How to Attack the SAT Critical Reading Section Effectively

<p>noita, do you have any recommendations for the long passage tone questions? or the “what is the author implying” questions? Those seem to give me the most trouble.</p>

<p>noita, i’m doing wordsmart I right now…but would you recommend me doing wordsmart II as well? (it just seems like there are a lot of words that won’t show up on the actual SATs but I’m not sure…)</p>

<p>also, would you recommend following the long reading passages’ “answer the questions as you go” advice for the short reading passages?</p>

<p>thanks :)</p>

<p>I read the Barrons 2400 for Critical Reading and it’s similar but not exactly the same at all to this thread :stuck_out_tongue: I’d say more of 40%, not 80%.</p>

<p>sweet thanks for the answer! really appreciate it, I didnt think about switching the order</p>

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<p>As I said in the article, with short reading passages you should just read through them and then answer the questions, because they’re short and retention won’t be a big problem. You should try to get through the short reading passages quickly because if you obsess over them they can be a real time drain. Though Word Smart will give you a lot of words you won’t see on the SAT (statistically), you’ll have a bigger repertoire of vocabulary which can only help.</p>

<p>Noitaraperp,</p>

<p>Just want to announce you that your method is AMAZING !! I’ve just finished a CR section today and I’ve answered 5 more correct answers than I usually do. The method is extremely effective, condensed and easy to follow. </p>

<p>thanks noitaraperp ! ;)</p>

<p>dunno if this was answered but wat scores did u get on wat kind of tests right b4 u got the 2400</p>

<p>Hey there just a quick question,
What book do you recommend most for doing practice tests. I was using PR but I hear that it is not the most helpful because not all the problems are related to the actual SAT. Is BB the best way to go and if I were to finish all the tests in that book then what? Thanks for all the help.</p>

<p>Oh and Noita,
I have also tried using your method and it has helped dramatically, now if I can just avoid some careless errors!</p>

<p>Some CC users have already seen results. So is there anyone who has used noitara’s technique willing to tell us his or her score progression, from before and after using this method.</p>

<p>@pens8711: Go with the BB.</p>

<p>Well I moved from scoring mid-600s to around 690-700 by using this method wildly05.</p>

<p>thanks marz, anyone else what to tell about his or her improvement?</p>

<p>widly, I was scoring 510 before I used this method (I’m just starting my prep as a junior) and I moved up to a 600 only in my first attempt! I have yet to practice more but I hope I can pull a 700 with more practice</p>

<p>thank you so much for this tip! hey can i ask you a question though? once you finish in 20 minutes you have the 5 minutes right? what do you during then. if i have time, i usually go over my answers. but my problem is when i go over, i tend to think that my answers seem wrong and choose a different answer that seems more correct. i start doubting… do you have any tips?</p>

<p>Sorry I’m back. I’ve been rather busy.</p>

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<p>You say that when you have time to review your answers, you “choose a different answer that seems more correct.” It must ALWAYS comes back to the PASSAGE, not how you feel about a certain phrasing of an answer chocie. Some answer choices may sound more harmonious (for lack of a better word), but don’t change your initial answer unless you can pinpoint solid proof that the choice you are switching to is a better synthesis of what the passage says. When you answered the question earlier, at that point you had retained more of the passage than you possibly could when you later revisited it. </p>

<p>Trying to complete the section in 20 minutes is a practice technique that forces you to be more efficient and less-clingy in your test-taking. In the actual test you can use up to 23 or 24 minutes if needed before checking (which is not always necessary depending on how you felt with the section). I often don’t leave questions unanswered from a section, because as I said before, retention was best when I was into the passage so you should try to get them all while you’re hot.</p>

<p>Impressive!! 500 to 800!! WOW~I mean WOW!!!</p>

<p>I’m starting with a 570 and hope to rise to at least 700. I’m probably at 630is right now with several pratice tests. I’ll use your method today to try it out. Thanks.</p>

<p>noita - youve been really strong in answering all these tedious questions with long detailed paragraphs, sometimes over and over. and i just want to applaud you for that. however, id suggest taking a break from it if ur tired. a lot of these people are asking the same stuff.</p>

<p>and if youre willing: how well did you memorize those 1000 words? Do I have to look at them everyday and know any if Im asked like its nothing? And wat were u scoring on practice tests right before you got the 2400?</p>

<p>^Thanks orange peel.</p>

<p>I memorized that many words by doing something rather tedious - on one side of a flashcard, I wrote the word and its part of speech (sometimes the phonetic pronounciation too!), while on the other side I wrote the definition and a sentence in which it was used (Word Smart was particularly helpful for that). Though that sounds like a lot of work, I started pretty early (9th grade) because I also wanted to build my vocabulary (with a distant eye on the SAT). Obviously not everyone has that much time anymore to build vocabulary (assuming many here are sophomores, juniors, and seniors), but realize that poring carefully through long lists of words and their definitions won’t necessarily mean retention unless you have a photographic memory. Perhaps a simplified version of flashcards makes sense. I laid it out the method of making these cards as you go earlier in this post:</p>

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<p>That would probably be a strong way to get vocab retention.</p>

<p>Is it normal to do worse than usual when implementing this method? In my previous method (which mainly consisted of absorbing everything and then tackling the questions), I had around 2-3 wrong, but my range has fallen to about 5-6 wrong per passage (So far, I have done 4 passages). Maybe I’m going too quickly (which might happen if I’m getting overly excited) or not reading all the choices… I really don’t want to give up on this method…</p>