<p>I myself is not a native speaker, and the CR section really bugs me a lot.
I have a decent vocabulary, and can do pretty well in sentence completion, but when it comes to those looooong literary passages, I'm totally at a loss.<br>
I just haven't got the "intuition" to figure out what the author alludes to...
Also, time control is a big problem for me, I can barely finish answering all the questions in CR! How I wish I could use all the time left in M!!</p>
<p>yeah your grammar shows you are not a native speaker. But thats ok, i would recommend reading a lot, learning grammar rules and do practice questions. Read a lot of magazine articles, especially ones you DO NOT find interesting... they are well written and boring, kind of like SAT passages</p>
<p>^^ You're one to talk when you made a clear parallelism error....hehe</p>
<p>HAHA LOL.. Jason412...</p>
<p>did i fu**** say i was good at grammar no you dumb ****... go get a life</p>
<p>Lol This Kid Sucks At Grammar</p>
<p>But dudemanimcool : you were criticizing the other guy and besides.. thats good that people correct u.. because it will allow you to be aware of those on the Essay and even the writing portion of the SAT. I'd take it as a constructive criticism if i were u... it only helps.. and if the people are trying to make fun of u.. its not like they'll kno u personally... </p>
<p>just chill out..</p>
<p>To OP:</p>
<p>Wow, you're just like me, great at Math but not so great with the CR. I am also a non native speaker, but have improved myself </p>
<p>Now, </p>
<p>What technique are you using so we can help you out</p>
<p>Do you</p>
<ul>
<li>read questions first then read passage</li>
<li>read passage then do questions</li>
<li>go to line references, and answer questions w/o reading much</li>
<li>answer questions as you read</li>
</ul>
<p>Also, can you point to which kind of questions you are getting wrong</p>
<p>global Qs, inference Qs, logic Qs</p>
<p>What I had to do to imporve was make a chart of all the Qs I got wrong per CR section and separate them by question type, tallying it all. It turned out that I was getting inference Qs wrong mostly, so I worked on them</p>
<p>This is the technique I used</p>
<p>First, quickly make a mark near the passage where there are line references in the questions, don't read the questions, just spot the line references and mark all of them on your passage. For one passage, around 10-13 Qs, this should take less than a 30 sec.</p>
<p>Then, read the blurb in the beginning to set the stage.</p>
<p>Now read the first paragraph actively, meaning get involved with what you're reading. Get interested, get into it. You have to have a mindset that is, well, critical. Ask yourself, what is he saying, why did he use that as an example, are there any turns in his thoughts, what is he trying to convey, and how. You will get faster at this with proper practice.</p>
<p>When your done with the first paragraph, look for markups to see if you have to answer a question from that paragraph, just a quick glance. If you do, go to the question, read it, and come up with your own answer. You have just read the paragraph, gleaned from it the important information, so you should be able to answer the Q. Cross of answer choices that are not supported, or are just twisted in fact, or just wrong. Pick from the remaining choices what best answers the Q, and what matches your answer, in the lines referenced.</p>
<p>Continue this until you are done reading. It seems like a time consuming process, but thats just because I have to explain it in words. Treat vocabulary questions as line reference questions as well, there is nothing special about them, so there is no point in doing them first. Usually, the answer is not the most common def of that word, usually.</p>
<p>BTW, make sure you are marking the right questions on your answer sheet, you may have noticed I totally left out the Global Q's, like main idea and purpose Q's. You should answer the line ref questions first, so you might skip over a global q, so don't make a bubbling mistake!</p>
<p>Answer the global questions last, because by the time you are done with line ref Q's, you have a good idea what the main idea or purpose is of the passage. The answer will probably not be too extreme, and it will encompass the whole passage.</p>
<p>There, so try this, and see how you do.</p>
<p>note: this is just my approach; doing this i went from a 530 -> 740, over time.</p>
<p>akahmed wow that is the same exact approach i use rediculous wer like twins bro
and i got a 740 CR too and i'm better at math
you can also read times/CNN/BBC</p>
<p>amazing, wait, are you asian too? The god of 'rice' thing makes me want to make assumptions :)</p>
<p>I myself skim the passage really fast (<1 min) to get a general feel and then immediately start working away at the questions. I'm constantly re-reading parts of the passage, finding the specific lines that support my answers. I initially used a method similar to akahmeds, but I always found myself in a time crunch. Nevertheless, I've had a similar gain: 640 ---> 770. Good Luck!</p>