How can I improve my SAT Critical Reading score?

Question

I got an SAT critical reading score of 540. What kills me is "Understanding the content, form, and function of larger sections of text." I have went through the Princeton Review Book and Kaplan's Critical Reading Workbook. None of them have helped. I seem to be stuck at the same reading score.

Answer 1

I like the Princeton Review series. The thing I always had to study was the vocabulary.

Many schools offer classes that will help you improve your SAT score. Check with your guidance office to see if one is offered in your area.

Answer 2

A lot of people think that in order to improve your critical reading score, you need to do as many passages as you can until the test date. This is not nescesarily going to work. When you do passages in a test prep book (Princeton Review, Kaplan, etc.), then you have to make sure that you spend time analyzying why you got questions wrong. Putting an X next to you wrong answers doesn't cut it (and believe me many people do this). The SAT Critical Reading section asks the the same general question types, such as: author's intent, tone, main idea, reasonable inferences, etc. There are some answer choices that are put in the question to mislead you. If you analyze your mistakes, then you can learn how to avoid these traps. Some students, for example, imply too much information from the passage, try to imply outside knowledge that isn't mentioned in the passage, not understand the author's intent, etc.

Answer 3

i don't know how much time you have before you retake the test, but the best advice i can give you is to actually read. a book. not an SAT review book, but a real book, with a real author. the more literature you have under your belt, the easier it will be to understand what the author of any given passage is trying to do.
so really, just pick up some well-written book and read it. it doesn't have to be really dense or prestigious. try something like "catcher in the rye" or one of the chronicles of narnia. they're easy to read, but good. take time to look at the writing and how the book fits together. you don't have to come to any great revelation, but just try to see what the author does.
best of luck.

Answer 4

I got 2 perfect scores in math and reading, but my writing score was only 720, for a total of 2320. I only read this SAT guide, and that is how I got such high scores:
http://www.guideparadise.com/index.php?option=com_guides&task=buy&id=6
I recommend this guide to anyone seeking to get a higher score to get into a first choice college.

Answer 5

a good way to deal with critical reading is to not read the passages.
im serious. dont read them. read a couple sentences to understand what it's about, and then get straight to the questions. When a question refers to a line, read three lines above and below the referenced line to get a good understanding for the answer.