SAT Critical Reading

<p>I plan on taking the SAT on January 24, 2009 but I desperately need to improve my critical reading score. I have been using BB, PR, Barron's Critical Reading Workbook (didn't really like this book, because some of the answers couldn't be justified in the passage), and Barron's 2400 (just finished the CR section, I got 26/32 right on the Critical Reading grand mixture).</p>

<p>My approximations on the Critical Reading Section
Sentence Completions: I usually get 17 right +/- 1 out of the 19 questions
Short Reading Passages: 8/8
Long Reading Passages: 33/40 right, there is usually one really hard passage where I get about 3 or 4 the questions wrong.</p>

<p>I've only done one of the eight practice tests in the BB, and I want to make sure I get the most use out of those.</p>

<p>Practice SAT scores
660-680 BB (scores before I read the Barron's 2400)
about 720 BB and PR (probably can bring that to 750+)
730-770 PR</p>

<p>How can I get about 750 on the Critical Reading Section? I know I want at least a 700 on the CR. Can somebody give me advice on what to do or which prep book I should get?</p>

<p>Wow, I don't think I've ever seen anyone so conscientious about his SAT score analysis. </p>

<p>I think you are all set for the sentence completion- there is no use studying vocabulary for hours on end to simply get 1 or 2 more answers correct.</p>

<p>As for the long passages, I think I had the same problem that you are having. There was always this one long passage, usually a literature passage, that was just impossible for me to analyze in the short period of time given. A lot of people would suggest just "reading more books, newspapers, etc," but I personally found that the passage's difficulty was not a result of my inadequate reading ability, but rather a result of my dwindling concentration as the test went on (believe it or not).</p>

<p>At this point, I think your score is definitely strong enough that you can raise your score just by doing more practice tests, especially out of the BB. Whenever you can, take an entire test under test-day conditions. </p>

<p>Strangely enough, prior to the December exam, I never scored above a 720 on a practice CR test... on the test, I managed to get an 800? Again, I think it was the adrenaline that kept me hyper-focused throughout even the most difficult reading passages.</p>

<p>Lol same here I never got a high 700 on CR and got 800 on Dec test...</p>

<p>Anyways here is my approach to long reading passages. First I spend about 20 sec SCANNING the questions for ones that ask for EXCEPT because those take forever find after reading the passage. So I keep in mind the except questions and then I read the passage. I underline main ideas for each paragraph. Then when I answer the questions, I get stuck between 2 choices a lot. What I do is that I try to find any word or phrase that make a choice incorrect, because the correct choice has to be completely correct.</p>