Sat How to Stay Concentrated When Reading

Are you scoring in the 600-750 range on Sabbatum Reading + Writing? Do you want to raise that score as loftier as possible—to a perfect 800?

Getting to a perfect SAT Reading examination score isn't easy. Information technology'll require perfection. Only with hard work and my strategies below, you'll be able to do information technology. I've consistently scored 800 on Reading on my real SATs, and I know what it takes. Follow my communication, and you'll go a perfect score—or get very shut.

Brief note: This commodity is suited for avant-garde students already scoring a 600 on Sabbatum Reading or above (this equates to a Reading Test Score of xxx+ out of forty). If you're below this range, my "How to Amend your Sat Reading Score to a 600" commodity is more advisable for you. Follow the Sabbatum Reading tips in that article, then come up back to this i when you lot've reached a 600.

Too, the SAT has a single 800 Reading + Writing score, combining the individual Reading and Writing test scores. Technically, when I mention a perfect Reading test score, I'thousand referring to a perfect forty/40 examination score, which is essential to getting an 800 Reading and Writing score. In this guide, I'll use 800 and 40 interchangeably to hateful a perfect Reading score. Nosotros won't talk about Writing here, but if you want to amend your Writing score too, check out my Perfect Sabbatum Writing score guide.

Overview

Almost guides on the internet on how to score an 800 are pretty low quality. They're often written by people who never scored an 800 themselves. You tin can tell because their advice is ordinarily vague and not very pragmatic. It'south not enough to be reminded of simple Reading tips similar "don't forget to gauge on every question!"

In contrast, I've written what I believe to exist the best guide on getting an 800 available anywhere. I take confidence that these strategies work because I used them myself to score 800 on SAT Reading consistently. They've too worked for thousands of my students at PrepScholar.

In this article, I'1000 going to discuss why scoring an 800 is a good idea, what it takes to score an 800, and and so go into the eleven key SAT Reading strategies so you know how to get a perfect SAT Reading score.

Stick with me—as an advanced student, you probably already know that scoring high is good. Merely it'southward important to know why an 800 Reading and Writing score is useful, since this volition fuel your motivation to get a high score.

This guide has been updated for the current Sabbatum, so y'all can be certain my advice works for the test you're about to have.

Final note: in this guide, I talk mainly nearly getting to an 800. Merely if your goal is a 700, these strategies still equally apply.

Sympathize the Stakes: Why an 800 SAT Reading + Writing?

Permit'southward brand something clear: a 1550+ on an SAT is equivalent to a perfect 1600. No top college is going to give you more credit for a 1590 than a 1550. You've already crossed their score threshold, and whether yous get in at present depends on the rest of your application.

So if you're already scoring a 1550, don't waste your time studying trying to go a 1600. Y'all're already ready for the acme colleges, and it's time to work on the remainder of your application.

But if y'all're scoring a 1540 or below and y'all desire to go to a superlative 10 college, it'due south worth your fourth dimension to button your score upwardly to a 1550 or higher up. There's a big difference betwixt a 1450 and a 1550, largely considering it's easier to go a 1450 (and a lot more applicants practice) and a lot harder to go a 1550.

A 1540 places you lot right effectually average at Harvard and Princeton, and being average is bad in terms of Ivy League-level admissions, since the admissions charge per unit is typically below x%.

So why become an 800 on SAT Reading+Writing? Considering it helps you compensate for weaknesses in other sections. By and large, schools consider your composite score more so than your private section scores. If y'all tin can get a perfect 40 in SAT Reading, you tin can get a 39 in SAT Writing (for a total of 790 in Reading + Writing) and a 760 in SAT Math and nonetheless be confident about your test scores. This gives you a lot more flexibility.

Harvard's 75th percentile Reading score is 780.

There's some other scenario where an 800 in SAT Reading is really important. If you lot're planning to apply as a humanities or social science major (similar English, political science, communications) to a top school.

Hither's the reason: college admissions is all about comparisons between applicants. The school wants to admit the best, and you're competing with other people in the same "bucket" equally you.

By applying as a humanities/social science major, yous're competing confronting other humanities/social science folks: people for whom Sabbatum Reading is easy. Really like shooting fish in a barrel.

Here are a few examples from schools. For Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and U Chicago, the 75th percentile Sat Reading score is a 770 or above. That means at least 25% of all students at these schools have a 770 in SAT Reading.

