<p>Thanks guys! So overall you both think that CB is better for passage based reading and practice tests, but that for vocabulary I should use something else (like Anki)</p>
<p>For vocab, use something like direct hits. Basically just find a really long list of words and memorize it the old-fashioned way. In terms of passages it’s a matter of practice. Start without timing yourself and try to get perfects on the sections. Give yourself an hour or two if you need it so that you can think through things completely and gain the appropriate thought process. Once you do that then include the timed strategies. My strategy was to first quickly underline the lines that were in the parentheses w/ questions. Then after every paragraph I would go back and answer every question relevant to the section I just read. This ensured that I wouldn’t get confused by future moments in the passage nor would I have trouble remembering the relevant section. You should in time realize that all the answers do indeed come straight from the passage but it takes a little while and a lot of practice to recognize. BB is a valuable resource, but I recommend even more practice tests if you want to lock in a top score. Try to get other tests from companies like Princeton Review and once you’ve exhausted those go for BB. Just for reference, I was in a similar situation and went from a 680 to 780. Good luck!</p>
<p>@breaker746: </p>
<p>Thank you so much! Good to know someone in my similar position did what I want to do! If you do such careful analysis with the underlining to you run out of time though?</p>
<p>Yes my opinion is that you should definitely only use CB practice tests (Red Book is also official CB practice tests but like I said, they are old, so if you can you should use only newer ones if you can get them.) I don’t think you should ever need to use non-official practice tests. drexter hinted that he has a lot of official tests so maybe you should make friends with him. Just to clarify, Anki isn’t a vocab list, it’s just a flash card program. So as mentioned above, the direct hits list is a good list, and Sparknotes has a good list as well (and my guess is that they are probably very similar, although I have not used the Sparknotes list). And I would put all of the unknown words from the vocab lists into Anki for practice. breaker’s strategy sounds like a good one, definitely worth a try, but there are a lot of other approaches around too and if you give many of them a fair chance you are likely to find one that works very well for you.</p>