Please share your critical reading strategies!

bluecanary
Sun, 13 Nov 2011 11:22:32 +0000

Critical Reading has always been my strongest…though I’m not sure why. What I usually do for the long passages is I read paragraph by paragraph and then answer the questions that pertain to that section. Does that make sense?
Usually the first few questions are about the passage as a whole, so I circle those and wait until I’ve answered the other questions. After that, the questions are pretty much in order, so I don’t see a point in reading the passage multiple times when I can just answer as I go.

It’s good to remember that the more extreme answers (e.g. “The author is trying to convey that he VEHEMENTLY HATES such-and-such…”) are almost always wrong.
When they ask you to define a word, it’s also good to remember that they almost never are looking for the most common definition.
When they refer to a specific set of lines, remember to read a few lines before and a few lines after the segment, because the answer is usually right there in the passage.

I didn’t use any critical reading techniques/strategies except for the ones mentioned above, and I got a 770 the first time and an 800 the second time around.