<p>I'm beginning to get good accuracy on CR after reading thousands of people's advices and many books. But I'm still struggling on one problem ----- I can't finish 3 problems. I use method similar to Sparknote's "Bombing Method" where you skip around the questions. I do this but on last passage, I always can't answer 3 questions.</p>
<p>What would be good way to get more time? I think this is main problem with me on CR.</p>
<p>I'd say read faster. What method are you using?</p>
<p>Right now, I go straight to the citation questions first and read the lines above and below ENOUGH to get the correct answer. Using this method, I got all questions right but wasn't able to answer 3 questions. I'm a fairly slow reader and extremely overanalyzer so I like this method so far. But I'm still running out of time. </p>
<p>Good suggestion?</p>
<p>Really? I've never encountered this problem. I actually have enough time to go through every section and redo about 1/3rd of the problems to check. I do fairly well. 700+ average. </p>
<p>I'm not sure what you're doing wrong. I usually read a fair amount normally. Maybe you should try to increase your reading speed. </p>
<p>I'll take you through my brain/work steps. Not sure if they'll help but maybe you can follow.</p>
<h1>1) Always have a watch. I take my time on the vocab. They're easy points to get if you know em'. Don't spend more than 5 minutes on this.</h1>
<h1>2) Read the blurb in the CR passage. Then read the questions really quickly/briefly.</h1>
<h1>3) Read the passage. If it's a double passage, read first passage, then answer passage 1 questions. THEN read passage 2 and do the rest of them pertaining to both passages.</h1>
<h1>4) Read as quickly as possible, but mmake sure you keep your head in it.</h1>
<p>That's my tactic :) hope it helps. I know it's brief.</p>
<p>skim the passage and get the overall tone. Then dig into the questions with line references, and finally the general idea questions.</p>
<p>Hmm.. I actually didn't use that method before. Here are ones I used:</p>
<ol>
<li>Read blurb, passage then try to beat questions.</li>
<li>Read blurb, question one by one, and read enough to get answer (which is what I used).</li>
<li>Read the entire thing and make notes for each paragraph.</li>
</ol>
<p>And here is the new method that I'll try tomorrow!
<em>Read blurb, skim questions, and then read passage actively.</em></p>
<p>It's amazing that you even have extra time to check your answers. I never can do that unless it's a math section :-P.</p>
<p>i feel like the odd one here .. i actually read the passage underlining the details like the adjectives .. and go through the questions like a breeze .. I pay close attention to DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS .. and on most questions, i answer on impulse. missing +,- 1 or 2. after the reading the question, you should have already developed an answer to look for. if you can't develop one, that means you are not very efficient and wasting vaulable time.</p>
<p>i guess it takes practice.</p>
<p>I have been keeping up with a new website that offers tips/tatics for taking the SAT and they post a new tip every few days. I just was looking at it this morning and this is exactly what they are talking about today. It's talking more about an alternate strategy of skipping the reading and going directly to the questions--which have a line reference--then going back to that line in the passage to get the answer. Check the video out on <a href="http://www.eprep.com%5B/url%5D">www.eprep.com</a> . This idea might work for you, so you can get to all the questions.</p>
<p>I think I'll go with the strategy on the video. This one is what I used before I posted this thread but I just need to make sure I can put some speed on it.</p>
<p>@soprolahh: I don't think I'm "wasting" my time or being "inefficient." The truth is that everyone has different reading speed. Also, some are great at skimming while some are not. I'm more of person who likes to read slowly and do not skim. This is why I couldn't do well on my PSAT because once I read the passage, I only had time to do about 5 questions out 10 questions. Moreover, I like to think on questions and for almost every question, I always go back to the citation line to answer it which means that I spend quite a lot of time on just reading the passage.</p>
<p>Practice is one thing but I think it's more in what kind of reader you are.</p>
<p>I've found that if you can it's best to read the passage slowly and make sure you keep your focus while doing so. "Going back" over questions doesn't really do much in the CR section, and usually I change right answers to wrong ones. So you might as well take your time reading and answer the questions slowly and deliberately. But not too much time.</p>
<p>how much do you guys usually skip? How much can we skip and still get a score of 700 or so?</p>
<p>I'm not a very high CR-scorer, but what I do is finish the vocab VERY quickly.</p>
<p>For like 8 problems, I try to do it in < 4 minutes, so like half the time if you were to spend a whole minute on it. It enables you to have more time for the actual reading.</p>
<p>Like you, I'm an extremely slow reader when I want to analyze--and I tend to do it WAY too much.</p>
<p>I've been able to turn the situation around a couple of weeks before the test, though. I learned to speed read in March to prepare for the ACT. I read a couple of articles online about it and then worked on reading phrases rather than words. It definitely improved my comprehension skills. (I learned that, for me, the best way to learn--and stick to--speed reading, was by keeping my distance from the text; Leaning into the book restricts my field of vision. I also benefited from read newspaper columns "straight down," if that makes any sense.) By the end of the week, I could comprehend better under stress AND I managed to get a pleasing ACT Reading score (after finishing the test with plenty of time to spare) even though I'd had only zero hours of sleep the night before. (Stress got to me, eventually. = ( )</p>
<p>I've noticed on the practice SAT tests, though, that my accuracy increases if I don't even read the passages. (I found the technique from the Grammatix guide; I was a little suspicious at first since I LIKE to be a careful reader and being anything but that sounded criminal at first--but it definitely helped me improve.)</p>
<p>Overanalyzing, as I painfully realized, hurts on the SAT, anyway. CB doesn't exactly reward creative readers there, heh. </p>
<p>Urvi</p>
<p>I can't access the website. = ( </p>
<p>But the concept sounds great! I'll search it and see if I can find it. Thanks!</p>
<p>i can't access taht site either :(</p>
<p>do the sentence completions faster :)</p>
<p>seriously works for me</p>
<p>does anyone have any tips on selecting the right answer for the actual reading comprehension questions...like do you find evidence, which choices are usually never right, etc.</p>
<p>you know, I actually have a method that works well and I used it both on the SAT exams and it helped even moreso on the AP exams -- </p>
<p>basically, I flip through the section and usually there are the sentence completions, the short passages, and two long passages, right? So I divvy up the sections (I do this all within 30 seconds) into time sections, for example - I give myself 5 minutes for sentence comp, 5 mins for short passages, and then the remaining 15 minutes I split evenly, about 7-8 minutes for both of the long passages. Don't watch the clock CONSTANTLY but be aware of your time during the test.</p>
<p>best of luck :)</p>
<p>glucose101 - I can't recall them all at the moment, but one tip I do remember is that there is always a section on either a nationality/culture (african americans, native americans, the like) and the answers are NEVER derogatory. So if you see it saying something BAD about another culture, then it's definitely not the answer.</p>
<p>I also complete the sentence completions really fast: About 3min for 7-8 questions.</p>
<p>Short passages - I read the questions first, then read the passsage.</p>
<p>Long passages - depends on the genre.</p>
<p>Fiction: I read the passage, slowly and carefully, then attack the questions really fast..(5-20 sec on each q)</p>
<p>Non fiction/interesting - Skim the passage, then take time on the questions, going back and forth between q's/passage.</p>
<p>Non fiction/omg so boring/big vocabs/so much tech stuff/major issues on politics - I suck at these kinda passages. I do the 'fiction' way but I seem to get many of the questions wrong and run out of time lol</p>