<p>I took another practice test today, timing myself ruthlessly.</p>
<p>My very first SAT practice test that I took about two months ago ended up somewhere in the 1800s (CR 580, W 620, M 670).</p>
<p>Today, well, it was better than before. I got 760 in math, and 710 in writing. Math got a lot better, and writing, wow, that was more than expected since I'm aiming at 700.
BUT here comes the... bad part. R-E-A-D-I-N-G. SIX-TWENTY. 620.
The result is pretty bad. But the REAL bad part is that it didn't increase much, mere 50.
Many people say that with practice, CR score increases rather naturally, but wow, it seems to be too slow of an increase compared to writing and math.</p>
<p>I've been trying to follow all those reading strategies and tips mentioned in the forum - active reading, playing devil's advocate, etc. However... I don't think it's really working.
I'm just really frustrated with the score, and even worried that my score won't meet my goal (of 700 in CR) on the actual test in November.
To make things worse, I don't know what I'm doing wrong - making it harder to fix my mistakes.</p>
<p>Any tips for reading? Please, please help. Please.</p>
<p>So what type of questions did you miss? Do a little analysis. Main idea questions? Questions with a line reference? Sentence completions? I’ll need a little more info to give you some guidance.</p>
<p>Jenn</p>
<p>Reading, in general, is the hardest score to increase. I’m in the same boat as you. I had to practice for a few months just to see an increase of 50 points.</p>
<p>dude, CR is also really subjective… while some people had to wait for a few months, i actually had an epiphany and discovered my own trick (just one) that put me from the 620’s into the 720’s. i’ve posted what it is a few times, but no one pays it any heed. the trick is, just don’t interpret anything. just use what they give you. CB is trying to tell you that ur level of thinking iz inferior 2 theirs; therefore, do more finding for evidence than thinking hypothetically how an answer can be right.</p>
<p>^Pretty much what I do on some of the harder passage based questions and it works well for me.</p>
<p>@swans004
Well, it’s quite all over the place - which is one of the reasons why I can’t just focus on one type of question. Sentence completion is on the good side, actually… it’s usually the long passage questions, and I take the longest time on inference questions (but I usually get them right as I take longer.) Hmm. Maybe author’s tone/purpose questions?</p>
<p>The question types you’re mentioning are often the most difficult ones…glad you’re getting a lot of the others right. One strategy to think about for purpose/tone questions is to focus on only the first word or two of each answer choice. They often use words like “explain” or “argue” or “dispute” as the first word of an answer. You can frequently rule out an answer or two just based on that word, because you should be able to tell from the passage whether someone is arguing something! This eliminates the possibility of getting seduced by tempting parts of the rest of the answer choice. And for answer choices that fit the first word, be sure that the rest of the content of the answer matches what is actually IN the passage. </p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>Thank you so much! I actually haven’t noticed the significance of the first words from answer choices! I’m quite excited for the new “strategy” 
Thank you!</p>