<p>Help!
My son has done very well on the Math and Writing Sections (700+ for both) of the SAT. However, he has not been as successful on the Critical Reading-(480 is his best score on that section) He is going to take the SAT one final time in June to try to raise the score. Is there a "weekend" course, or shortened course that would take a couple of evenings that he could take to help him improve his score? Other advice? His biggest problem seems to be with time management, as he ends up rushing at the end to complete the sections and either omits or answers the final questions incorrectly. Please reply!</p>
<p>Just have him read books; I've always loved reading and its from reading itself that I can claim my skill (800CR), so do that. I'm not sure if there are specific CR short sessions. Try finding a tutor, or just read....</p>
<p>Several ways to improve an individual's Critical Reading Score:</p>
<p>1) Reading more books and after each chapter, begin writing summaries.</p>
<p>2) You could purchase the SAT College Blue Book and work on several practice tests weeks before June</p>
<p>3) Kaplan offers crash courses on CD's, so you may want to purchase some those, it helped me a lot. </p>
<p>4) Basically just read as much as you can until you can develop a knack for comprehending long and short passages faster.</p>
<p>He should practice more with limited time.</p>
<p>Yeah, according to good people on this board, the best way to prepare for the CR section is always to read widely (if you have time ). Some seniors in my school read a lot and all of them scored 750->800 on Verbal ( Old SAT. They only prepared for the SAT in two months ). But still, I have a small question:
When reading books, is it realy necessary to read sophisticated books ( I mean sophisticated writing styles, contents...). Because as for me, I really derive a lot of pleasures from reading books by authors like S.Sheldon, Agatha, John Stienbeck...But I doubt whether my books are sophisticated enough in that looking at my fellows, all of them choose classical novels. Some novels are fairly intriguing but I find the vast majority not really enthralling :). Any advice on this ?
Thanks a ton ! ;)</p>
<p>I usually only read what I'm forced to (or fanfiction online), but I was able to find success by learning to read critically. Have your son start reading a lot, and ask him to look for answers to questins the SAT would ask him. Something important to remember is to read critically, be an active reader, and read carefully. This takes practice, but I can say that learning to extrapolate meanings through a few weeks of practice before the SAT gave me a 770.</p>
<p>Murasaki, can you explain more coherently what is " read critically" ? I don't seem to really understand it, and so I may be considered an passive reader :(. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Yeah, sorry for the ambiguity . . . </p>
<p>Have you ever read, and then feel like you've had no idea what you've read? To read critically would be to read 'actively'. I like to use an analogy--if you hear without listening, then the words don't register. Hearing and listening is like 'passive' reading and 'critical' reading. To practice this, I like to concentrate (of course :P), try to ask myself questions about what's being read, underline important concepts, try to figure out what words mean in context, pretend I'm interested and absorb the information, etc. Of course, the actual SAT may not be a good time to try all of these at once, but practicing it on other things (newspapers, novels), might help improve reading comprehension.</p>
<p>For CR, I think there are two major necessities:</p>
<p>1) Read a lot--generic, I know, but nothing makes up for reading a lot. It's subtle, but the more it's done, the more used to picking things up the mind becomes. I think it really helps people.</p>
<p>2) Learn to pick out answers. CR is a section where the answers are in front of you--one just has to pick them out (from the reading). This is why being able to read critically is important. For me, the worst case scenario is I'm able to identify 3 answers as completely absurd, and then figure out the remainging of (2) answers that is more justified. Practice practice practice on SAT passages, if you can master reading critically, somewhat swiftly, and carefully, the answers will sort of jump out at you if you understand thoroughly what the question is aksing.</p>
<p>Of course, tons of this is CR 'theory', there really is no subsitute for practice.</p>
<p>I hope this helped.</p>
<p>That definitely helps. Thanks for your detailed response ;)</p>
<p>I actually use a special system that I developed in order to improve my CR score. It brought me from around 680 to 750+, so take it for what it's worth.</p>
<p>Most of the questions in the section have line numbers. Don't read the questions in advance, just mark those lines in advance. When you read the passage, each time you get to one of those lines, read it and then IMMEDIATELY answer the question. It's literally around a 1/40 chance that you won't have enough information yet. For Qs w/o line numbers, do those at the end. Obviously, try this technique on practice tests first. Hope it helps.</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>That's really interesting....when I retake, I'll try that!!!</p>
<p>Now, what I do,</p>
<ol>
<li>Read a passge</li>
<li>Read the question</li>
<li><p>Eliminate choices first <- how?</p></li>
<li><p>take out the extreme's, the SATs RARELY have an extreme answer</p></li>
<li><p>take out any answers that don't have relevance to the current part</p></li>
<li><p>Take the moderate choice (imagine yourself WRITINg the piece, what do they want?)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>For Vocab in Context ones, you can almost ALWAYS eliminate the one with the definition that appears most common</p>
<p>For Sentence Completions, just study vocab.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I actually use a special system that I developed in order to improve my CR score. It brought me from around 680 to 750+, so take it for what it's worth.</p>
<p>Most of the questions in the section have line numbers. Don't read the questions in advance, just mark those lines in advance. When you read the passage, each time you get to one of those lines, read it and then IMMEDIATELY answer the question. It's literally around a 1/40 chance that you won't have enough information yet. For Qs w/o line numbers, do those at the end. Obviously, try this technique on practice tests first. Hope it helps.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is my strategy, however, I do a few things different:</p>
<p>1) skim over all questions that make a line reference
2) read a few lines before and after each line reference and then answer the question
3) go to the main idea questions. After all line reference questions, I usually have a decent amount of information. I skip any to complex.
