<p>The best way to improve critical reading, particularly the reading comprehension part, is honestly to read a lot. There are some strategies you can try, though.</p>
<p>-Have you tried reading the questions before you do the passages? That way you know what you’re looking for when you’re attempting to answer them later.</p>
<p>-In two passage problems, try answering the questions for the first passage before reading the second passage. It’s easy to get the two of them mixed up.</p>
<p>-Identify the question types that you usually get wrong on the passage questions. And concentrate on trying to improve those questions. Most people don’t have an issue with the detail questions; sometimes it’s the inference or global questions that they have problems with. If that’s the case, spend some time summarizing the passages from practice tests, and then look at your prep book’s summary and compare what you wrote. What are you missing? In time, you’ll need to work your way up to making this summary mentally. Comparing it to the book’s summary will help you realize what kinds of things you are missing.</p>
<p>-Remember that this is an open-book test. When reading the passages, don’t get bogged down in details. As a matter of fact, it may be more useful for you to quickly scan the passage, looking for main ideas and major themes. When you answer the inference/theme questions, you won’t get confused by the details, and when you come to the detail questions you can always refer back to the passage.</p>
<p>For the sentence completion questions, beefing your vocabulary up to a certain point will increase your score. I think your score is in the range that can benefit from vocab work. Try Barron’s 3500 word list. Since you have the whole summer, comb through the list and look at the words that you don’t know or don’t know well. If you like flash cards, make flash cards (your own flash cards…don’t buy them) with the word on the front, the definition on the back, and a sentence. Make up your own sentence if possible (check with the book or a dictionary to make sure that it makes sense, though.) Making your own flash cards helps you remember better than buying the flash cards someone peddles to you from B&N.</p>
<p>Also, when you are doing the practice questions, simple steps: 1) read the SC first, looking for clue words. Clue words include words that signal comparisons like “and”, “in addition,” and “similarly;” or that signal contrast like “though,” “however,” and “in contrast”. There are others – any good prep book will go through them at least briefly.</p>
<p>2) WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE ANSWER CHOICES, fill in the blank(s) with a word(s) from your own head. It doesn’t have to be an SAT word or even precise – even if you can come up with something as vague as “bad” or “sour” or “nice” that will help you. As time goes on, you will get better, and as your vocabulary increases and you get really good at the SAT game, you will be able to fill in the exact word. (Seriously, at this point I can answer about 85-95% of the SC questions without looking at the multiple choices.)</p>
<p>3) Once you have come up with a word that goes in the blank(s), look at the answer choices and pick the one that matches most closely with the one you predicted.</p>