Merely if you can work your way to an 800, you show that you lot're at an equal level (at least on this metric). Even if it takes you lot a ton of work, all that matters is the score you lot achieve at the cease.

I'll exist honest—Sabbatum Reading wasn't my strong adjust in loftier school. When I started studying, I was scoring around the 700 range. I was ever stronger in math and science.

But I learned the tricks of the exam, and I developed the strategies below to heighten my score to an 800. Now I'm sharing them with y'all.

Know That Y'all Can Do It

This isn't just some fuzzy feel-skilful message you see on the back of a Starbucks cup.

I mean, literally, you lot and every other reasonably intelligent student can score a perfect SAT Reading score.

The reason most people don't is they don't try difficult enough or they don't study the right way.

Fifty-fifty if language isn't your strongest suit, or you lot got a B+ in AP English, you're capable of this.

Because I know that more than anything else, your Saturday score is a reflection of how hard yous piece of work and how smartly you written report.

Sat Reading is Designed to Fob You. You Need to Learn How

Here'south why: the SAT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you go the sense that the questions are aught similar what you've seen in school?

I bet you've had this problem: in SAT Reading passages, you often miss questions because of an 'unlucky guess.' You lot'll try to eliminate a few answer choices, and the remaining answer choices will all sound equally good to you.

Well, you throw up your easily and randomly approximate.

This was 1 of the major issues for myself when I was studying Saturday Reading, and I know information technology affects thousands of my students at PrepScholar.

The SAT is purposely designed this way to misfile yous. Literally millions of other students have the verbal same problem you exercise. And the Sat knows this.

Commonly in your school's English grade, the instructor tells you that all interpretations of the text are valid. You lot tin write an essay most annihilation you want, and English teachers aren't (usually) allowed to tell you that your opinion is wrong. This is because they can get in problem for telling you what to think, specially for circuitous issues like slavery or poverty.

But the SAT has an entirely different problem. It'southward a national exam, which means it needs a level playing field for all students effectually the state. It needs a solid test to compare students with each other. Every question needs a single, unambiguously, 100% correct answer.

At that place's merely always one correct respond. Find a way to eliminate iii incorrect answers.

Imagine if this weren't the case. Imagine that each reading respond had two answer choices that might each be plausibly correct. When the scores came out, every single student who got the question incorrect would complain to the College Board about the test being incorrect.

If this were true, the College Board would and so have to invalidate the question, which weakens the ability of the test.

The Higher Board wants to avert this nightmare scenario. Therefore, every unmarried Reading passage question has only ane, single right respond.

But the SAT disguises this fact. Information technology asks questions like:

1. The author would almost likely concur with which of the post-obit statements?
2. The first paragraph primarily serves to:
3. In line 20, 'nighttime' most nearly ways:

Notice a pattern hither? The Sat always disguises the fact that in that location's always one unambiguous answer. Information technology tries to MAKE you waver between 2 or three answer choices that are most likely.

And and then you guess randomly.

And then you get information technology incorrect.

You tin can bet that students autumn for this. Millions of times every yr.

Students who don't ready for the Saturday in the right way don't appreciate this. But, if you prepare for the SAT in the right way, you'll larn the tricks the Sabbatum plays on yous. And you lot'll enhance your score.

The SAT Reading department is total of patterns similar these. To meliorate your score, you just demand to:

• Learn the types of questions that the Sat tests, similar the one to a higher place
• Acquire strategies to solve these questions, using skills you lot already know
• Practice on a lot of questions so you acquire from your mistakes

The signal is that you can learn these skills, even if you lot don't consider yourself a expert reader or a great English student. I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this.

I last point: let'southward brand certain nosotros understand how many questions we can miss to score an 800.

What It Takes to Go a Perfect forty in Reading

If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you lot need to go that score on the bodily test. At that place are 52 questions in the Reading section, and how many questions yous miss determines your scaled score out of xl.

From the Official Sabbatum Practice Tests, I've taken the raw score to scaled score conversion tables from four tests. (If you could use a refresher on how the SAT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this.)

Raw Score	Exam 1	Test ii	Test iii	Test 4
52	40	40	40	40
51	40	39	40	39
50	39	38	39	39
49	38	37	38	38
48	38	37	38	37
47	37	36	37	36
46	37	35	36	35
45	36	35	36	35

These grading scales are harsh. For tests 2 and 4, if you lot miss only i question, you get dropped downwards to a 39. This means your maximum Reading + Writing score is a 790.

