<p>I have found * The New Yorker * and * The New York Times * the most helpful in improving my SAT verbal score. Reading more literature definitely helps improve one's SAT verbal score; I speak from personal experience.</p>
<p>It will only help if you think about what you read while you read it and after you read it. If you just sort of skim over it, or read it without digesting what it says, then I don't know if it will help a lot. (This is not to say that you have to let it brainwash you or anything, if you don't agree with the politics/POV. :P )</p>
<p>Just make sure you understand what it is saying. You might want to try a couple practice tests with answer explanations to figure out if there is something in CR that you are just not getting and that is why your score is lower than you'd like.</p>
<p>But the New York Times is not the be-all and end-all of writing; there are many other things, too. I read parts of the NYT often, so it may have contributed to my score, but I am not really sure since I read voraciously anyway.</p>
<p>I agree with the comments posted by sarazlig, above. While I don't credit the two aforementioned publications as the main contributors to my SAT verbal score, reading the two publications certainly did help. The articles featured in the newspaper and magazine are strikingly similiar in length and detail to the reading passages featured in the SAT verbal section. It's important that after you read an article in the newspaper or magazine, that you analyze and understand the key points and message of the article.</p>
<p>WSJ is too dry sometimes, even if you like financial stuff(I've read them for years). NY Times is well written and the subject varies, the whole family can read them. Current events is what you have to keep up to, that is why reading a well written newspaper is going to be helpful. Sometimes, school will ask you what you think about such and such event, so you must be well read to at least come across like you have not study too hard, or like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand and such(lol) missing out all the news.</p>
<p>huck finn if you wanna improve your grammar...jk man im in your same boat and i just went up by practicing on sat passages and ap english prompts...good luck</p>
<p>tip: while reading any of the above, make sure to look up words you don't know. Otherwise you might keep reading without comprehension.</p>
<p>"huck finn if you wanna improve your grammar"</p>
<p>---lol</p>
<p>Why would anyone believe that there is a quick-fix like reading the Times to improve your SAT scores? The SAT CR doesn't quiz your vocab in the least, it tests your ability to pick apart sentences. The only way to improve your score is to take prior/practice exams, and learn what they are looking for you to understand. Don't study vocab, and don't read those dumbass "SAT" novels. Take practice exams.</p>
<p>I grew up back in the days when old exams (other than one, in the test information booklet) were unavailable to the general public, and when my part of the country hadn't been infected by the test-prep blight. The high scorers on the SAT in my high school (I was one of them) learned the old fashioned way, by READING, READING, READING, and READING, and by practicing math problems. We probably watched less TV than most of our classmates who got lower scores--my best friend from high school days didn't even have a TV in his house, as his dad thought TV was a waste of time. </p>
<p>There are only so many old GENUINE exams to take for practice. I think the person who opened this thread was asking a legitimate question, which many persons who have answered have treated as a sensible question, about what kind of recreational reading matter might raise a person's general reading ability, and thus help critical reading SAT scores. I think the advice is sound, and better preparation for real college work than doing too many practice SAT tests. (I think the College Board has it about right in the number of practice tests it publishes in its official books.)</p>
<p>yepd2, I don't know if it's a "quick-fix", since I was already doing it, but reading helped me immeasurably on the SAT. I didn't really take SAT practice tests--except I might have taken the verbal section of one on the way somewhere? I don't really recall--but I have read a lot, and I do read a lot, and I am very very pleased with my CR score.</p>
<p>The student(she's technically a niece) in d's high school that got 2400 this year first time, only take a quick prep-course to familiarize herself with the format/exam type, not a whole lot of prepping.</p>
<p>While I find the New York Times articles to be written in an extremely creative manner, especially for a newspaper, if you have no real interest in Middle Eastern conflicts or a proposed tax change, reading it will not be of much use, as you will quickly become bored and start to gloss over it without absorbing the content.</p>
<p>I believe that articles from the New York Times Magazine, however, are both intellectually engaging and more representative of a real SAT long reading passage.</p>
<p>For instance, the first half of William Safire's "Misgegoss: How to fill the vocabugap." will someday become an SAT article. If you get a chance, check it out! It is, while not wholly interesting, engaging enough to not bore a reader to death, of perfect length, and on an obscure enough topic to actually fit.</p>
<p>Atlantic Monthly and Wall Street Journal</p>
<p>is the New York Times Magazine once a week or once a month?</p>
<p>NYT magazine comes with the NYT paper every Sunday. There are sometimes two separate magazines, one which focuses on style or things like this.</p>
<p>I don't know if it comes with the NYT you buy in stores, since I have a subscription, but I assume it does.</p>