Beeda1995

Hey guys,

I'm in Grade 12, and I'll be graduating soon (well, relatively soon). I'm already done with all subjects, APs, college applications, you name it. However, there is this one part that I just can't get out of my mind. My last SAT I trial was in January (I definitely don't plan on taking it again), and I ended with a 2270. Not so bad from the outside, but, when I break it down, it goes like this: 800 M, 790 WR, and 680 CR. I'm really happy with my score and all, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be accepted into my dream university. However, I always ask myself, why was I never able to bring my Critical Reading score up? I had done dozens of real SAT exams, along with non-real exams. It really helped me shoot my math score from a 600 or 650 all the way to an 800. It also rocketed my Writing score from a 600 to a 790, after a lot of work with multiple choice questions as well as my essay. On the other hand, no matter WHAT I did with CR, it just never budged. I memorized vocab lists, including Direct Hits V1 + V2, and it did help with sentence completions and all. However, my starting score was somewhere around 550, and on my last (third) trial I ended up with a 680. I did everything possible, I read books, I did countless exams, I memorized vocab, I worked on my mentality and attitude..you name it, I did it. What did I end up with though? A 680. I'm satisfied though with my overall score, but just can't seem to wrap my mind around this. So I've come to this (probably inaccurate) conclusion:

Your Critical Reading score is most directly related to your level of IQ, and English. Hours of study and practice may help, but only so far. It ultimately depends on your innate ability to comprehend complex topics, and be able to see/infer these points that do not come so easily to other people. Ultimately, Critical Reading is an SAT subject that can be very mildly improved in, by a maximum of 100 points or so.

What do you guys think?

ZombieDante

I disagree. While how smart someone is (or IQ) does play a role in determining their score, however it does not place a limit on it. I believe that everyone and anyone is able to get a perfect score on the test. It might just take much more studying for one person than for another person. Also, that studying might have to be more intense for one person of "lower IQ." There is no predestined limit, just the limit one places on themselves with their work efficacy.

Beeda1995

Interesting perspective, but that would not explain my situation. Mind elaborating?

cekelly

Well, ive found that the critical reading sectoon is most correlated with how well you can pay attention to articles that have been designed to bore you. How could you have taken them in January if its October now... Do you mean last year? I dont want to think of it as being close :P

rspence

It seems like CR takes the most effort to improve. For me, I had consistently scored 800's on math, and I was able to bring up my writing by 100 pts by reviewing just a few grammar rules. For reading, you have to know a ton of vocab, and be able to answer a bunch of tricky questions where many of the answer choices are only subtly different...I never was able to improve CR that much (only scored 610 on it).

I would agree that CR is the most correlated with IQ (but certainly not the determining factor), simply because the other two sections probably won't correlate with IQ as well as CR.