<p>It all depends whether u believe in ur ability and how much desperate u r!</p>
<p>Bring a Can of Coffee with you =P Seriously, I think the biggest difference between the first time I took it, and the second time when I did get 800 was...drinking a can of coffee in the middle. The exam can take close to 5 hours after lining up, breaks, filling in front, and that's really gruelling. I could really feel my performance rise after that. Get a good nights sleep, and flick through a Study Guide, Kaplan, PR etc. (unlike me =P).
On the actual thing, I try to do the answer to passage questions like this, scan through the questions quickly, they give u an idea of what the passage is about and actually speeds up the process of reading. Read the passage quickly, and u can keep the general issues in the questions in mind, then go thru the questions. Go through the questions quickly, if u can't answer a question with ur gut, skip it until u get to the end. Then go back try to answer them again, keeping an eye on the clock, and try to check all your answers again. I have horrible problems with the 'whats the error questions'(i feel the urge to put E for all of them) so can't help you there. For those, I just try to consider all possible ways of interpreting the sentence, and if there's more than one way, then there's sth wrong with it. Besides the grammar errors that just sound wrong =P Hope that helps.</p>
<p>that was pretty helpful for me (although most of the suggestions u've given r found in SG, now I didn't say this to insult u or do sth like that, I sincerely apologize if it sounds like that!).</p>
<p>wat's SG? lol, nah, everyone will have the same advice anyway, just hope it helps to...give it in one parcel =P
don't feel tooo bad if u don't get 800...there's an inordinate amount of luck involved in that. I guessed 2,3 questions in mine, and i think the odds weren't that high that they ended up right =P ( i only elimated 2-3 choices)</p>
<p>A trick is to watch out for the levels. At the end of the part of the section (sentence completion, short passage reading, etc.) the questions are always harder. So u actually need to work in order to find them. If u find them too easily, it's usually a trap. Try to see through the question and get to grips with tricky ones.</p>
<p>Oh and sorry for insinuating...but do you do any external programs in english like AP's etc. for comparison? To see whether your english ability is truly capable of scoring 800 in verbal. As said before there are different strategies when aiming for different score ranges. Using a 800 score tactic when ur only capable of 700 could drag you down to 600, whereas using a 700 tactic might drag a 600 student up to 700. You can really only be looking at 800 if u can do all the practice questions in books perfectly wihout getting them wrong most of time. At those levels you really can't get many wrong.</p>
<p>SG--Study Guide!</p>
<p>Hey Guys,</p>
<p>I'm kinda new to this stuff, so please answer my question as thoroughly as possible. You guys seem to kknow this critical reading pretty well, so does anyone have a list of steps to do when doing the passages? I've seen incomplete lists on other threads like 1. read questions 2. read paragraphs separately, etc. Also, advice for the sentence completions.? Any reply will be greatly appreciated. Thanks</p>
<p>"A trick is to watch out for the levels. At the end of the part of the section (sentence completion, short passage reading, etc.) the questions are always harder. So u actually need to work in order to find them. If u find them too easily, it's usually a trap. Try to see through the question and get to grips with tricky ones."</p>
<p>totally wrong, except for the sentence completions.</p>
<p>the passage questions are ordered according to the logic of the passage.</p>
<p>Your general intrest in the passage could also be a factor. I really enjoyed and didn't struggle on the paragraph on the latest PSAT about the Stars and telescopes, and evidently didn't miss a single question on that section. Yet, on parts where it was grueling, and I had to read the passage over again (it was somethig economics), I made alot of errors.</p>
<p>Try to become comfortable with diffrent styles and genres of writing</p>
<p>I found the passages to be insanely easy, so I never bothered to work on that. However, I did spend about a month studying vocabulary cards.</p>
<p>In reply to akahmed: It all depends on what kind of person you are in doing the CR passages. For example, I like the Barron's 2400 SAT book's strategy in reading the passage in separate sections. If you finish the first part of the passage, then answer the questions pertaining to that part, and then continue to read the second part. Then again, some people may find it helpful to read the questions first. It all depends. Try experimenting and seeing what works for you.</p>
<p>As for sentence completions...vocab is very important. There's a misconception that vocab isn't a big deal anymore, since analogies are out of the picture now, but I've messed up some SCs because of not knowing the definition of a word. </p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>Thanks guys,
I'll try finding a method that works for me. I'll also give Barron's a look. So far I've only practiced theblue book. Are there any other integral books for getting a high score?</p>
<p>I moved from a 640-> 720-> 800 in CR. The 640 -> 720 was a natural progression from 11th-12th grades and the 720-800 was from me doing all the blue book and online course tests (completely) in ~ 2 weeks. I didn't study the bs vocab or anything and I NEVER read for pleasure. I read a moderately high amount for AP Literature and did about the same for AP Language. I go in order, the SCs, read the passages, and answer the questions in order. I found out there's really no strategy for it (but December seemed like a really easy version for me as I had only received an 800 in CR once out 14 CB practice tests). The 800 was lucky, I guess. That's really what it is, luck.</p>
