<p>If you read slowly, it’s one of two reasons: (1) you generally read slowly, or (2) you get distracted easily.</p>
<p>For the first reason, read a lot. Start reading newspapers and magazines. It might not feel like you’re directly preparing, but it will help you read a lot faster.</p>
<p>For the second reason, you have to teach yourself to love the passage. Immerse yourself in it. Care about it. Convince yourself that you’re fascinated by the struggles of African-Americans in the 19th century.</p>
<p>As for answering the questions, it should always go quickly. For 80% of the questions, you literally have to (1) look back at the section in the passage and (2) find where the author directly says the answer. Unless it’s one of those “implied” questions, each question should literally not take you more than 20 seconds (obviously some harder ones will). Don’t try to overthink things, just look for the answer. If an answer choice isn’t stated somewhere in the passage (usually near the lines referenced by the question), it isn’t correct.</p>
<p>Also, when trying to improve CR, a mistake is to think of it as a crapshoot (“if you get lucky, you’ll do well, if you’re not, that sucks”). You have to think of it as something that is improvable, like math or writing. Every question you get wrong, think to yourself, “why did I miss this?” and then generalize that answer. What I mean by that is, say you miss a question because you put words in the author’s mouth. You might say to yourself, “in the future, I need to only choose the answer that is directly stated in the passage, and not simply because it feels right.”</p>
<p>I got an 800 in CR, and those are my tips.</p>