4) Come back to the ones I've skipped and skim/read relevant parts if I have to. Ironically, I advocate reading and learning to read critically, but I rarely read more than 3/4s of any given CR passage :P. </p>
<p>For me this technique saves a lot of time, but it isn't for everyone, so as always, practice to see what fits you best.</p>
<p>As for the means of elimination, while generic rules (no extremes) may help, I doubt they are absolute. Its easiest to eliminate if you've read relevant information and are able to identify what the answer simply cannot be.</p>
<p>Q: In my above statement, I say generic rules</p>
<p>a) are absolute
b) never help
c) may help
d) can eliminate household chores
e) are sometimes useless</p>
<p>While the rule on absolutes would help with one or two responses, my (e) response isn't absolute but can be eliminated. Though the question is pretty basic, it's just a slightly simpler and more direct form of most SAT questions. Anyone can notice that the answer is right there . . . it just has to be extrapolated a bit (not so much in this case, but generally). If you skim the answer choices, you can see that some responses (like (d)) can be eliminated straight up.</p>
<p>My strategy:</p>
<p>Since the questions are in order, I look at the specified line references and read past it. Then after reading it I answer the question, skipping all the main idea questions until the end. By doing this, I save time by not going back an looking at the line reference and it gives me a good idea of the passage. I tried this strategy on the May SAT and I hope it pays off. I feel real good about CR.</p>
<p>**** man. There is NO tricks to it. Just read the passage. It is very straight forward. The collegeboard is not trying to trick you. Just pick the one that is supported directly by the text. Practice doing that with the tests in teh blue book. After 8 of those, you should be fine. I used to get low scores like 710 on practice, but after practice I got an 800 on the real things.</p>
<p>lol So straightforward! </p>
<p>"Read the damn passage! haha :P</p>
<p>There are no tricks!"</p>
<p>Hilarious.</p>
<p>
[quote]
**** man. There is NO tricks to it. Just read the passage. It is very straight forward. The collegeboard is not trying to trick you. Just pick the one that is supported directly by the text. Practice doing that with the tests in teh blue book. After 8 of those, you should be fine. I used to get low scores like 710 on practice, but after practice I got an 800 on the real things.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're obviously very good at CR. People can't just score 800 after practicing on 8 practice tests, or else the curve wouldn't be one of the most generous in the SAT. You make it sound way too easy, not everyone does as well as you, so they need to find what works best for them.</p>
<p>I mean, I score comparably high on the CR so I know what you mean about the answers being right there--in fact--I actually said (and still believe) the same thing, </p>
<p>
[quote]
CR is a section where the answers are in front of you--one just has to pick them out (from the reading).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>but most people have trouble figuring out either where the answers are or what the text means/implies, so it isn't enough to 'just read the passage', or tons of people would have amazing scores.</p>
<p>If there's a "trick" the only thing it is would be actually understanding the passage. Just practice reading the most boring things you can find in a timed setting.</p>
<p>"Trick" can be interpreted in so many ways, let's not take it literally.</p>
<p>I'm reviewing/studying over the summer...</p>
<p>Do you think I can bring a 550 CR to a 650+?</p>
<p>I plan on: reading magazines (The New Yorker), Barron's Verbal book,and doing all Blue Book exams.</p>