<p>I bought the Princeton Reviews book and want to know your opinion on the critical reading strategies. Here is what I emailed my online "coach" yet have not received a response back.</p>
<p>I have been prepping for the SAT for a few months and had a question about the long passage/split passage technique listed in the book. I purchased the book a few days ago and honestly can say it is the most interesting SAT book I have. The sentence completion method is great and I already seem to be doing much better on them. On the long reading though I previously would read the entire passage (like Joe Bloggs) and though I wouldn't understand all of it, got the majority. The book teaches however to read just enough for you to answer the question but in some questions it seems like you need to read a couple paragraphs of information. How much should you actually read (and should i spend more time on step 2 the GIST) to answer the questions because it seems to me like you need to read just about everything. My goal score is a 600 and according to the chart in the beginning should be answering just about every question in critical reading but seem to be running out of time especially when there there are more reading and less sentence completions. Some advice would be much appreciated. Thanks</p>
<p>Princeton Review’s strategies for passages might be useful if you’re running low on time, but they didn’t work for me. I tried a bunch of different strategies. In the end here’s what I did: I read the italicized part at the beginning. Then I read the first question I could read easily, and read the paragraph before where the line number is, read the paragraph where the line number is, and then the paragraph after. I found that just reading a few sentences above and below often weren’t enough. Then after I answered that question I moved on to the next one and did the same thing. I usually ended up reading the whole passage. My strategy was basically to go down the passage, answering the questions as they show up.</p>
<p>This is actually the best way to approach passages - it should work for everyone.According to Barron<code>s 2400 club ,this method is called ‘‘read piece by piece’’ - You devide the passage into some peaces (i devide it into 3 ,some people into 2 or 4 ) ,then you read each ‘‘piece’’ and answer the questions relevant to the piece you have just read.Then you read another piece,and answer it</code>s questions …
I personally think this is better than reading the whole passage in one time ,because in SAT CR every word matters,and frankly I am not capable of staying focus from the beginning of the passage to the end .This method helped me to improve my score from 600 in January to 740 in Practice test,and I am hoping for 750 in June</p>
<p>^
Just a heads up. It’s “divide” not “devide”. And yeah I agree that you should not read the whole passage unless you have a superb short term memory. Any method that allows you to cut the passage into pieces will probably help you.</p>
<p>^Not true, this approach actually doesn’t work for everyone. My friend got a 750 CR, and he never split passages up. He says that it disrupts his concentration. I personally love this approach, but only got a 730 CR. So it really depends on the person.</p>
<p>I just do some CR part of Princeton. The ruled my answer out b/c “the answer was too extreme”. Suggest you see the SAT question of the day Sat 21 Mar; it contains “bigot” and “loath”. how extreme are those?</p>
<p>Thanks so much and I’ll definitely try to split the passage up next time. So read a few paragraphs and then look to the questions for any you may be able to answer right?</p>
<p>^ Yes, but before you start reading you should go through the questions and mark all the line references in the text. Then as you read, pay special attention to the areas you marked and move more quickly through the areas you didn’t mark.</p>
<p>ok I will definitely try that, I plan on taking a full practice test from the Princeton Review’s book tomorrow and will certainly let you guys know how I make out. If there is any more advice you guys have on the critical reading please let me know. ( I am also learning the Hit Parade Words in the Book) Just to be certain I should be reading the blurb then looking for line reference questions and noting them in the passage (or visa versa doesn’t really matter) then splitting the passage up (aka reading a couple paragraphs at a time) and after completing those few paragraphs look to see if i can answer any questions. After reading the whole passage answer questions such as main idea etc. Thanks again to all and any more insight would be appriciated. Also is Princeton Reviews book decent for sample tests (aside from the blue book which i have been working through at tutoring) I also have grubers but use it for mostly the math which you guys recommended.</p>
<p>I agree with the fact that marking up as 112358 suggested would take forever (omg, I just agreed with a ManU/CRon fan).</p>
<p>Anyways, I happen to have super fast reading speeds so I go through passages at once. But in the paired passages questions, I read a passage, answer questions related about only that. Blank my head and repeat for other passage and then finally skim before attempting questions about both passages. Worked for me. But it obviously isnt the same for everyone. I got a 750 CR on Jan 09 SAT - bad test day seriously, I was hitting 780+ in college board PTs.</p>
<p>If you practice marking the line references, you’ll start getting very fast at it. It only takes me twenty or thirty seconds, if even that. In the long run, it saves time because instead of looking for the lines when you get to each question you know right where they are.</p>
<p>Seriously, the Princeton Review’s CR section is complete horse sh** when it comes to reading comprehension. Their answers are complete crap. I took a College Board practice CR section and a Princeton Review practice CR section and the difference between them was 130 pts. ***.</p>
