<p>I got a 710 on math, 600 on writing (indifferent) and a 580 on CR. I'm not very good in critical reading and was just wondering the best ways to improve on it.</p>
<p>I'm taking the SATs again in June and then also in October and I was wondering the best ways to improve for a short term gain and then long term as well. </p>
<p>Should I buy a book? Which one? </p>
<p>I'm looking to get at least a 650 on CR which I think would be very possible for the October SATs and maybe possible for the June ones.</p>
<p>what part of the CR do you need help with the most?
sentence completion or passages?</p>
<p>passages are the easiest to improve. just read random articles that seem boring. after you've read through a few, go back and ask yourself, what was the article about? what was the author's tone? etc.</p>
<p>daily practice will improve your comprehension skills which will significantly increase your score.</p>
<p>see that's the thing, i'm not sure yet. I believe it's the sentence completion.</p>
<p>I know I can improve my score just by practicing the passages but for sentence completion, I didn't know a lot of the words on the test. Is it possible, or is it helpful even to just try to memorize words from one of those lists with the most popular SAT words?</p>
<p>memorizing wont do you any good.
its like reading the dictionary.</p>
<p>you will lose motivation really quickly.
pick up an interesting book with lots of hard words.</p>
<p>read it. and use context clues to try and figure out what it means.
this will make you remember it it longer.</p>
<p>the average brain only retains 10% of information you are exposed to.
but by reading you are able to link the unknown to things you already know.
big help in my opinion.</p>
<p>Sentence completion can be kind of hard to study for... I'd suggest maybe getting a book with lots of practice tests in it and doing those. Other than that, you could also pick up one of those SAT-vocab books that tell a story but use hard words and have definitions at the bottom. That way it is more interesting and the words are in context. (You can get those at most book stores, I think).</p>
<p>Just reading a lot in general helps, too. I think that's why I've never had much problem with the CR section (math, however...).</p>
<p>And so far, just the basic concepts it has taught me have made me understand questions a lot quicker. This might seem like common sense to a lot of people, but once again, Critical Reading just isn't my thing. </p>
<p>I'm gonna take these basic concepts, do a bunch of pretests and hope that it becomes somewhat ingrained in my mind by the June SATs. I still need to work on vocab though, I'm pretty good at memorizing definitions or at least retaining the definition for a few weeks. </p>
<p>Does anybody have a link to a good word list or a book you've used that has been exceptional?</p>
<p>As I've said to a bunch of people on College Confidential, the way to improve is to first take a practice test and see what you're doing wrong, and then create a long-range plan that will try to get you to stop making the same mistakes over and over. That's what improvement is in this case. So what if you're good at sentence completions, but you're bad at reading the passages? Then you need to work on reading the passages, and it takes practicing, reading your favorite magazines and newspapers or whatever you like to read, and getting a feel for how you like to approach the passages and the questions.</p>
<p>I just took a practice test, Practice Test #2 out of the Blue CB Book and I got a 58 raw score in CR which equates to a 650-730 which, if you ask me, is excellent. I used the techniques I learned in the Sparknotes link above and let me tell you, sentence completion becomes much easier. I missed 6 questions over the 3 sections, 3 SC and 3 in the passages.</p>
<p>I'm extremely happy right now cause my original goal yesterday was a 650 on CR on the June SAT, but now I'm gunning for a 700. I'm going to continue to take the practice tests, at least one, maybe two a week along with some vocabulary practice and see how that works out.</p>
<p>Sentence completions require two things. First, find the key or trigger word in the sentence. Second have a great vocabulary. The blue book is fine since the SCs and CR passages are real. I don't recommend Spark Notes since the questions are not real. Here is an offbeat suggestion. Go to the College Board Store and buy old PSATs. Each test costs $3.00. Not bad and the questions and readings are real.</p>
<p>I didn't use the SparkNotes to help me vocabulary-wise, but it did have good hints on how to take on the sentence completions. I used them on the blue book practice test and it really seemed to help. </p>
<p>They call their method the forward method, it is pretty simple:</p>
<p>Step 1: Cover up answer choices with a note card.
Step 2: Read stem and determine stem type.
Step 3: Supply your own words or phrases to complete the sentence.
Step 4: Compare your choice to the answers and eliminate all that don't match.
Step 5: Plug selected answer back into sentence and select the best fit.</p>
<p>I hadn't taken a practice test before my May SAT and I really did no prep work, so my goal now for the June SAT is a 700 for Critical Reading. A 120 point jump in a couple weeks work may seem crazy but I don't care, I'm going for it. Anything less than a 650 though and I will be ****ed lol.</p>
<p>I got an 800 on CR, and my only advice is to read quality literature. I didn't study at all or buy any review books-- after years of reading, doing so wasn't necessary. Specifically, I'd recommend reading Harold Bloom, a literary critic. Just reading his books will expand the vocabulary and challenge the mind. His book "Genius," a compilation of 100 brief essays about various literay minds, is particularly good. It's especially useful for someone prepping for the SAT because the essays are brief and all of them contain lots of high-level vocabulary. Go check it out.</p>
<p>I read 'The Economist' and 'National Geographic' and when I came across new words, I guess the meaning first and write the words down in my note-book. Then, I look the words up in the Dictionary. By doing so, I raised my CR scores from 610 to 770. It surely takes time though.</p>