Reading Comprehension help, practice just not cutting it.

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Hi there, I took the SAT in January and ended up with a an incredibly pathetic Critical Reading score of 480. I am beginning to study up on vocabulary but it's the reading comprehension part that is insanely hard for me. Even though I've been reading all these tips and strategies, it does not help me at all. I do not know why. </p>

<p>English is my native language, I've taken SAT school courses, tried most of the tests from the blue book already but my score always remains the same. I have tried using the tactics made from posters here but have achieved very little results. I've been trying for about 2 months now and ended up getting an even worse score than before.</p>

<p>How do I improve? I've tried practicing and figuring out why I get a particular question wrong but I just can't do it. Even after reading an explanation it still does not make any sense to me why the answer is for example A instead of D. I'm very short on money so the best I can do is buy books. Any suggestions?</p>

2

<p>Have you read Harry Potter? I guarantee you if you start reading Chamber of Secrets you will get addicted and keep reading all 7. If you did nothing except read all the harry potters I would wager your score would increase substantially.</p>

<p>I am one of those kids who just does well on the CR section w/o studying, and it’s not because I was born for the SAT, it’s because I have read hundreds of books and continue to read voraciously.</p>

3

<p>Yes I have, unfortunately I never finished reading all of them (I think I stopped at book 5 or so). I have been reading a decent amount of books that are somewhat difficult but I feel as if they do not help me for multiple choice questions. I always think differently from how the SAT wants me to sadly, and don’t really know how to fix that.</p>

4

<p>I’m facing this problem too. I get 700+ in one test and 500 in another.
All the bad things are that you’re rushing through questions without carefully reading questions or passage (trust me it’s true). Just concentrate a little bit more on passage and paraphase. Because passages have large sentences and you are losing the meaning.</p>

5

<p>*** dont take advice and read Harry Potter. Harry Potter is like a 6th grade level book. Or even lower. That’s NOT going to help you improve CR score. I’ve said this a few times in my other posts and let me tell you that SAT is not an accurate measure of intelligence but more of common sense and process of elimination. </p>

<p>I was actually in the same dilemma as you were a few years ago. I had around 600’s of CR and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Now, I’m not sure whether it’s because I got naturally smarter through my school education and AP lang stuff or because of my practice for the SAT, but I can tell you for sure that learning to recognize completely wrong answers, deceptive answers, and correct answers are the only real skill you need. </p>

<p>Usually, they will give you 2-4 completely wrong answers which are typically composed of extremes such as “always, never, hates, and etc.” and just completely irrelevant answers. If you can learn to recognize these, it makes it IMMENSELY EASIER. </p>

<p>Identifying the deceptive answer and correct answer is a lot harder. Not every question will have a deceptive answer but a lot of times you’ll narrow it down to two choices and have no clue. If you can eliminate it down to 3 answers, then I suggest you guess because the mathematical probability is in your favor. </p>

<p>Honestly, just pay attention in school english and learn to analyze passages for Tone, Theme, Purpose, Comparison, Contrast, Shifts, and Rhetoric. After taking ap lang this year, I learned to identify those subconsciously and thats what the SAT is mainly centered around. In addition to this, buy the official SAT book and just do the practice tests. </p>

<p>That’s about all the advice I have for now. Good luck!</p>

<p>Oh and also, study vocab words like crazy. You need it. You can accomplish this with flashcards or reading books and articles.</p>

6

<p>Thank you for your inputs guys :)</p>

<p>@drexter
Hmm, you’re right, I do tend to lose focus after a while, but there are times where I feel extremely confident in a passage that i’m interested in but end up getting 90% of them wrong ): I always try to find the supporting fact in the paragraph/lines they tell me to look at but I still manage to get them wrong!</p>

