<p>Hello, I'm having trouble improving my critical reading score, I have been studying since July, took a 1 month period of prep courses at a very famous Sat/english study center ( which everyone says is the standard ), did many exercises ( got 1 book on crit reading, 1 on maths, 1 on writing, 1 on all three, and the official SAT guide book ), still have most of the SAT practice tests to do. The highest I have ever gotten on the critical reading is 570, maths is 650, writing is 600 ( I dont really care about the writing section, the Uni i want to apply to doesnt take it in consideration ) So what I really need to raise is my crit reading and my maths, by at least 100 each. I memorized about 500 or more ( didnt count them ) SAT words, I still find 1 or 2 sentence completion questions in each crit reading section too hard because of 4 or 5 even unknown words to me ( never saw them before in my life :P, the teacher said what we were taught was more than enough ), I skip them of course. I get around 13-16 correct in each section, 3-5 wrong, 1-3 omitted ( based on each section ), The passage questions are a bit confusing sometimes, and I often get lost in the details provided in each passage, and im also a slow reader ( 3-5 min on a long passage ). And keep in mind this year im in 11th grade ( in my country we start at the end of september and end the year at the end of june, so I didnt start my 11th grade yet ), and Im not a US citizen, english is my 3rd language, however I have been ranked #1 in my english classes since 6th grade :P.
Any help would be very appreciated, my first ever SAT test is on oct 6th. Thank you.</p>
<p>Hi Theooo,</p>
<p>I just did a post on analyzing the answer choices for the critical reading section. You can find it here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1390501-critical-reading-analysis-right-wrong-answer-choices.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1390501-critical-reading-analysis-right-wrong-answer-choices.html</a></p>
<p>I’m tutoring a student right now who really found this helpful. He’s able to eliminate so many more answers after going over this with me.</p>
<p>I do not omit any CR questions. There is always one ridiculous answer in the Passage-Based Reading section that I can eliminate, and I guess every time I can eliminate one answer choice. And I can usually eliminate one answer in the Sentence Completion, too, even if I don’t the the real definition. I just know it doesn’t fit. I rarely know all of the words in the Sentence Completion section, but I’ve learned how to make educated guesses and I rarely miss questions there anymore. Plus, I pulled vocabulary out of dozens of tests and ranked them by how often they occur, so I’ve learned the most common vocab words. Barron’s has a 3,500 word list that performs well test after test, but it’s unrealistic to study unless your are in 8th or 9th grade. You would be better off finding a short list of repeat offenders. There are free lists like this on the internet.</p>
<p>To work on your reading speed, start reading articles from magazines like The New Yorker, Popular Science, The Economist, Journal of Democracy, Archipelago, and the Smithsonian Magazine. These mimic the tone and style of SAT passages. Let go of the details and focus on the main idea of the article and the main idea of each paragraph. Quiz yourself after each one, recording the main idea and the author’s attitude. </p>
<p>I hope that helps!</p>
<p>the former netizen once mentioned the barron’s 3500 word list
What if i have made use of 50 days to memorize all and can manipulate 60 % of them when it comes to writing?</p>
<p>PSVicky I have read your thread, I had trouble applying it, and I was also trying to apply a great tactic from a studen who got 2400 on the SAT ( its the how to get a high score on the CR thread or something like that, posted in the sticky thread ), I ended up losing time, about 5 cr questions didnt have time to finish them, 50 points decreased
I’ll try and work on applying them both.
Thank you for your help, greatly appreciated !</p>