<p>My english and reading skills are terrible. The method im using right now is first look at the questions then put brackets around the lines. Then i start reading the passage, before i get to the bracketed lines I would read the question again. Most of the time I can't figure out the answer reading it oncepass the bracketed lines. Then i read it a little slower and try to figure it out, itll take another 2-3 more reads. My reading skills are terrible. It takes me 30 mins to complete a 13 question long passage. Usually I would get 2-5 wrong out og 13, what should I do. Am i doing something really wrong? Im taking the test in one month, and im starting to panic. I would really appreciate if you guys can give me some suggestions thank you.</p>
<p>…It takes you 30 minutes to complete ONE passage based section? I mean, sure you can take your time reading but THIRTY minutes? Are you sure you’re not exagerating?</p>
<p>And also, are you a foreign student? Because that would explain alot.
My advice: get the blue book, practice, practice, practice.
Seriously, if you have one month thats plenty of time to study for reading. You just need to study dilgently; not “oh let me do one passage, go eat a feast, watch TV, play videogames, chat with my friends, do another passage”</p>
<p>This tells me you don’t read alot since the critical reading section is all about reading. My advice is to take the ACT.</p>
<p>@da6462 Thanks for the advice. No, it really takes me 20-30mins to complete the 12-13 question long passage to the best of my ability. Thanks for the advice. Should I just read it straight through and if i dont get the answer, come back later? Should i do multiple passages in 1 sitting? I’m willing to put in the effort to raise my cr score to at least 600 by October. Is it possible? How can i increase the speed?</p>
<p>What is your main problem that makes you spend so much time for one passage?
~Is it the actual reading?
~Is it figuring out what the question and multiple choices mean?
or
~Is it figuring out which of the multiple choice answers is correct?</p>
<p>If the problem is reading: read. Read lots and lots of book. The only way to improve the speed of your reading is to practice reading itself. Get easy books, get medium books, get difficult books, and read at least 3 books in one week. Now if you’re a junior or senior or busy person in general 3 books in one week is a lot… so (if you’re this type of person) try to read at least one book a week and change from easy to difficult to medium so you won’t be bogged down. </p>
<p>If the problem is figuring out what the question and multiple choice means: Annotate in your reading. Annotate for vocab and annotate for summaries of each chapter… particularly for the difficult books. This exercise will condition your mind to input difficult passages in your brain and result in the output of comprehension. Continue to do this exercise and you will be able to understand many of the passages very quickly.
~Or if you don’t have a month in advance to practice, use practice CR passages and with each passage answer the five questions: Who, What, Where, When, and How. If you can answer these five questions, you will have a solid understanding of the what hte passage is about. This may not sound to be much but when you don’t know what the question is asking for, this foundation can be a huge help to you.</p>
<p>If the problem is figuring out what the multiple choices mean: Look for extremes. Extremes are so rarely the answers that you can always cancel them out as soon as you spot them. Extreme MCs would be choices that would have the words such as “always” and “never” in the given. Other types of extreme would be in the tone and mood which goes along with the “always and never” words (I forget what these types of words are called… some kind of an adverb maybe?) Anyway, an example would be like: “The scientist hates the method of blah blah blah.” Hate is an extremely strong word but you don’t cancel immediately like you would with “always and never.” Rather this is for when you’re down to two or three. Then you cancel this out because it is rare, not that rare though, for the answer to include such strong and extreme words as “hate.”</p>
<p>If the problem is figuring out what the answer is: Look to the passage. For each multiple choice, find support in your passage. Usually, if you do this, you will find an obvious difference in the amount of support from the answer to the rest of the choices. But sometimes the answer is explicitly supported by one short sentence. In this case, the 5 questions method is a tremendous asset to you because by knowing the context of the passage and the overall tone of the author, you will have a better chance of choosing the correct answer. </p>
<p>There are several different ways to read CR passages
- QPQ: question, passage, question. Read the first question (ignore the questions that are about the overall passage), read the passage, then answer the question. Do this for each question. This method allows you to be pretty quick in your reading so you would need to be able to comprehend the passage rather quickly.
