<p>My killers are the long passages. 600 in CR so far… ***. Hope I’ll do better in November.</p>
<p>@TeamRocket - I wouldn’t say I had a good vocab base, but I do read a lot, so I just understand what some words mean in context. The prep place I went to really helped me in that aspect though…we had to memorize 70 to 100 words a day and had a quiz on 20 of them the next day. It was torture at the time, but looking back, I really am thankful that I pushed through.</p>
<p>I really recommend prepping for this stuff over the summer though. This way, you can completely focus on it and you don’t need to keep on top of schoolwork and ecs as well. It’s such a hassle and you really won’t learn and improve as much over the course of the school year, because you’ll be so occupied with other things.</p>
<p>I’m so scared to take an ACT diagnostic, mainly because I’m kinda lazy, but science is also not really my thing (I forget most of it within a year)…</p>
<p>Yeah, I plan to do that, actually. Like, next summer, if I get the internship at Columbia I applied for, I’ll stay in NYC for two months or so. During that time, I plan to reread Campbell Biology, Zumdahl Chemistry, and do SAT prep.</p>
<p>The main problem I had with the science is the timing; I think that the number of passages they give you requires much more than just 35 minutes.</p>
<p>Woah, they offer internships at Columbia for people our age? What program?</p>
<p>I did like a couple practice tests (like 3 or 4) and a few random sections, also I got vocab songs from youtube and listened to them while running. Haha, and I watched random youtube videos on how to write good essays and everything and took a prep class that wasn’t very helpful. Got a 2300 (but would’ve gotten a 2330 if I got this maddeningly easy math Q right! haha). Prepped for like a month maybe, but not every day.</p>
<p>For those who are having problems with CR, learn speed reading. It takes about an hour to learn and you end up reading about 300x faster and with better comprehension. </p>
<p>[Scientific</a> Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes](<a href=“http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/07/30/speed-reading-and-accelerated-learning/]Scientific”>Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss)</p>
<p>I think the best advice I’ve ever heard is to read good literature voraciously. Your coursework in school should prepare you for the Math sections, so just brush up on Math for a couple of hours and you should be fine. CR and W wise, reading a lot of good literature will help in so many ways. I’ve seen friends who never “read for fun” struggle hour after hour at CR and W prep without raising their score.</p>