Critical Reading Another Way - Sam's Story

[SuperStray27]

the best strategy is to skim the passages first, focusing on the "big picture", then referring to the text later on as needed for the questions.

[MPS72192]

thanks... also check out satbooks.org too

[immachinewashable8]

I've been enrolled in the eprep course that this guy teaches and he is really helpful. My scores fluctuate every time I take the test by there is definitely a huge improvement from when I was an underclassman. Critical Reading is my worst section and this technique actually does work. For the large passages. But one thing he did say straight up was that for the short passages it better to read them first because even if you are a slow reader it only rakes a few seconds to read. And they are onl

[enycedoll]

It's not necessarily a good technique because reading the questions forces one to constantly 'look' for the answers and miss the point of the passage. Instead, I think being familiar with question types is better technique since it allows u to read with a purpose.

[JohnMichaelReed1]

I scored an 800 on math on my first try, and a 720 on critical reading on my first try. For the 720, I checked the lines numbers of my questions first. When I read 2 sentences past the last line mentioned in the question, then I answered the question. I saved the "What is the main idea of the passage," and "How would the author react to the claim made in Passage 2" for after I finished reading the passage.

[Bklynballerplaya]

I got a 2020, 800 on math, 600 on reading and 620 on writing, so i really need help with the reading passages because I am a slow reader. I will definetly try this new method on the sat, thanks again

[maesariang24]

Thank you so much.

It incredibly pulls my score up!

[lambos1985]

Not reading the passage largely ignores context. It's dangerous. Also, Sam's story is anecdotal, and does not support a general test-taking strategy.

[quitejaded]

Yes... some people can't do that technique, but Sam's technique IS the technique that I have been using since highschool even up to now in college so... works for me. That's how my brain works. I like to know only exactly what I need to know. I don't like to waste my time with reading everything.

[quitejaded]

Thats what I did. I never read the passages.

[tristam15]

how did u do?

[quitejaded]

First, I read the questions and questions that ask about something on specific lines, I answered those first. By the time I did all those questions, I got a gist of what the story was about and I could start answering questions from there and understanding the story from reading bits of the passage and the answers of the questions.

[quitejaded]

Oh sorry! I thought you said "how did you do it". How did I do? Well, I think I made a 1900 - 1980... I don't know. I never broke 2000 but I came close. I'm really angry about it. I think if I had diagnosed with ADD and gotten extra time and spent more time practicing for the test, I would have been able to, but oh well. I'm almost graduating college so I don't care anymore.

[tristam15]

I've taken the SAT today, I only used this technique and I think its the best, it saves you time and is more accurate. Earlier I used to read the whole passage and then answer the questions it was a total waste of time as I never remembered anything I read and had to come back to the passage anyways. Will let you know the score when it comes.

[WannaBTutor]

This may work for some students, but I wouldn't guarantee for everyone. He got lucky, and same did Sam. Changing one strategy will NOT always give this type of surprise result... The author never really mentioned that...

Please visit my message board. The link is in my profile. Thank you!

[limeffdd]

what about the questions that ask to compare passage 1 to passage 2?

can you help on that?

This video helped me though :D

[youdaho99]

then you read them both. Dont be so lazy and think theres a shortcut for everything. Sometimes you have to actually read in a goddamn reading section

[limeffdd]

lol how do you know whether im lazy or not?

The reason I came to this video was because im in the position of being a slow reader.

I was asking for suggestions besides " reading both" I already tried that and thats why Im here in the first place.

[quitejaded]

Its not about being lazy. The tests are timed... if you read slow, you don't have time to read the whole passage...

[quitejaded]

Hey... I am a slow reader, too. I hope you did well. If you have time to retake the test... when it came to comparitive questions like this, it depended on what the question was asking. Usually, I had the gyst of both passages using this technique and I only needed to read the intro and conclusion to make sure. Make sure you read the intro and the conclusion when you get stuck and go on from there.

[pizzaboy813]

thanks

[jlshadoww]

Thank you!

[pinkcherry3776]

thank you so much!!!!

[poriyan1]

thank you.