:
How much did you get on your PSAT? How do you prepare for that? When?
How do you prepare for the SAT II? How long before the test?</p>

<p>orange peel, I really think you should persevere. It took me a while (but not too long) to see results. If you find the method totally grating to your style even after 4 or 5 tests, then you might want to reconsider. But that method really helps me keep on top of everything. And when you take the test, that’s what you want - you really want to mentally buckle down and have control of everything (that’s a true 800 mindset - don’t let anything escape). Keep testing it out but use your personal judgment also as to whether it fits you.</p>

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<p>I didn’t do as well on my PSAT (though enough for NM winner probably because of a solid app essay) because I was in the middle of my SAT self-studying process and was still gaining points. I took two practice tests one and two weeks before the test (one from the PR 11 tests book and one from the official one they give you in the packet). The PSAT is essentially a shortened version of the SAT without an essay, so you approach studying it in roughly the same way. SAT II’s are completely different because they’re curriculum-based, and times of preparation varied according to the test and corresponding classes. June Physics I started in February, following year June American History I started in March, and October Math Level 2 I started in August.</p>

<p>ok. im lately finding when I review I just cant figure out WHY some answer choices are right and some are wrong (using real tests with no explanations). I spent half an hour + trying to figure out why this question was this particular answer. and i cant ask on forums because theyd have to read the whole passage</p>

<p>^Yeppp. I had that problem too. Not with a lot of them, but one question here and there and it really bugs me that I can’t figure it out. Sooo I just end up accepting that it’s right just because …it’s right haha.</p>

<p>^^Guys, never do that. Don’t just accept it blindly just because the answer key says so. You HAVE to UNDERSTAND each question, otherwise you’re not learning! There are many ways you can do this. Either ask someone who is good at the SAT, or buy a book.</p>

<p>[Test</a> Masters Bookstore](<a href=“http://student.testmasters.com/estore/catalog.asp?category=SAT]Test”>http://student.testmasters.com/estore/catalog.asp?category=SAT)</p>

<p>This book has all the solutions explained in the Blue Book tests. If you don’t adequately review your answers, you won’t make good progress.</p>

<p>well if I use QnAs or online course, there are NO answer explanations. wat then? did you honestly understand every last detail when u reviewed noita?</p>

<p>hey 1st off congrats. this thread has over 1,000 views. 2nd- wat scores, broken down, were u getting before u took it and got a 2400</p>

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<p>Then you force yourself to analyze the question until you get it. Or ask here.</p>

<p>Great strategy, but the problem is when i begin reading the passage till the part i marked the line citation, i ask myself “what the heck am i suppose to think about this underline phrase”. Even if i have annotations saying SUGGEST or AUTHOR INFERS, i can’t make anything out of the underlined citations UNTIL i read the question itself, and then i have to go back to the passage and read it in context which consequently wastes a lot of time for me. So i ended up reading a certain portion of the passage two-three times.</p>

<p>I find it better off to just read the question, then i know what i am looking for and then read the passage in context. I was wondering if you encouter this difficulty in your method.</p>

<p>noita, before we go about starting the Critical Reading sections in the SAT review books, should we read A LOT of books, magazines, newspaper, etc. (and memorize vocab) for many months first?</p>

<p>p.s. i’m going to be a junior in September</p>

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<p>I’m actually going to disagree with this advice. I know spending half an hour analyzing a question to no avail may seem like a frustrating and wasteful use of your time, but I would wager you profited immensely from doing so even though you never came up with an answer. Going through that process forced you to think critically about the text, hunt for clues, read back over the text multiple times, and think about what the author was trying to say. If you had just opened up a book and found an answer, you would have understood that particular question, but you would have done nothing to enhance your critical reading abilities and teach yourself skills that can be applied to any question, not just that one. There were many, many questions I couldn’t figure out as I reviewed tests, but just by struggling with the meaning of the passage and trying to understand it I improved much more than had I just relied on canned answers devised by someone else. If you want to look up an explanation after struggling with it on your own, fine – but don’t just give up and resort to someone else’s explanation right away. You’re going to have to figure it out on your own on the real test, so try to teach yourself to figure it out on your own on practice tests.</p>

<p>Now, I’m sure Noitaraperp didn’t mean to imply that you should just ditch your attempts to understand the questions on your own. But I just want to make clear the value of working them out by yourself, even if it doesn’t seem to bear much fruit short-term.</p>

<p>Noitaraperp, I want to thank you for writing the extremely helpful post! It was clearly lengthy and time-consuming, and that just makes me appreciate it even more!</p>

<p>Since you have experience improving scores (as opposed to someone who started out at 2370 and got a 2400), I was wondering if you were planning on giving advice for the writing section (on another thread, of course). My weaknesses are definitely Critical Reading and Writing, and it would be amazing if you helped us out with that too! :)</p>

<p>hello, thanks for the great tios you have provided us!</p>

<p>Just a quick questions for clarification</p>

<p>From step 6 ONCE you hit a marked section, slow down and absorb it. If you feel that it would not disrupt your flow to answer the corresponding question, do so. If not, keep going a little more. A vast majority of the line reference questions (even complex ones such as inferences) can be answered after reading from the beginning to the point of reference. </p>

<p>So this basically means that I should be solving the problems as I go?</p>

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<li>I haven’t purchased the Testmasters answers guide. I have the BB and am going to buy BB2 next week. So are you suggesting that I review and find explanations myself? And then post the questions I am really stuck on here? Would that be all right?</li>
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