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Hey all. I have been lurking around here for a while and decided I would finally post.

My math scores are fine... I am scoring in the 720-770 range on all practice tests. I got a 700 on the PSAT. I have not yet taken the real SAT, but I am shooting for a 760 math.

Verbal... is another story. I got a 590 on the PSAT, but my vocab has increased a lot sense then. On practice SATs I am scoring in the 630-670 range. I usually get one analogy wrong, one or two sentance completions wrong, and about 10-14 CR questions.

Obviously CR is the only thing holding me back from a decent score (1450+ is my goal). I would really love it I could get a 700 verbal. I was hoping you guys could share your CR tips and strategies. Thanks a lot, and great board!

By Incognito (Incognito) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 08:23 pm: Edit

Fantastic topic! Like you, CR is my weakest area as well (by FAR). I recommend that you check out what Mattymatt said under the tread "For all geniuses." He gave lots of tips. Check out some prep books (PR is the most popular one on these forums). As for my personal advice, if all else fails, and IF you have lots of time between now and the time that you actually take the test, then I recommend that you do some "college-level" reading that is a lot like the passage material seen on the real test. The theory behind this is that you can more easily assimilate SAT prose if you have a strong reading background, because reading college-level literature enables you to better understand the printed page. Not only that, but some of the difficult passages wont seem so foreign to you anymore because you'll be used to reading complex lit. Anyways, if anybody else has any other tips, then post them.

By Jason817 (Jason817) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 10:13 pm: Edit

Yes, buy Cracking the Sat: Princeton Review. THat has great CR tricks.

By Mattymatt (Mattymatt) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 11:55 pm: Edit

I recommend that you do not read the passage. You acquire an adequate level of understanding by following this method (which has increased my score greatly since I started using it)

1. read the blurb
2. most of the questions include line references.. answer all of them by reading no more than 4 above and 4 below the actual line
3. most of the questions are chronologicaly ordered, estimate the location of the answer for questions that dont include line references and get them out of the way
4. most of the questions are covered by now with the exception of those stupid "what is the author trying to say blah blah".. Most of the time you will have a well enough understanding of the passage so the question should not propose much of a problem. However if it does you will have to go back and skim the passage (and if u run out of time who cares its only one question two tops)

For dual passages treat them as singular following the same strategy. Answer comparisson questions last

I found that reading the whole passage as you are doing now fogs your perception as to what the questins are asking. Your mind is already filled with non essential info before you even attempt that questions which can hinder your reasoning. And yea sometimes blah a lot of the time the answer choices suck so basically just find the one that sucks the least

By Mattymatt (Mattymatt) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 11:56 pm: Edit

for the "vobabulary" questions where it asks this word [insert word here] used on line blahblah most liekly means:

just treat it like a sentence completion. Find the line reference in the passage and replace the word in question with a very simple word that fits the setence. Then look at the answer choices and choice the one that most closely resembles the word you just created

a lot of the time one answer choice can be automaticaly elimated. ETS tries their best not to say anything to extreme. Answers that blatently lean toward one side of the extremities will never be correct. Why? Because they can get sued. Now don't expect to see something so obvious like "gay ppl will go to hell" because you wont (sorry if i offended anyone.. its late and was first example i coudl think of).. something as minute as "scientists will never know becuase their technology will always be inferior" shoudl be automaticaly eliminated


*i posted all this already in another thread but i reposted it here because it seems more appropriate