For tests 1 and 3, if you miss ane question, you're all the same at a perfect 40, but miss another and you drop down to a 39.

The scoring chart curve depends on the difficulty of the test. The harder the examination, the easier the curve. But you can't predict what kind of examination yous're going to go on exam day.

The safest thing to practise is to aim for perfection. On every practice test, you lot need to aim for a perfect raw score for an 800.

Whatever you lot're scoring now, take annotation of the divergence you lot need to get to a 800. For case, if you're scoring a 35 raw score, you lot need to reply 6 to 7 more than questions right to get to a perfect 40 and an 800.

Equally a final example, hither's a screenshot from my exact score report from March 2014, showing that I missed one question and earned an 800.

(This was from the previous 2400 version of the Saturday, but it had a similar grading scale).

OK—and so we've covered why scoring a higher Reading score is of import, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target.

Now nosotros'll get into the meat of the article: actionable strategies and reading tips that you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement.

Strategies to Get a Perfect Sabbatum Reading Score

What's your greatest weakness?

Strategy one: Understand Your High Level Weakness—Time Management or Passage Strategy?

Every pupil has dissimilar flaws in SAT Reading. Some people don't have proficient strategies for tackling the passage questions. Others don't manage their fourth dimension correctly and run out of time before getting through all the questions.

Here'south how yous tin can figure out which one applies more than to you:

• Find an official SAT practice test, and accept but the Reading department. We have the complete listing of free practice tests hither.

• For each section, use a timer and have it count down the 65 minutes for the Reading section. Treat it like a real test.

• If time runs out for that section and you're 100% ready to move on, then movement on. If you're not ready to move on, keep on working for every bit long as you need. For every new answer or answer that you alter, mark it with a special note as "Extra Time."

• When you're set up, grade your exam using the answer key and score nautical chart, merely we want two scores: 1) The Realistic score you got nether normal timing conditions, and 2) The Extra Time score. This is why y'all marked the questions you answered or changed during Actress Time.

Get what we're doing here? By marker which questions you did nether Extra Time, nosotros tin figure out what score yous got if you lot were given all the fourth dimension you needed. This will aid u.s. effigy out where your weaknesses lie.

If you didn't take whatsoever actress time, then your Extra Fourth dimension score is the same as your Realistic score.

Hither's a flowchart to help you lot figure this out:

Was your Extra Time score a 35 or above?

If NO (Extra Fourth dimension score < 35), and then yous take strategy and content weaknesses. All the extra time in the earth couldn't go you to a higher place a 35, so your showtime angle of attack will exist to detect your weaknesses and assault them (Nosotros'll embrace this later).

If Yep (Actress Time score > 35), then:

Was your Realistic score a 35 or to a higher place?

If NO (Extra Time score > 35, Realistic < 35), then that means you have a difference betwixt your Actress Fourth dimension score and your Realistic score. If this difference is more than 3 points, and then you have some big problems with fourth dimension direction. We need to effigy out why this is. Are you using the best passage reading strategy for you? Does it take you too much time to go the answer for each question? Generally, doing a lot of do questions and learning the nearly efficient passage strategies volition help reduce your time. More on this after.

If YES (both Extra Time and Realistic scores > 35), then y'all have a actually good shot at getting an 800. Compare your Extra Time and Realistic score—if they differed by more ii points, then you would benefit from learning how to solve questions more quickly. If non, so y'all probable tin do good from shoring up on your last content weaknesses and avoiding careless mistakes (more on this strategy later).

Hopefully that makes sense. Typically I see that students take both timing and content issues, simply you might discover that ane is much more dominant for you than the other. For instance, if you lot can get a twoscore with extra time, but score a 35 in regular time, y'all know exactly that you demand to work on time direction to get a 40.

This blazon of analysis is so of import that it's a primal role of my prep programme, PrepScholar. When a new educatee joins, he or she gets a diagnostic that figures out specific strengths and weaknesses. The program then automatically customizes your learning so that you're ever studying according to where yous can brand the most improvement.

No matter what your weakness is, my following strategies will address all weaknesses comprehensively.

Strategy 2: Learn to Eliminate iii Wrong Answers

This strategy was by far the most constructive for me in raising my Reading score. It completely inverse the mode I viewed passage questions.

I spent some time talking higher up virtually how the SAT e'er has 1 unambiguous reply. This has a huge implication for the strategy you should utilise to find the right SAT Reading answer.

