<p>Why vocabulary is emphasized? Vocabulary questions only make up a few questions out of the CR sections. Wouldn't the passage questions need more practice?</p>
<p>My threads have gotten pretty unpopular these days…
BUMP.</p>
<p>no, it’s not emphasized. if you think it is, think again.</p>
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<p>Whenever someone has a lower CR score, the first thing everyone prescribes is ‘vocab’.</p>
<p>Nearly 30% of the questions are vocab questions, probably more around 35-40% considering the passage based vocab questions. The best way to improve your CR score is to improve your vocab.</p>
<p>IMO because it’s easier to improve on vocab than passages for most people</p>
<p>I think people over emphasize vocab. I first got a 600 without vocab then after studying direct hits went to a 650. But the sentence based completions part was almost the same from my two SAT’s. What changed? I improved on the passages!</p>
<p>There are 19 sentence completions which are purely vocabulary that make up almost 30% of the 67 questions. There are usually 6-8 vocabulary based questions in the reading passages which means vocabulary would account for 37-40% of the critical reading section. I just looked through the Janury 2011 SAT and there were 7 vocabulary based questions in additon to the SCs. One asked about the authors tone and another asked about the granddaughter’s atttiude. </p>
<p>You can’t go wrong studying vocabulary if you want a high score on the PSAT and/or SAT.</p>
<p>While it is true that studying vocab will improve your SAT score, you should not neglect the test taking techniques required for the critical reading section.</p>
<p>If you’ve mastered the test taking techniques required for sentence completion, you should be able to solve at least 14 (give or take) sentence completion questions, assuming that you have an average vocabulary.</p>
<p>The fact is that no matter how much you study vocabulary, there is still a high chance that you will encounter words you’ve never seen before. </p>
<p>On the other hand, for passage-based questions, you can solve almost every question correctly if you’ve mastered the techniques required to do so.</p>
<p>Doing well on the critical reading section (700 and above) requires you to have both - a good vocabulary and a mastery of the proper test taking techniques.</p>
<p>There may be only a few questions that deal PURELY with vocab, but most of the question is somehow related to vocab, beginning with your comprehension of the passage.</p>
<p>bad vocab = bad understanding of the passage and the questions = bad score.</p>
<p>I guess I never really took vocabulary in the actual passages into consideration. </p>
<p>I basically agree with SATExcellence’s
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<p>Though those ‘techniques’ aren’t as talked about when people give advice for CR on CC.</p>
<p>Silverturtles Guide and The Best of SAT Prep Forum both have lots of advice on strategies/techniques.</p>
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<p>It is never wrong to spend time studying something. All that can happen is wasting your time. However, you can go wrong by placing too much of a focus on the vocabulary part of the SAT, perhaps with the notable exception of students who only possess an elementary school level command of English. </p>
<p>Further, the number of SC questions is not really relevant. None of the questions require a vocabulary that exceeds the average vocabulary for a 11th grader student whose primary language is English. If spending time practicing or simply reading the older tests critically is helpful to increase one’s vocabulary, the excessive focus on lists of words is hardly the best way to proceed, especially if one overlooks the real problems of critical reading and attention issues. </p>
<p>We know that people love to offer the two-cents advice to go learn more vocabulary. This is not different from telling people to … go study Math to improve that part of the SAT. Actually, telling someone to perfect the techniques and reasoning required to do well in the Math section might be a better advice than … pointing to the asinine lists of words.</p>
<p>Preparing for the SAT should always focus on the test itself. And, while it uses words, it is far from being a … vocabulary test!</p>
<p>I think that 1500 words are enough…</p>
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<p>And why would anyone think that THOSE 1,500 words are the ones worth studying? Which third of Barron’s list do you select?</p>
<p>Would words such as rank, table, or low raise a concern? </p>
<p>But what happens when rank is used as an adjective? </p>
<ol>
<li>growing with excessive luxuriance; vigorous and tall of growth: tall rank weeds. </li>
<li>producing an excessive and coarse growth, as land. </li>
<li>having an offensively strong smell or taste: a rank cigar. </li>
<li>offensively strong, as a smell or taste. </li>
<li>utter; absolute: a rank amateur; rank treachery. </li>
<li>highly offensive; disgusting: a rank sight of carnage. </li>
<li>grossly coarse, vulgar, or indecent: rank language. </li>
<li>Slang . inferior; contemptible. </li>
</ol>
<p>When table is used as a verb?</p>
<ol>
<li> to place on a table<br></li>
<li> to submit (a bill, etc) for consideration by a legislative body<br></li>
<li>to suspend discussion of (a bill, etc) indefinitely or for some time<br></li>
<li>to enter in or form into a list; tabulate<br></li>
</ol>
<p>When low, used as a verb, means the sound uttered by cattle?</p>
<p>so what if vocab is 40 percent of the CR section? Someone who has taken challenging courses should be able to answer a majority of the sentence completions anyways. I would say about 13 of 19, since the last 2 or 3 of each section are a little difficult. And then you can study 5000 freaking words but when it comes to test day what is the chance that 1. You remember the word and 2. all of those words you study actually show up on the test. </p>
<p>I’m not saying its a waste of time to study vocab. But its just better to study a concise list such as Direct Hits rather than stressing over thousands of words.</p>
<p>Or just take the ACT.</p>