- Slow-poke method: Read the entire passage and then answer the questions one by one after reading the entire passage. This is slow-poke method because it is achingly slow but very in depth when you are having trouble understanding what the passage is about.
- Paragraph method: Read one paragraph, summarize, and continue on until you finished the entire passage. Then answer the questions one by one.
OR
Read one paragraph, answer all the questions pertaining to that paragraph specifically, then move on the next paragraph and answer all the questions pertaining to that next paragraph and so forth. This is slow too, slower than the slow-poke method if you have trouble reading or comprehending but pretty quick if you can comprehend the passage in a snap. - Annotating method: Before you read the passage, look at the questions. Find the reference from which those questions are asking from and then bracket, circle, or underline [whatever you want] the asked reference. IE: If the question asks: “In line 4, what does the author mean when blah blah blah.” You go to line 4, and note it (I square the entire line(s) because it helps me spot them better) and then off to the side quickly write purpose, inference, suggests, or tone. Most would be purpose, many would be inference, some would suggests, and a few would be tone. Do this will all the questions and it should take you 2 minutes max… 1 minute if your experienced. Then read the passage quickly. When you get to the reference (or the square since I block my references like I said), I slow down because I know there’s a question on such and such line. I slow down, read the square, look to the side and see if it’s asking for purpose, etc. etc. Then I quickly write 2-5 words of explanation/answers. Now if I forget what the question is asking, I quickly look to the question and read ONLY the question and write down what I think the answer is. That way, when you’re done with the entire passage, and you go to your questions, you will be able to quickly check choices off that you know are obviously wrong (you just do after annotating so much) and be down to 1-2 choices. If you have 2 choices, that must mean either it’s a hard question or you forgot something that would give the answer away. If the latter, skip it and move on to the next question. Save the “what is the purpose of this passage” or “what is passage1 in comparison to passage 2” type of questions where they ask something about the overall passage until you finished all other questions. That way, by answering all the specific questions + your annotations, you will have solid info to answer these questions usually with confidence and speed. </p>
<p>This is by far the slowest method because of what is involved, but I use this method and it works extremely well. The only reason why I’m not getting the score I want (760+) is because I sometimes misunderstand the question, misunderstand the multiple choice so I might accidentally cross it off when it really is in fact the answer, or didn’t read carefully enough. But I find it the most suitable to the types of questions asked and is best method to prepare myself mentally before bubbling the answers. </p>
<p>FYI: I usually finish CR sections 5-7 minutes early. And you should to because if you pass the 5 minute mark and you still have 4 or more questions to answer, your heart/mind will involuntarily pick up the speed and you will glance through things you might need, and you’ll start to worry and fret, which hurts your chances of getting as many points as possible correct. </p>
<p>Hopefully this all made sense. It’s late at night and I had a busy day so I my mind is like jello and I can see I made lots of run-ons haha. But hopefully, you can take something useful out of this rambling :)</p>
<p>If you’re an international student (like me) , stick to the method you’ve described. Bracket the line referrences, and when you get near the bracket -
- Read the question to understand what you’re looking for.
- Do not look at the answers, they might misguide you.
3.Read the text. - Read the question again or , if you’re confident , jump right onto the answers and circle the one which fits best.</p>
<p>This worked for me at least.</p>
<p>Reading a lot will inevitably improve your reading speed , BUT it might not improve your critical thinking and comprehension abilities to a decent level. I’m currently going through 501 Reading Questions from Learning Express. This little supplement to my SAT preparation covers texts on topics that the SAT test-makers ought to use in their tests. U.S. History, Arts and Humanities , Biology and Medicine , excerpts from novels and so on. The questions followed after each passage are going to make you THINK about the text, read the ref. lines , evaluate the author’s intentions and other activities that’ll hone your critical reading perception. ANY CR workbook will help, as long as it contains texts that are used for the SATs.</p>
<p>Remember - reading isn’t enough. This is not reading comprehension, this is critical reading.It requires you to have good reading comprehension as a default atrribute AND to have the ability to analyze the text and draw conclusions from it.</p>