Very Difficult to Finish Reading on Time

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
1

<p>hello, my english is not great, but i can actually read and understand better than i can talk ^^</p>

<p>i have a hard time finishing the Reading on time! There is always 1 passage I cannot complete or sometimes 1 and half, so my score is always around 20 to 26. I am a senior in high school so I want to get over 30 on Octobre test, maybe 32 if I am lucky!</p>

<p>If I don’t have worry about time, I can finish all the questions and understand the passages, but sadly not in 35 minutes! do you know any strategy i can use to read faster maybe and finish on time? i think Prose Fiction takes me too much time, maybe i can skip it now, but then I can’t get more than 30 :(</p>

<p>right now, i read everything first and write a small summary next to each paragraph before looking at questions. but some questions take me too long also. thank you for your advice! bonne chance if you are in the same boat as me!</p>

2

<p>Just read some novels for comprehension this summer. Trust me, it helps.</p>

3

<p>Like sraval said, just keep reading. Newspapers, books, magazines, anything you can. The more you read, the faster you get.</p>

4

<p>right now, i read everything first and write a small summary next to each paragraph before looking at questions.</p>

<p>^^^^</p>

<p>That’s good… but too much. you want to annotate when you read. but your annotations shouldn’t be more then a few words. </p>

<p>If there’s something specific that you want to remember in the passage (proper nouns, numbers (years, dates), events,) underline them.</p>

5

<p>Try to read the passages like you would a normal book. Do not focus on details…as this can take too much time. Skimming over the details is better because if you cannot remember the answer to a question, you can always refer back to the passage. This takes less time than trying to absorb every detail while reading the passage.
If this doesn’t work try taking the SAT. It gives you much more time to read the passages.</p>

6

<p>I was in a similar predicament as u, and what I started doing was on practice tests I would try to finish reading each passage in 3-4 mins and spend 5-6 mins on the questions (never more than 9 mins on each passage). Also I began to skim through quicker and underline proper nouns and events as I went along. I ended up going from a 29-35 on the reading section of the ACT, and I hope this helps.</p>

7

<p>Thank you all for your help. I think my problem is that my reading is too slow!</p>

<p>sometimes, i am reading the same sentence again because i don’t understand, so i only finish 2 or 3 passages but never 4.</p>

<p>i am studying like this:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>First, read the questions fast and find questions with line numbers, put check in the passage with the same line number</p></li>
<li><p>Read passage and write notes next to them.</p></li>
<li><p>Answer all questions with line numbers and vocabulary first.</p></li>
<li><p>And last, answer the questions that ask for purpose or main idea.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I think this is a good strategy because I get most questions right, maybe only 1 or 2 wrong. But it takes too much time, almost 12 to 15 minutes for only 1 passage!</p>

<p>I am wondering if there is way to read in 8-9 minutes each passage?
maybe i must learn speed-reading? or maybe i should not read all the passage, only few paragraphs?</p>