SAT Vocab

Test Preparation
1

<p>What's the best way to study for Reading Sentence Completion? </p>

<p>I have heard that Direct Hits is a good book but does anybody know if the Princeton Review Hit Parade/ Monster List is any good?</p>

<p>Is there online access for Direct Hits?</p>

2

<p>I think it’s a combination of reading, building vocabulary, and understanding strategies for the questions like referring to other parts of the sentences to determine the answer. </p>

<p>Look through as many of them as possible and check your understanding of the words and obviously study them. </p>

<p>For Direct Hits, if you don’t want to buy the book, you can study the words on Quizlet. Here’s an example: <a href=“http://quizlet.com/42152452/direct-hits-core-vocabulary-of-the-sat-2013-edition-flash-cards/”>http://quizlet.com/42152452/direct-hits-core-vocabulary-of-the-sat-2013-edition-flash-cards/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>I think it’s a combination of reading, building vocabulary, and understanding strategies for the questions like referring to other parts of the sentences to determine the answer. </p>

<p>Look through as many of them as possible and check your understanding of the words and obviously study them. </p>

<p>For Direct Hits, if you don’t want to buy the book, you can study the words on Quizlet. Here’s an example: <a href=“http://quizlet.com/42152452/direct-hits-core-vocabulary-of-the-sat-2013-edition-flash-cards/”>http://quizlet.com/42152452/direct-hits-core-vocabulary-of-the-sat-2013-edition-flash-cards/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>Okay thanks</p>

5

<p>I’m going to give you a TOTALLY different answer than everyone else. Feel free to ignore, it’s just my two cents. Don’t memorize vocabulary for the SAT unless you have several months to prepare, or it’s the one thing holding you back from a perfect score. Even if you study 3000 words, maybe five or ten of them will help you. I would spend time studying concepts that will definitely help you improve your score, not just maybe help a little. </p>

6

<p>@Medgirl123‌ Studying concepts?</p>

7

<p>A lot of the concepts referred to above are described in Erica Meltzer’s Critical Reader. She also has a lot of info available on her website for free. Check it out and see if you think it could be helpful. I think it will be much more efficient than studying vocal. Keep in mind, that this type of studying is really just an accompaniment to taking and reviewing practice tests.</p>

8

<p>The Critical Reader is very useful :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Go through your practice tests and see what questions you miss and why. Does vocab fog your reading comprehension? Are you missing many sentence completions? I see people study vocab without actually needing to because they miss only 2-3 sentence completion a test/have no problem with vocab related comprehension. However, if vocab is the thing keeping you from the score you want, go for it. </p>

<p>You can find good vocab lists online to be honest. Direct Hits is for some because it relates the words to stories, etc. which really helps it stick (for me anyways). </p>

<p>I see a lot of people advise to not study vocab because it’s supposedly inefficient. Vocab studying can be efficient for CR. What’s not efficient is people not knowing what they miss and why. Identify the errors you make most commonly throughout CR. Once you’ve identified these, target them. Meltzer’s book breaks down pretty much everything which makes it a lot easier to identify errors and fix them. gl</p>

9

<p>Oh, and I couldn’t find online direct hits back before I bought it. You might be able to find the list, but honestly the list would be very similar to others. What makes DH good for some is the presentation and tips. I don’t think you’d be able to find a full version for free online, but I’m not sure.</p>

10

<p>@eggyolk, I think I picked the wrong word choice. I meant strategies that can be applied to the majority of situations for the SAT. Essay-writing strategies, efficient math strategies as well as troubling concepts, how to use power of elimination most effectively, deciding what approach works best for you for CR passages. (As in, do you need to read the entire paragraph and then answer the questions, or do you need to read the questions first?) </p>

<p>@elvisthepup, I agree with your strategy. I definitely didn’t mean NEVER study vocab, I just meant that if the OP doesn’t have much time to prepare, then it may not be the best route unless that’s the main thing holding him back. </p>

11

<p>I recommend reading the New York Times. I went from a 630 to a 780 by reading more, memorizing a few hundred of the most common SAT words, and taking tons of practice tests.</p>

12

<p>In my opinion, the 2 best SAT Vocab books are:

  • Direct Hits (you need both books… about 500 words)
  • Princeton Review Word Smart (about 800 words)
    I don’t recommend any vocab book with over 1000 words. You can POE to narrow down your choices. If in a crunch, study word roots, prefix, suffix.</p>

<p>To improve your CR score… read, read, read. Especially college level non-fiction. 75% of the passages on the SAT are non-fiction. Its different (more difficult) reading non-fiction versus fiction.</p>

13

<p>I use SAT Vocab with Photo iPhone app, which, in my opinion, is pretty good because they have photos. got 500 hundred words.</p>