<p>First I got a 2070, then a 2230 (800 Math, 770 Writing, 660 Critical Reading). On my first SAT I got a 660 on critical reading as well (although I didn't do much CR prep for the SAT I got a 2230 on). </p>
<p>I want to apply to ivy leagues and accelerated med programs. My dad thinks I should get CR to 700+, and that'd be great of course, but CR is clearly the hardest section for me. I've been tutored for it, read prep books, went to test prep companies, learned vocab from prep books, done all the College Board tests (from both the really old book and the new one), all the Princeton tests, and some Kaplan and Barrons tests. </p>
<p>So is it worth doing some more practice passages (from Barrons and going over some CB tests), reading Direct Hits, and hoping for 700+? Is it really that necessary for the colleges I'm applying to (I'm not planning on majoring in English; I'm either doing engineering or medicine).</p>
<p>Not only does my dad want me to take the November SAT. He wants me to take the December SAT too.</p>
<p>Good question. First and foremost do the colleges you are applying to superscore? If yes, then taking the SAT again will not hurt you. Remember, the Ivies are very competitive. A large number of the applicants to the Ivies will have 700 plus CR scores. Your dad has a point.</p>
<p>Looks like a tough decision, but are you going to apply Early Action/Decision to any of the Ivy Leagues? That can improve your chances, but that Critical Reading score can really hurt you. But if you have a great application, I think you have a good chance of being accepted into an ivy league anyway with a 2230. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>Taking the SAT one more time this fall certainly can’t hurt you. I would look over the Blue book tests you took and see if there are any vocab words you don’t know/remember and reread any passages that gave you trouble. The College Board store sells PSATs for $3.00 and the critical reading is very similar to what you find on the SAT if you want more CB practice materials. </p>
<p>Dark Knight has also posted a list of all the key vocab words from the October SATs and PSATs in another thread and I would make sure you know all of them. Good luck!</p>
<p>Have you taken the ACT? I was in a similar position to you: 2000~ the first time 2200~ the second time with <700 CR, but I got a 35 on the ACT (34 CR). I’d suggest taking some ACT practice tests (under time constraints) to see how well you do.</p>
<p>I see little point in taking the SATs again with the objective of significantly increasing your CR score. Unlike Math where study and practice can be effective, CR tests your ability to read and comprehend fairly difficult written passages well enough to choose the correct answer from five options that have very subtle differences. This is an ability that is largely innate and is refined over years of experience starting in first grade and can not be changed in a few weeks or months of preparation. Given that you have taken the SAT twice and received the same score in CR each time and the likelihood that the factors that determine CR ability are largely impervious to change would make taking the SAT again in November with hope of increasing your CR score by at least 40 points a waste of time and money and taking it yet again in December an act of utter futility. A CR score of 660 puts you in the 91st percentile and it is hard seeing how it could hurt you.</p>
<p>Retake it once more. A 660 in CR can hurt him, actually, since for some highly selective schools that is not a very good score (by itself). For example, that is roughly at the 25th percentile for Dartmouth. There are a few tests from the College Board floating around online (from practice tests released on the website over the years and so forth) if you haven’t taken those. Direct Hits might get you extra points, too. It never hurts to improve.</p>
<p>I would agree that a student that knows the Pythagorian theorem, the quadratic formula and the formulas for the areas of a circle and a triangle will almost certainly get a better score on the Math portion of the SAT than someone who does not know these things. And, I would agree that constantly practicing solving Math problems will also probably help a student on the Math SAT. However, I can not think of any piece of information that can be found in a book that will improve somebody’s ability to read and understand the writing passages on the SAT. Also, we have been practicing CR since we were seven years old and I think by the time one is a high school senior they are about as good at it as they are going to get at it and will not be significantly better at it by taking a few more practice tests. Learning the meanings of a few more words does not mean someone will understand the meaning of the sentence they are in and learning the meaning of a few more sentences does not guarantee someone will understand what the author is trying to convey in an essay. CR calls on very complex and subtle cognitive abilities that are not very amenable to change. It is no accident that while the OP did much better in the Math and Writing sections of SAT the second time he took the SAT but got exactly the same CR score.</p>
<p>You can improve upon a cognitive ability by practicing. Learning words helps you get vocabulary questions right since you need to know the words in the answer choices in order to answer the questions.</p>
<p>Most words can have more than one meaning or can convey different messages depending upon the context in which the author uses them. Knowing a definition of a word will not be of much help in answering SAT CR questions without an understanding of the message that the author is trying to convey. That requires a certain level of verbal cognitive ability which is pretty much fixed by the time a student is a high school senior. An enormous amount of study, research, effort and resources have been expended on attempting to increase the cognitive abilities of poorly performing students with little or no progress to show for it. With a CR score of 660 the OP is hardly a poorly performing student but experience indicates that attempts to turn a person with high cognitive ability into someone with super high cognitive ability (i.e. a CR score in the 700s) will not be any more successful than the numerous failed attempts to turn students with low cognitive ability into students with average cognitive ability.</p>