<p>@imadropout
Although I can generally eliminate the choices down to 50/50, 90% of the time I end up choosing the wrong answer and still won’t be able to figure out why. :l
My Honors English classes focused mostly on essays, defending your own point so I’m very inexperienced with multiple choice passages. How exactly do I learn to analyze the passages? I always interpret them incorrectly and don’t really know what they’re expecting.
No matter how much practice I do in the blue book, i still don’t know how to “attack” it even with all the helpful tips and strategies I’ve read. ):</p>

7

<p>Hi Unfaithful,</p>

<p>Do not fear the SAT! It is only a matter of preparation and time. I too have incredibly low scores that I do not wish to say on this over-achieving forum but to make you feel any better, I got the average score. Here’s how I’m devoting my entire summer:</p>

<p>Saturday: Take an SAT practice exam (only take exams from the BB!) and chill the rest of the day. Go to the movies, read a book for summer reading assignments, do anything besides the SAT.</p>

<p>Monday: Review only the CR section of the SAT practice exam you took the day before. Review EVERY question, whether it’s incorrect or correct. This will help you understand your mistakes and which will aid you in pinpointing your patterns. For example, if you realize that you take too much time to read a passage or you over analyze it, you can tell yourself to look at the forest instead of the tree in front of you. If you want to do even more, catalog each answer and write a short explanation in your own words, providing an explanation on why you got a certain answer correct or incorrect.</p>

<p>Tuesday: Do something other than the SAT. Community service, summer reading, yoga, whatever you want.</p>

<p>Wednesday: Do exactly what you did on Monday except focus on the Writing section of the practice exam.</p>

<p>Thursday: Do the same as Tuesday.</p>

<p>Friday: Do exactly what you did on Monday and Wednesday except focus only on the Math portion of the SAT practice exam.</p>

<p>Sunday: Go to church and restore your faith. <- Totally kidding. Relax again. 4 days out of a week preparing for the SAT is already more than enough. </p>

<p>As you can see, you devote one day to one section of the SAT practice exam you take on Saturday. By doing so, you can really understand and focus your day’s worth of energy on one section. </p>

<p>I hope this helps and remember, there’s only 19 questions on vocabulary! If you don’t have time like me, don’t stress too much on vocabulary. Just practice a bit and you’ll be golden. For me, I like going over the SAT practice exams that I take and highlight any words that I don’t understand. That way, I get a proper list of vocab words from Collegeboard itself. Best of luck my friend and try to be faithful haha!</p>

8

<p>Thank you Entric (:
That seems like a pretty good schedule honestly I had a much more intense schedule but since I still have a lot of time left I think it’s better for me to take it slow like you are. I like your suggestion on CR, but I’m almost out of BB tests. Is there another book that I could use that’s similar to it? I feel as if I won’t be learning much if I just redo them again since I’ve already seen it once.</p>

9

<p>^do you have fb? Or can you PM me?</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>There is no interpretation in the Critical reading section. All the answers are explicitly supported by the text, leaving no room for interpretation. </p>

<p>When I realized this, it bumped me up 100 points in the Critical Reading section…</p>

<p>The answer IS in the passage somewhere or somehow. Maybe its just phrased differently.</p>

11

<p>@Drexter i’ll pm you when I get to 15 posts (which should be soon :P)</p>

<p>@Lipp I somehow manage to get the wrong answer still even when I look for support in the passage! I think it’s because I can’t really differentiate between the slight difference between each other. I guess I just need to practice more!</p>

12

<p>Given unlimited time to take the test, meaning you could reread the passage over and over and rethink your answer over and over, do you think that you could answer most of the questions correctly? (on the CR of course)</p>

13

<p>I agree w/ @lipp. Give yourself unlimited time on a practice CR section. Take an hour or two if you need to and try as best as you can to get everything correct. When you’ve started getting the answers right on these sections, then worry about time. Time prevents you from thinking things through clearly, so by giving yourself enough time to think you should be able to develop the appropriate thought processes for tackling the section. Also get more practice tests from companies like Princeton Review or Kaplan so that you have enough tests. Good luck! Tackling CR is a long and painful journey.</p>