How should I use the critical reader by Erica melter?

neoking
Tue, 13 Oct 2015 03:25:38 +0000

If you really want to see your CR score change, you need to thoroughly digest the key chapters of this book. Those are the main idea, literal comprehension, function, and inference sections, as most passage questions are comprised of them. If you find that you have more time, read the tone, rhetorical strategies, and generalizations/assumptions sections. Concentrate hard on her strategies, and make sure to work the practice problems she includes at the end of each section.

I studied this book for a little more than a month (3 weeks of which were during summer) until I had to take my October test, so I did have more time and I completely finished the book. Since you’re obviously constrained by school and other things you may be doing, you need to carve out a good hour/hour and a half each day for improvement.

To make sure your mind stays in the whole “critical reading” zone, read articles from publishers like the NY Times, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, etc. DO NOT read them passively. Rather, use the methods of analysis that you will learn in this book. Notice literal references to items in the text, note the abstract/general function of the piece, infer what a claim means, identify the main idea, etc. You will learn these strategies if you read her book.

It’ll be hard to improve for the sentence completion section in this amount of time. While Meltzer’s vocab list is good, it doesn’t come close to really covering the majority of SAT vocab. Try finding (reputable) vocab lists on the internet, and if you’re able to, find lists that come from Direct Hits.

AND TAKE THE PRACTICE TESTS IN THE BLUE BOOK. Meltzer has a list in the back of the book that shows what chapter in her book each blue book question pertains to. When you keep missing some certain type of question, use that list to discover what chapter that question pertains to, and study the heck out of it!!

Good luck!