<p>So, I have an experience to relate... I took the SAT back in the day in 2010 and scored 730 CR / 800 M / 800 W. I know it sounds kind of retarded but after finding my way back here and hanging out answering some questions and whatnot I find myself reminiscing about my SAT days and reliving fantasies about how boss it would have been to have scored a 2400.</p>
<p>I was curious so I took the practice test on the College Board website. That wasn't around back in my day so it was new to me. I only really did CR. I answered most of the questions in the other sections too but got bored and sort of blew them off. Anyways, I found CR way easier than I did 3 years ago and got every question right.</p>
<p>Which begs the question... what changed? Growing three years older probably had something to do with it. But I believe the shift in my interests in literature was more important.</p>
<p>I read a lot in high school but it was all pretty light stuff. Almost exclusively modern works of fantasy. Afterwards, I became more interested in the classics and more demanding stuff. Basically the kind of stuff that CR likes to torture you with. Being exposed to it, as you might expect, helps me to understand it. And I always suspected that that would be the case. Actually, it seems like one of the most obvious ways to improve CR, and I was aware of it back in the day too (gee I really feel like an old-timer). But I wasn't willing to replace my normal pleasure reading with these bland classics. That would have been a huge investment. Or would it have been?</p>
<p>Looking back, I think 18 year old me would have enjoyed these books just as much as 21 year old me does. But somehow I was prejudiced against them and unwilling to take the leap. And I incorrectly assumed that I could improve CR by taking a lot of practice tests. That worked great in writing and math, but it didn't budge my CR score an inch.</p>
<p>The bottom line is: I think if you're serious about improving in CR and practice tests don't seem to be helping, you should consider going to the root of the test, comprehension of complex texts, and working on that directly. This takes time, of course. Taking practice tests and learning the nuances of the test itself is sort of a hacking approach in that you rapidly learn everything the SAT tests in a superficial, SAT-specific way. In the course of one summer you create the illusion, from the SAT's standpoint, that you have total mastery over everything a high school student could be expected to know. What I'm talking about on the other hand does not rely on building such an illusion. I'm talking about really becoming great at reading comprehension on a much broader level than the SAT, and leveraging that for success on the more specific level of the SAT. So this is not a speedy approach. It is a brute force approach as opposed to the surgical precision of the typical take-lots-of-practice-tests approach. But I think it's a second hope for those who are not helped by the latter.</p>
<p>What initially got me interested in denser literature by the way was a huge H.P. Lovecraft compendium.</p>
<p>And best luck to the class of 2015.</p>