<p>I decided to create this topic in order to help students to succeed in this complicated and confounded section.</p>
<p>
Approaching Sentence Complition part of Critical Reading.
1.There are 19 sentence-complition questions in each SAT. The first problem for gathering success is vocabulary. Most students can't do well because of their limit vocabulary. To break down this significiant barrier we must find right way to learn vocabulary. For person who don't know any SAT word, like I was several months ago or non-native beginner, it's better to start will high frequency word book/list. It's Direct Hits (Volume 1&2). As was posted earlier, it hits per 31 word, i.e 13 hits per test. Thus, there is no better book than Direct Hits for beginners.
2. Now we must decide how we will study vocabulary. There are many ways. I will explain the most popular and useful. It helped a lot of students to succeed. Let's name it -Flashcards. We cut a A4 paper into 4 equal pieces and write every word on each part and clue to wall. And every time you will see each word. Well, it's not neccesarly to clue to wall, you may list them even in leisure time. Trust me to learn vocabulary you don't need to study whole day. It's very difficult to remember words without context but you could have your own feelings with each word.
!!! IMPORTANT:
You DON'T need to study 50+ words per day
You DON'T need 5000+ list. It's not useful.
You NEED only 435 words from Direct Hits.
You NEED to learn 5-10 words per day
Signal words could help you to figure out meaning of the sentence. For instance: althrough, moreover, but, and, also, besides, likewise, in addition, etc.
Make positive and negative words.It helps sometimes.
Learn parts of words. They could also help to guess the meaning of unknown word.
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Approaching Passage Based part of Critical Reading.
</p>
<ol>
<li>There are 48 passage-based questions in each SAT exam. </li>
<li>There are various volmed passages. Each volume need it’s own tactic.</li>
<li>Small passages are unpredictable. Soemtimes they are easy. To answer them first you need to read all questions for it (usually 2). Then CAREFULLY read this small passage.</li>
<li>Big passages. You must distinguish questions" variations. Some are asking about exact line, for example in line 5 “pick up” means; and there are also another “General” questions, like the purpose of the passage is to…; First answer line references and then, at the end, when all refences are aksed, answer “G” questions. Sometimes, when it’s remaining less than 1 minute it’s better to read last paragraph/sentence. It must have small summary of all point that were made in whole passage. </li>
<li>Tactics. First, you may mark each word/line/phrase that is asked in questions. It should take around 1 minute. Then read ONLY sentence/paragraph to which question refers. You don’t need to read whole passage. It takes so much time. Just read around the line.
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</ol>
<p>Ok, that’s it. I hope this topic would help. Suggestions and additions for it will be appriciated.</p>
<p>I just want to say that you’re right. Vocabulary is an awfully thick hedge that used to ruin my overall scores. And, yes, reading the whole passage is a waste of time. A better and faster approach may be always found.</p>
<p>Suleyman, I would like to reiterate once more that you do not have any credibility to suggest any advice or write a guide - a poorly written one at that too, mind you - to aid people in Critical Reading seeing as you barely have a score of 600 for Critical Reading. No offense.</p>
<p>You have some good general tips for beginners and non-native speakers, and those who may have just learned English. Others may not see the true value of this guide.</p>
Not right now, since I have not perfected the CR section. I don’t think I am qualified enough to make a guide for CR, but I do give advice. Perhaps when I finally hit 800, I will post a guide of my own. I just have some general advice I give, based on score range, since I used to score 550-580 and have worked up to 680-710.</p>
<p>I scored 800 on CR and the only thing I can suggest is practice, practice practice. I did atleast 30 sections of CR a month before the exam date and it paid off. For passages and such, I annotated each one and that helped a lot. Also, you should read the whole passage before answering a question because it could mislead you into the wrong answer. As for vocab, that was my favorite part just because I guess I have a decent memory and basically memorized all the words I needed (and the fact that all the words I studied showed up on my exam, lol). I suggest you use flashcards for vocab if you have difficulty. </p>
<p>Btw, I used one trick to eliminate answers if I was completely unsure. How radical/extreme the answer was. If it was too extreme and used words like “only” or “absolutely” and had an opinion that might be controversial or downright wrong, chances are it’s wrong. </p>
<p>I hope my advice helped and good luck to you all on CR! May you all get 800’s!</p>
<p>When i was studying for the SAT i saw my critical reading score go up with each practice test i took. I cannot emphasize how important it is to GO OVER both answers you got wrong and ones you were unsure of (even if you got them right). Don’t cheat yourself, take the time to really go over every answer and I’m certain you’ll see results.</p>
<p>^ mark is right. Go over all the answers even the ones you got right. In response to your question school, I started out with extremely low scores (took an SAT class last summer) beginning at 650. Eventually I kept at it and made it to 700+ range in that fall in practice tests. Took the October Test and scored 730 then retook in January (btw, I prepped for that with the BB and at that time I scored 800 a few times on the tests I took) and got 750. Then I retook this June and did a lot of practice even though I was doing horribly on the sections and pulled off an 800.</p>
<p>Again, I emphasize practice. This is a section that, for most people, will not come naturally (at least for me it didn’t come that quickly until I practiced then it just flowed). So keep at it and you will surely succeed!</p>
<p>Listen guys,
Ii’m scoring 400 in average. But in practice test I’m marking all. And in real exam I will be very cautious. I will mark only what I know 100% right. The problem is I don’t know which questions are right/wrong. What should I do?
My plans for CR for the last month until I go to exam:
*Finish Direct Hits. Learn all 435 words.
*Do 20+ sections of CR
*Make all cr in BB.
*Review each answer
for WR:
*make recap of silverturtle’s guide
*make a lot of practice sections.
*for essay make small preparings and points for general topics(crowd, identity, hero, etc)
for Math:
*make practice tests in gruber’s
and practice with reviewing answers in BB.
Any additions/corrections?</p>