I am just feeling so discouraged
The best i’ve done so far on the reading section is a 23
I am taking the ACT in a few weeks and I have no idea how I should do the reading section
I HATE IT SO MUCH
It’s all about finding the balance between pace and comprehension. I find that I read the passage really carefully and absorb everything in 4 minutes, then race through the questions. I rarely go back to reference the passage while answering the questions. Try that. However, the downside to this is that it makes you make silly mistakes because you either misinterpret the question or the answer choices.
If you’re bad at the reading section you’re pretty much screwed. It’s really hard to improve upon if you’re not naturally good at it.
Read the passage and don’t stress yourself by trying to remember every single detail on the passage.
As I comment on all of these kind of “I can’t do it” posts, your job is to answer the questions right, not to understand the passages/studies.
Skim through the passage within 5 minutes, and just lightly try to remember the numbers associated with the passage (ie. 300 years ago, an event started --> so it would be in the 1700s).
When answering the questions, refer back to the passage and read a sentence prior and after.
Good luck.
I think you should spend time doing practice tests. Time yourself while doing one passage to see how long it takes you to read the passage and how long it takes you to answer questions. If time is the problem, try different strategies (read the questions first, skim the reading, read super carefully and breeze through questions, etc.).
Another strategy that was oddly helpful for me was to take an active interest in the passage I was reading, regardless of what it was. If you read with an active mind and take a genuine interest in what you are reading, you are more likely to understand and remember it.
You can definitely improve, but you are probably going to have to spend a lot of time working at it!
Don’t listen to the naysayers, you CAN improve your Reading score.
I went from a 22 to a 33 on Reading in 2 months, here’s how I did it:
NUMBER 1:
For most people who don’t score well in reading, time is almost always a huge factor. If we had 20 extra minutes, I bet most would score high on reading. This is where knowledge and strategy come in.
The reason this trips people up is because it’s contrary to the way most of are taught to read: Slow enough to fully comprehend what we’re reading, the first time. For many of us, we’re just not fast enough. Reading for speed isn’t really taught or necessary to succeed in high school, so some of us aren’t accustomed to it.
Once you start to fall behind, you’re dead, because time is so short. Once you’re behind, you can’t take a good shot at the easier questions, so you lose those. And it snowballs and becomes a mess.
So you need to develop a time strategy that works for you. And then learn it and stick with it.
I found that spending no more than 3.5 minutes reading the passage, then moving to the questions, worked best for me. You have to be disciplined - spend no more than the allotted time then move to the questions. With 3.5 minutes reading, you have 5 minutes to answer the questions. Once the 8.5 minutes are up, you move on to the next section.
The thing is, with 5 minutes to answer 10 questions, this give you plenty of time to go back and re-read the relevant sections. You’ll normally be able to answer many of the questions without having to refer back. So for the remaining 5 or so questions, you have a decent amount of time to go back and find the answer. So you don’t need to memorize the passage, or even fully understand it. Whatever you can get out of it in 3.5 minutes will be enough to maximize your score.
NUMBER 2:
Practice! It really, really helps. You get used to what 3.5 minutes of reading feels like, and you get faster at reading (because it’s forced speed reading training). You get a sense of the kinds of things they’re looking for. You learn discipline on sticking with your timing strategy.
It’s only a 35 minute section. You should be able to do at least 1 a day. In a month, that’s 30 practice sections. If you do 30 timed, disciplined practice sections (sticking with your timing strategy and analyzing the questions you got wrong) you will improve your score, period.
Finally, people say it can’t be learned, I disagree. I do agree that it can’t really be taught very effectively. Other than the above, I found nothing else was effective, i.e. tutoring didn’t help, there’s no other tricks, etc.
OP
Your score can be improved. Check your PMs