How to Attack the SAT Critical Reading Section Effectively

Step 1. Let's start with the approach. You have probably encountered people in your daily
life who snidely demean the SAT or at least the experience of taking the SAT. However,
you must approach this important experience with a fundamentally different mindset.
Okay, perhaps the SAT is a test full of tricks - a test purely to be gamed. If so however,
learning to work within a system is a very valuable skill to have in life. Furthermore, I
believe that the fundamental basis of the SAT is not its tricks, but its call for a rapid
comprehension of certain situations, a supple maneuverability, and a positive approach to
the material. After all, a multiple-choice test with any semblance of difficulty can be said
to contain tricks. How good is your knowledge if you can't manipulate it to a small
challenge? Don't demean your opponent - that's a recipe for disaster. The last quality, a
positive approach to the material, is the most important and the one you can control the
easiest. However, it does not come naturally (as can be seen with scores of grumbling
teens) and takes reinforcing.
Step 2. A second word about approach: You didn't pay CollegeBoard 45 bucks so that
you could be nice. When you're faced with five choices on a question, you've got to be
ruthless. Stop internally justifying why one answer could be right, and instead make the
shift to asking yourself why that answer could be wrong - play Devil's Advocate, as
cliched as that may sound. I can't tell you enough how much this shift in thinking has
helped me when I have been stuck between two seemingly correct choices. Despite
appearances, all choices ARE different and one is certainly the best, or else CollegeBoard
would be losing thousands of dollars to successful lawsuits. Keep this in mind. You have
got to find the right answer and I will show you how.
Step 3. It is my intention to focus mostly on the long reading passages in this How-To,
since that is where the majority of the CR questions lie and since these questions give
many test-takers a higher level of grief. For sentence completions, my biggest advice is to
stop wasting your time on tricks, to buckle down, and to start attacking vocabulary lists.
Direct Hits is vouched for by many and proven to be most effective, though I personally
used Princeton Review's Word Smart I and II cover to cover (perhaps not as efficient as
the previously mentioned title). One problem is retention, so what I did was that I made
flashcards for every word I didn't know in the book (it came out to about 1000 words). It
takes a long time, but it pays off for the SAT, your reading, your writing, and your life.
Only if you really know the words will you be able to confidently answer sentence
completions (and consummately schmooze at cocktail parties). For the short passages, it's
all about absorbing the small paragraphs as efficiently as you can before going on to
answer the questions. They're considerably easier if you keep your mind, and obsessing
about the short passages (going back to double or triple check) are a huge time drain.
Most of the time, it's a quick fact check paired with a tone question. If you practice a lot
on long passages, short passages will be an easy relief for you.
Step 4. Now, onto the long passages. I had loads of trouble with these before I found this
method. I am going to give you my step-by-step method of attacking them, which I have
found extremely effective, albeit somewhat more time-consuming. Before anything, you

