So I've gotten a lot better at the reading portion...

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>I used to suck at the reading portion (I would miss like 5-6 per section, meaning -15 to 18 in total, which would be about -20 with the extra quarter point off). Now, I'm missing about 2-3 questions per section, which still isn't good, it's about -10 overall.</p>

<p>I think the biggest thing is ACT reading really made SAT reading a lot easier. With ACT I have to rush just to get through the test in time let alone get the questions right. Now when I come back to prepping for the SAT, I have so much time left at the end of each reading section because of how fast I had to work for ACT reading. So with this extra time I've been able to spend a longer time thinking of questions that I feel are ambiguous, and I get a few more right in each section.</p>

<p>My goal is to get a 700 at the worst on the reading portion, and what is that? Like minus 9? Of the 2 to 3 questions I miss now, most are vocab because my vocab is pathetic (it's improving though, I'm learning 10 new words a day). I rarely miss a question on reading comprehension, and if it is, it's one of those that says, "The author's tone can best be described as..." And the reason I miss those is because I don't know the definition of the words in the answer choices.</p>

<p>So basically, are there any tips for improving my performance on the sentence completions other than learning vocab? I'm currently trying to learn 10 words a day but there will always be times when I don't know a word. What strategies do you guys recommend. Also, there are sometimes quite a few reading comprehension questions which could have two possible answers. How do you handle those questions? Thanks.</p>

2

<p>For sentence completions, I would argue that it’s not as productive as people believe to learn a million new words in a few weeks or months. If your vocabulary is generally on grade level or above it, and you read a lot, then what I suggest is studying the words you don’t know from the practice tests that you take. So learn the words you don’t know, but I don’t believe that going out of your way to learn tons of new words will help you raise your score–if you’ve got some prep book with 2,000 words in it and learning all 2,000, you’re wasting your time. Focus on the words you see in practice tests, but don’t cram excessive amounts of new material in.</p>

<p>For reading comp questions (especially the ones with two possibilities), always verify that the answer choice is something WITHIN or IMPLIED BY the ACTUAL PASSAGE. And one choice is usually more relevant than the other. Sorry, it’s hard to talk about strategies without examples to discuss. Can you post some questions that you’re having trouble with?</p>

3

<p>The two books by Direct Hits seem useful. As alwaysawriter said, it is generally not a good idea to get one of the huge vocab lists and try to memorize definitions without context and many example sentences.</p>

4

<p>I’ve heard that Grammatix has some good CR tips.</p>

<p>^Agreed-usually the Direct Hits vocab lists have some of the most hits on actual SATs.</p>

5

<p>This should help for CR in general:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/750399-how-attack-sat-critical-reading-section-effectively.html?highlight=noitaprep[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/750399-how-attack-sat-critical-reading-section-effectively.html?highlight=noitaprep&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;