Hello! I am taking my SAT in a around a month and I never realized how terrible I was at the Reading and Writing portion of the test. For my PSAT, I did awful for the section (I think maybe a 450). I took another practice test to study for my actual SAT and I got a 430 this time. English is definitely not my best subjects and I have a really difficult time especially on the SAT. My goal for my first SAT is just a 550.
Is there any way to study for it? How do I improve my score for the Reading / Writing portion of the test? Please comment any tips or tricks to help me for this section!
Look at your PSAT results (and practice test results) and look at how you did on the writing/grammar versus the reading section. If you made significant errors on the writing/grammar section, your best bet for improving your verbal score in a short period of time is to purchase (from Amazon) Erica Meltzer’s guide to SAT grammar (4th edition) (NOT the workbook). Read it, study it, do the practice questions and your writing/grammar score will significantly improve. The grammar score accounts for half of your reading score.
I have just two other “quick” tips for the reading section. (1) Don’t bubble each question as you go. Only bubble when you finish answering all the questions for each passage. This will save a lot of time, allow you to not break your focus while you are working, and increase the accuracy of your bubbling. Obviously, when you are down to the last 5 minutes or so, bubble every question as you go. (2) On the paired passage, be sure to read just the first passage and then answer the questions for the first passage. THEN go on to read the second passage and answer the rest of the questions.
I guess one other recommendation I’d have for you is if you are scoring that low on the reading section, you might be better off just skipping your least favorite section (definitely bubble something, like all b’s or all c’s), but use the extra time to more carefully answer the questions in the other sections. The key is to find back-up support in the passage for each of your answers, and that takes time. Aim for accuracy. It’s better to get a bunch of questions correct and a bunch skipped (and you can still guess on those) than it is to answer all questions, but get them most of them “almost” right. There’s no partial credit for picking the second best question.