MUST read the short blurb before the passage. It gives you a sense (though always
limited) not only of what the passage is going to be about, but also of the position and
possible tone of the author. You will then be able to perhaps place yourself into the
author's shoes. This is a good point right now to tell you that you MUST love the passage
you are reading. Force yourself to love it - throw yourself into the passage with gusto. It
works. Though it's quite ludicrous to be super-enthusiastic about a boy and his alfafa
patch, with your enthusiasm comes retention, heightened focus, and an oddly vicarious
interest in the passage. My general mental approach was a huge contributing factor in my
getting an 800 in CR and a 2400 on the SAT.
Step 5. After you have read that thrilling blurb, don't start reading the passage yet.
Quickly jump to the questions, and as fast as you can, skim every question for line
number references (don't read the choices or the full question yet). On some passages
almost every single question has a line reference - on most others it's about over half.
Very rarely will you see a passage with question without any line references (perhaps
only rarely on a six question passage). Anyway, once you see a line reference (In lines
23-25 of the passage, the author is saying that...), you should bracket not the lines, but the
sentence contained within the lines. This mark-up will allow you to focus in on that
sentence once you begin to read the passage. Based on the question, you want to make a
small annotation. For this question: (In lines 23-25 of the passage, the author is saying
that...), you might make the annotation MEANING next to your marked-up sentence.
Other annotations might include: SAYS THIS BECAUSE, REFERS TO, HOW
SIMILAR TO PASSAGE 1, BACKS UP WHAT BEFORE (think crude caveman
notations - they're more efficient). Go through all of the questions. Perhaps some of the
references will not have any line numbers. If you see (In the last paragraph...), just put
brackets around the last paragraph along with an annotation. If you see a general question
referring to the passage as a whole, on the question circle the number of the question with
a large circle. This means it's a general question and must be answered AFTER all the
specific questions. I find this is always a very comfortable way of attacking the questions
based on how CollegeBoard writes these questions.
Step 6. Once you have marked up all the line references as fast as humanly possible, then
the real art begins. You must read the passage. There is no way around reading every
single word. But HOW you read it is the true art. Read the unmarked sections quickly yet
efficiently, absorbing it briefly but not truly pausing to analyze. ONCE you hit a marked
section, slow down and absorb it. If you feel that it would not disrupt your flow to answer
the corresponding question, do so. If not, keep going a little more. A vast majority of the
line reference questions (even complex ones such as inferences) can be answered after
reading from the beginning to the point of reference. In a few instances, it may help to
read past the point of reference, but NEVER read the whole passage through without
pausing to answer questions. Your retention will be terrible and it's much better to handle
the passage in small, manageable chunks. Also, when you answer a question, just circle in
the answer in the test booklet. DO NOT BUBBLE IN THE ANSWERS UNTIL YOU
FINISH THE ENTIRE PAGE, SOMETIMES EVEN THE PASSAGE. This is a huge
time saver and it prevents you from making bubbling mistakes. The time saved is not
necessarily the time difference in bubbling, but the time saved because it prevented you

from breaking your focus. This is very important in CR. Don't break focus. If you're very
low on time however, you can bubble as you go.
Step 7. Once you have tackled all the line and paragraph references ruthlessly, you
should have already finished reading the entire passage and because you had focused in
on the passage in numerous instances, you should also be well-equipped to answer your
circled general questions. I always find it's easier to answer these general question at this
point, seeing as how you hit up the passage numerous times already along the way.
Remember to never choose an answer unless you can truly back it up with evidence from
the passage. Even "inferences" do not stray far from the text. If they did, then the "best
answer" would be up in the air. Do not be misled by the word "inference" - it's a
misnomer. A large number of these can actually be pulled straight from the passage. It's
all about the passage - not what you think or have learned thus far in school. Being one
with a text and not extracting too much from it is a valuable skill to learn. Don't put
words into the author's mouth. Another very helpful thing to remember when viewing the
choices is that extreme choices (including the words ALWAYS, NEVER, or BEST) are
rarely ever correct because they fall under the hard-to-prove category of generalization
within inductive reasoning. Though you've heard this tip many times and it sounds
obvious, it is so helpful (yet easy to forget) and you often find yourself internally
justifying these kinds of generalizing answers. Just say no (in a ruthless yet eternally
positive way).
Step 8. My method of tackling long passages is somewhat time-consuming, but time is
something that can be reduced through assiduous practice. This method is so effective in
getting the right answer, and I fully vouch for it from personal expereince. What I also
did during practice was that I gave myself twenty minutes instead of twenty-five in the
standard CR sections, and I rapidly tried to utilize my developed method. It was
extremely difficult to meet the twenty-minute deadline at first but I got better and better
at it through practice. While time can be addressed easily through practice, a
fundamentally bad approach to the passages cannot. You should try out this method if you
are having trouble with CR passages - be open. This method was THE contributing factor
for my rise from a 500 to an 800 in CR. Thanks, and tell your friends about this article.