Critical Reading On The SAT – Tip 1

In future posts, we’ll deal with specific types of passages and questions. for our first tip, however, we’ll talk about how to approach Critical Reading on the SAT in general.

Sometimes you can get so caught up with strategies and tricks for answering questions, you can forget that strategy starts much earlier—in reading the passages themselves.  Here you can find how to minimize your time reading the passage, but maximize points on questions!

You’ve probably run into people who approach the SAT Critical Reading sections by slowly and carefully reading the passage, approaching each question as it is asked, and then going back to review the section from which the question came and  proceeding to answer the question.

You may also have met those who speedily jump straight to the questions, and only read a portion of the passage if a question refers back to it.

In fact, you yourself are probably one of these two types of people.  Do you see any flaws with either approach?

Our brains are wired to only remember the most recent idea that we’ve read—as in the last 20 seconds or so.  By the time you’ve conscientiously read the passage and read the questions, you’ve already forgotten most of what you’ve read and must spend precious minutes reviewing in order to answer each question!  However, if you skip the passage and only read it in pieces, you’ll have a very difficult time maintaining continuity of thought and flow in your head.  On top of that, there may be relevant pieces of that passage that you never read at all because they weren’t included in the specific line numbers mentioned in the question!  In other words, you have a choice between wasting time, and getting things wrong – a true fool’s choice.  So what to do?

Follow Lumina Prep’s SAT Critical Reading strategy to minimize time and maximize points:

- First, read the introductory blurb in italics to get an idea of the context of the passage.

- Second, divide the questions into two groups: specific (those including line number references) and general (those discussing the overall purpose or intent of the passage).

- Third, read the passage paragraph by paragraph, answering all questions for each paragraph as you deal with that paragraph.

- Fourth, read the rest of the passage, if any of it remains unread.

- Finally, answer the general questions.

QUICK TIP:

It will take you a few passages to get the hang of this at first; don’t get discouraged, you’ll see your score improve quickly!  Try following the reading strategy at home on as many passages as you can.  Remember, practice makes perfect!