<p>I took a whole test last night. Scored below 600. And I HAVE been studying. Ive taken all BB practice tests, all my Barrons, the 2 offered on CB.com, 5-6 PR practice tests, and a couple others. And it doesn't seem to help significantly. I review answer explanations fairly thoroughly, and most/all words I dont know when testing, I look up later, make flashcards, review them until I know them all, then put into a container with all the others (the only problem is I never take them out of container again, and i have a feeling Im forgetting all of them, but the containers gotten so big [400+] I know it's gonna be a big pain reviewing all of them so I dont)
And it all doesn't seem to help. Im still scoring around 600s in CR. Dont know why. Maybe my vocab just sucks? But Ive a US citizen and Ive been born here, raised here, and Im in English AP.</p>
<p>But I guess my biggest errors are the passages</p>
<p>400 cards is a lot of words and it seems like a daunting task. Break the studying down into smaller pieces. Get another container. Take 25 flashcards out and study them for a few days. Just flip through them 4 or 5 times a day, until you know them. Then put those in the new container. Get twenty five more. Repeat until the first container is empty. </p>
<p>For the reading, make sure that your answer is in the passage. Prove it before marking your answer.</p>
<p>I learned 300 vocab words in like 2 weeks for the SAT. Here’s how:</p>
<p>Make flashcards. DO NOT think you can just flip through a stack of 100 flashcards at a time and learn any. </p>
<p>Keep 30 or so in your pocket all the time.Take out a stack of 10 when you have 5 minutes and go over them, quiz yourself in your head. Every time you get a word wrong put it in the middle of the stack you have out (when you do it like this you actually learn the word through repetition rather than learning the pattern of the cards). Occasionally flip the flashcards over, mix them up, and study them. (don’t allow there to be a pattern, you don’t realize it but your brain picks up on patterns without you consciously knowing)</p>
<p>Repeat this process with the remaining cards in your pocket whenever you have time throughout the day. Remember to keep mixing them up when you quiz yourself. You can easily learn 30 words like this.</p>
<p>And the best study tip I have ever heard for any subject ever is: before you fall asleep each night, study your vocab. Notice I said before you fall asleep, not before you go to bed. Watch TV, brush your teeth, pray, do whatever your nightly routine is then study vocab, then fall asleep. If the vocab you learned is the last thing on your mind before you go to bed it is immediately cemented into long term memory.</p>
<p>The way I study before bed is like this; first I take the 30 or so flashcards that I learned that day and go over them using the same process as before. Then I mix them into the stack of cards I’ve already learned, and run through those once or twice, using the same methodology (mixing cards I don’t know into the middle). Then sleep.</p>
<p>Trust me, this works. I did this with the 250 words on the sparknotes SAT prep website + some 50 words from AP Eng vocab tests, and afterward on the CB prep tests I did not miss a single vocab question on any of the vocab tests I took.</p>
<p>Other little studying memory tricks- eat something with a flavor when you study or listen to music WITHOUT words. Both of these will help store things in your long term memory waaaaay easier.</p>
<p>read! i don’t know when you are taking the test, but if you have a couple of months you’ll improve. Read a few classics and your score will improve. i did that the summer between my junior and senior year and improved my score.</p>
<p>Umm, that’s all the advice I have vocab-wise. What type of questions are you missing from the actual readings? (the word ___ most likely means, tone, purpose, etc)</p>
<p>I know a lot of people don’t have time to read the whole passages, but if you can, on the sections where there’s 2 passages in a row (e.g. one about the way news was depicted to the people at home during World War I and the passage immediately following is about how women experienced World War I) read passage 1, then answer all of the questions only pertaining to passage 1. Then read passage 2, and answer all the questions pertaining to both passages together, and passage 2 alone. I do a lot better on these type of readings when I read them like this.</p>
<p>I think my biggest prob is concentrating, not daydreaming or getting bored while reading the passage. Plus I read it really slow and end up not comprehending half of it because Im daydreaming about other stuff or not really trying to comprehend. Any help?</p>
<p>Well, obviously you’re wrong, because if you already knew your biggest problem you’d have fixed it by now. Do you understand your mistakes when reviewing your practice tests? If not, then you need to meticulously analyze every mistake you make. If it’s just a reading problem, you can try to break up the passage by paragraph.</p>
<p>Coming from a guy who got a 560 on Critical Reading and moved up to around a 650…</p>
<p>Flash cards are vital. Not only for the SATs, but for English Classes and any occasion where more complex vocabulary can possibly help you. Also, just read a few books this summer. Keep you brain healthy and active while also stimulating you CR skills. This is about all i can offer.</p>