<p>PASSAGE READING: Personal Experience Vs. What the Test Prep Books Tell You</p>
<p>I used to try to skim passages and such all of the time to save time and spend more time on the "questions", but now I've discovered I do a lot better when I read the passage as deep as I can (trying to fully understand EVERYTHING). I get the tone of the passage exquisitly, and always seem to answer questions with a little bit more confidence. The problem, however, is that nearly ALL test prep books I've read (including Rocket Review, Grammatix, PR, etc.) tell me NOT to do this (or at least strongly discourage it). They claim that reading the passage deeply is stupid because you don't need to know every detail to answer all of the questions right, and although I can do nothing but agree with their argumentation, my performance during the tests disagrees with their claim because I miss less when I read the passages thorougly than when I try to skim the passages like they say. I'm aware that there are threads devoted to this issue, but what I'm asking is ideally should I be able to not read a passage thoroughly and answer the questions? In other words, should I try to change my strategy closer to the way test prep brooks urge me to do during this summer while I have the time, or continue to approach CR the old fashioned way by reading deeply and answering with less time to spare (and I do admit, reading a passage deeply does put a major load on your time).</p>
<p>i took one of those very expensive SAT prep courses where they told me to skim over the passage and then go to the questions, but i definitely think that reading the whole passage benefited me much more. i guess it depends on what kind of reader you are. in my case, im a very fast reader with ADD, so if i read the passage quickly i would be missing the whole point, but if i read it thoroughly, its still a fairly quick read.
i got a 740 on the Verbal Section, which isnt bad so i would suggest, if ur a fast reader like me, to read the passage thoroughly.</p>
<p>No matter what the books say the "right" way to do something is, by all means you should do what works for you. If you do better reading the whole passage and can do it fast enough to finish, there's no reason not to do that (as long as you're happy with the results it gets you).</p>
<p>What might help--when I took a LSAT prep course, we were advised to read the <em>questions</em> first (before anything else), then go back and start reading the passage. That way, you have a sense of what you should be looking for as you are reading----rather than trying to absorb everything slowly or skimming without knowing what to look for as you go.</p>
<p>Yeah, I do the same thing you do. It works a lot better, I think, reading it in depth because then you don't have to go back to the passage as often. Saves time that way. It also helps me understand what the passage is about, and like you said, tone, voice, etc.</p>
<p>The reading the questions first isn't quite as good of an idea for the SAT, which is a little rushed. You end up reading the questions twice! Not too economical. In my experiences, I've found reading the passage deeply and getting the author's tone and "full meaning" help a lot more than skimming through really quickly.</p>