<p>read the passage quickly, go through questions slower. That's something I learned from my last SAT (all the CR passages that I read slowly, trying to figure out what was going on, I got a few wrong -- the one I read very quickly (because there were 10 minutes left when I got to it), even rushed through it, I got perfect on..)</p>
<p>For the sentence completion, that's all about memorizing vocabulary. For reading passages, I think the most important thing to do is practice. Do around 7 passages with questions a day for a couple weeks before the SATs and your scores should improve alot. That's what I did and I got a 800. Good Luck!</p>
<p>I do agree that practice is very important, especially for the CR passages, but yeah, I also think it's luck, too. I mean, I haven't taken the real SATs yet (I'm scheduled for January 27th), but I have a feeling that I'm not going to get a full score. Which is okay, since I tend to zone out on reading passages. CR is definitely not my strong point. Then again, none of the sections really are. Oh well. Life goes on.</p>
<p>I disregard time, I read everything at my own pace and end with approximately 4-7 minutes left. After that, I just go back and check answers.</p>
<p>Critical reading is really, I mean really, weird section. It doesn't seem like it tests your ability to read as some very smart people on English score poorly on it while it does test your ability since there are quite amounts of people who score well and tend to read a lot. </p>
<p>I think the issue has to deal with how much you understand the specific lines in questions AND overall meaning of the passage. For instance, I did very poorly on one SAT practice by CB about parapsychology (this is on Practice booklet this year I think) because I got so confused and didn't understand the passage well. But when I actually sat down and read carefully after the test, I understood the passage and got all of the questions right.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there were times when I didn't really get passage much and still ended up getting better scores than the time I actually understood the passage. So, I think it's pretty hard to say whether CR really tests your ability to read or not. </p>
<p>@Calculus, I don't think you realize that during your high school career, you have been preparing good amount of things for SAT. If you're preparing for AP Literature (which is different from AP English Composition), you probably read difficult classics in your class even though you didn't like it. This is definitely good for SAT reading because not all reading passages are easy to understand. So, although you didn't really study on your own much as far as passage or vocabulary go, you learned most of them in your school and yes, the luck did have some elements to it too.</p>
<p>It's pretty awkward for me to say these stuffs because I never scored higher than 57 on PSAT or SAT on practice. But during those time, I used method of skipping passages and going to citation questions directly because many books like RocketReview and Grammatix suggested this (reading passage was suggested by Kaplan and PR ----- two companies that I abhor and never consider to be didactic in anyway). I also found this method to be valid by many people in CC and it did bring my score up from 490 to 570. But now I'm using different method ----- a classic one of just reading passages then going to questions ------ which seems to be working much better for me. Also, I guess I "feel" this way since I now have much better level of vocabulary.</p>
<p>I have one question though. I'm taking SAT in January 27th. I'm hoping to break at least 600 on critical reading section and writing section (I'm not going to be greedy and ask for really high). What do you recommend that I should most pay attention? I'm starting to memorize all the words that I do not know in Sparknotes 1000 SAT words but I feel like I'm being negligent about reading passages. Any good tip on how I can stay keen? Thanks. I appreciate it much.</p>
<p>P.S. Math is not a problem for me. I'm getting 800's without any problem.</p>
<p>I really depends on how you read the passages and how you approach the question. My SAT teachers always said, try to just pick out the main idea, point, and tone (positive or negative). Use that to answer the question, and make sure you answer the question that is asked. If questions confuse you, you ought to ask yourself "What is this asking me?" For double passages, you also should note "What is different" and "What is the same?"</p>
<p>Go for line references first and look only at that line (if it's really confusing, read ahead one sentence and maybe back one as well). Most questions go in chronological order (passage-wise, I mean) -- so skip the ones that actually require you to read the entire passage and go back to them once you read the entire passage (aka answer all the other questions).</p>
<p>For word/definition questions, read the sentence with the word in it and immediately come up with a synonym -- only then should you read the answer choices.</p>
<p>Instead of looking for the "right" answer in the answer choices, eliminate the wrong ones. It might sound more time consuming, but on the not-so-obvious answer choices, it really works.</p>
<p>Yeah. That works for me every time. 78 on PSAT CR section -- mainly because I fudged the bubble. 800 on SAT CR.</p>