<p>Hey guys,
I'm taking the sat this saturday, and I was wondering whether you could help
me out with my "little" problem. I score alright on math (780-800) and writing (750) but I really suck at verbal (640). Its not that I can't get them right, its just that I can't get them righter when I'm under time pressure. When I do a timed sat, I pretty read the whole thing and don't really understand it at all. Then I just try to figure everything out with common sense, but since I didnt really get the hang of the text, it seems that always several answers could be plausible. I mean, how do you guys do the reading?? How do you understand the texts in, say, 2-3 minutes? I mean, when I do an untimed verbal section, I can get all the right answers, but I just do horribly on timed test? any advice would be great</p>
<p>Tom</p>
<p>wow... pearfire... ur my twin SAT taker... :-p... same exact grades... i just found a way from some1 on this board. while reading... and yes, i KNO THIS IS HARD... try to be interested... I always used to get the passage ones wrong now i only got one wrong. heres wat u do:
example: panda, endangered or not?
knew it was gonna be boring, lots of reasons for and against, bla bla bla..
while reading, really get into it, really make urself interested in these reasons why or why not, almost as if u picked up the article urself and read it for pleasure. to do this, u cant be thinking abut anything tho, like wats for dinner or goin out with ur gf later. the reason for this is, if u think about that stuff, its ALL more exciting lol, down to the last slice cheese ur gonna eat later... so, BLANK ur mind, FOCUS, be INTERESTED. and read the whole thing before the questions. once u get the general idea of each paragraph answer. (make notations about each paragraph, a phrase or two on the general idea) try it, and get back.</p>
<p>Maybe you aren't destined to do well on the CR</p>
<p>Seems like no matter how hard people "study" for the SAT (which I find ridiculous), those who do generally get good scores in math and writing, but have trouble in CR.</p>
<p>I used to really bad on the SAT CR (in the high 500s), however I got a 700 exact on my January SATs.</p>
<p>To make that improvement, I read more vocab and concentrated more on the Verbal. Doodl3s is right. You have to be interested in the passage and pay attention to everything. Do the questions that give you line references and vocab in context in first. By the time you finish those, you can get the gist of the passage and answer the main idea questions.</p>
<p>I used to be in your score range (low 600's), and then I managed to get my CR score to 700+ by preparing for AP English Language. The multiple choice on that test made the SAT CR much easier by comparison. You just have to look for the choice that most closely reiterates what the passage is saying. I also look at the questions first and do them one at a time. I don't have the attention span to read the whole thing =p</p>
<p>Yay... reading all this inspired me to go to a practice CR section from my book :)</p>
<p>Pace yourself. Gradually speed up, knowledgable of the time but not overly concerned about it. Practice reading faster, and only certain portions of relevant text, to reduce the time it takes you.</p>
<p>Here's what I've been noticing lately: I don't have to rush to complete the passages-- I read slowly enough to feel like I get it, and I read the entire passage. By the time I've completed that and the questions, I still have a couple minutes left, and I'm not sure what to do with that extra time. Even if I revisit the questions I had trouble with, I remain just as indecisive as before.</p>
<p>Any ideas to improve my score, using those extra couple minutes?</p>