<p>I know I have to practice, but how much? I will exhaust the whole Blue Book, but still not improve. I keep getting 1-2 questions wrong per section of Critical Reading passages. That could amount to 3-6 wrong on test day, which I cannot afford on test day. So how did you 800 scorers perfect it, not just those who got an 800 on test day, but on practice too? You must have been in the 750+ range at one point, how did you stop making those ridiculous mistakes? </p>
<p>I know to some, I will seem crazy that I am complaining, but, get used to CC</p>
<p>Actually I think I only got 800 like once in my practice tests for CR. Actual testing conditions will sometimes boost your score 50+ points (perhaps the adrenaline?)</p>
<p>I think the question is not how much you practice, but HOW you practice. I've met a student that went through the entire Blue Book and several test prep books, but his score stayed the same. The problem was he would do these practice tests as if he was doing worksheets in class. He would speed through each section, get questions wrong, and just shrug it off afterwards.</p>
<p>When you do practice tests, you have to concentrate and look at the overall picture. SAT CR gets very predictable after awhile. When you finish a practice test, review your wrong answers. Convince yourself why the other four answer choices are wrong. Don't even just skim through the questions you got right either, because you might have happened to get some of them right through random guessing. Look at the question set and try to see what the test-writers want you to see. After you finish a 25-minute question, take another ~20 minutes to review the section. It's the quality that counts, not the quantity.</p>
<p>Yeah oasis your right, it is HOW you practice... yet many of us don't know HOW to practice, unfortunately. You detailed one excellent way though, but what about others? I hear a lot of people talking about "look for the patterns", but what patterns, how? What is an example of a pattern?</p>
<p>the key to getting 800 in every section is to get to the point where you know the test through and through. you'll know you're at this level when you stop seeing questions as "easy" or "hard." every question will just become another SAT question, and you'll know intuitively how it's trying to trick you and how to avoid the tricks. that's what you're shooting for.</p>
<p>for the 1 or 2 questions you're missing on the CR, stop re-taking test sections and focus instead on looking at the CR sections you've already done.</p>
<p>if the questions you're missing are always of the same type, then you know what you need to work on--figure out why you keep missing questions of that type.</p>
<p>if the questions you've been missing are dis-similar, that suggests (among other possibilities) that the problem is more one of mental focus. that is, if you're missing question types A and B on test 1, and types C and D on test 2, then that means you're getting types C and D right on test 1 and types A and B right on test 2. this would mean you're capable of getting every question type correct, but it's just not happening for some reason. does that make sense?</p>
<p>Yeah, xitammarg, that does make sense. Thats the thing, I don't see a trend. The other thing is that in a CR section, 25 min, I go through the SCs, leaving lets say 19 min with 8 SC questions, then I go through the first small passages, fast, in 4 min, I almost always get these right, then I go to another longer passage which somehow takes me 9 minutes, no i am down to the last passage with only 6 minutes to read the passage and answer the questions. The last few are rushed. </p>
<p>How do I improve my speed without sacrificing my accuracy?</p>
<p>akahmed--have you tried taking the section backwards? start with the last passage and move through the section, finishing with the sentence completions. if you nail all the passage questions but get a couple of the SC questions wrong, that'll tell us one thing. if you get all the passage questions right but don't have time for any SC questions, that'll tell us something else. if there's a different result, well, that will mean something, too :) i'll be able to answer your question about speed/accuracy better after that.</p>
<p>Yeah, I will try reading the passages backwards.</p>
<p>Just a question, is it possible that I do poorly on certain types of CR passages? I have used your method to answer the passages thus far, only I read more than you had shown was necessary. Basically I answer questions as I go, and leave Global questions for last. Here is an example, if you could please go to BB test 5, section 2: I nailed 18/19 questions, however, on section 8, I only got 8/13 passage questions right. That was a major drop. The question numbers were 8, 10, 13, 15, 19. The questions I did get right, i wasn't as confident selecting an answer as I usually am. It was a hard passage for me, do you have any insight as to why it happened?</p>
<p>i have the same problem with writing and reading, my score just would not go up. while my math has skyrocketed, 580-740. while my writing/reading i would get like 20 wrong in one test and maybe 10 the next and 22 on the next test. it is so frustrating casue i have been studying it for the whole summer, does anyone have any tips. i totally agree with the quality of studying, my math i would try to fingure out what i did wrong and the next time i'll be able to recongnize my mistake and avoid it, but with writing and reading it's very hard...and i haven't even practiced my essay.</p>
<p>The real test has curves... so sometimes 2-5 wrong is still a perfect.. </p>
<p>If you're an adequate, comprehensive , and quick reader then you should read the whole passage other wise slow readers need to skim for the whole point.. and come back later for line questions. People who forget what they read should just go to the line questions and vocabs.. then read for point afterwards..</p>
<p>but thats my guess... some people have other methods.</p>