Hither's the other way to see it: Out of the 4 answer choices, three of them accept something that is totally wrong nearly them. Only one respond is 100% right, which means the other three are 100% wrong.

You lot know how y'all endeavour to eliminate answer choices, and then cease up with a few at the end that all seem equally likely to be correct? "Well, this can work...but so again this could work every bit well..."

STOP doing that. Yous're not doing a practiced plenty job of eliminating answer choices. Think—every unmarried incorrect selection can be crossed out for its own reasons.

Y'all need to do a 180 on your approach to Reading questions. Instead, find a reason to eliminate three answer choices. "Tin I notice a reason to eliminate this answer choice? How about this one?"

You lot take to acquire how to eliminate three respond choices for every unmarried question.

"Smashing, Allen. But this doesn't tell me anything well-nigh how to eliminate answer choices."

Cheers for request. One thing to think is that even a single word can make an answer selection incorrect. Every single word in each respond choice is put at that place by the Sat for a reason. If a single word in the answer choice isn't supported past the passage text, you need to eliminate it, even if the rest of the answer sounds good.

There are a few classic incorrect answer choices the SAT loves to use. Hither'southward an instance question.

For instance, let'south imagine y'all simply read a passage talking almost how human evolution shaped the environment. It gives a few examples. Start, information technology talks about how the transition from earlier species like Man habilus to neanderthals led to more tool usage like fire, which acquired wildfires and shaped the ecology. Information technology then talks almost Homo sapiens 40,000 years agone and their overhunting of species like woolly mammoths to extinction.

Then and so we run into a question asking, "Which of the post-obit all-time describes the principal discipline of the passage?" Here are the respond choices:

• A: The transition between Human habilus and neanderthals
• B: The study of development
• C: How the environs shaped human evolution
• D: The plausibility of development
• E: The influence of human development on ecology

(We're using five answers for purposes of analogy—the Saturday volition only have four choices).

As you're reading these answer choices, a few of them probably started sounded actually plausible to you.

Surprise! Each of the answers from A-D has something seriously incorrect about it. Each one is a archetype example of a wrong answer type given past the SAT.

Wrong Answer i: Too Specific

A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals

This blazon of wrong answer focuses on a smaller detail in the passage. Information technology's meant to play tricks you considering you might remember to yourself, "well, I run across this mentioned in the passage, so information technology's a plausible answer selection."

Incorrect! Think to yourself—can this respond choice really describe the entire passage? Can it basically function as the title of this passage? You'll discover that it'due south just style besides specific to convey the point of the overall passage.

Wrong Reply two: Likewise Broad

B: The written report of evolution

This type of wrong answer has the contrary trouble—it's fashion too broad. Yes, theoretically the passage concerns the study of evolution, but simply one aspect of information technology, and especially every bit it relates to the bear upon on the environment.

To give another ludicrous example, if you lot talked to your friend nigh your cell phone, and he said your main point was virtually the universe. Yes, y'all were talking about the universe, but only a tiny fraction of it. This is way too broad.

Wrong Answer three: Reversed Relationship

C: How the surroundings shaped human development

This wrong answer selection tin exist tricky because it mentions all the right words. Merely of course the relationship between those words needs to be correct as well. Here, the relationship is flipped. Students who read too chop-chop make devil-may-care mistakes like these!

Incorrect Answer 4: Unrelated Concept

D: The plausibility of evolution

Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on the tendency of students to overthink the question. If y'all're passionate about arguing nigh evolution, this might be a trigger answer since whatsoever discussion of evolution becomes a gamble to fence about the plausibility of evolution. Of course, this concept will appear nowhere in the passage, just some students but won't exist able to resist.

Do you lot see the point? On the surface, each of the answer choices sounds possibly correct. A less prepared student would retrieve that all of these were plausible answers.

But plausible isn't practiced plenty. The right reply needs to be 100%, totally right. Wrong answers might be off by even one discussion—y'all demand to eliminate these.

Carry this thought into every SAT Reading passage question you do and I guarantee you will beginning raising your score.

Strategy 3: Predict the Answer Before Reading the Reply Choices

Equally we've discussed already, the Saturday is designed to catalyst y'all into making mistakes by putting actually like respond choices next to each other.

In Strategy 2, we covered the strategy of ruthless, unforgiving elimination of respond choices.

Here'south another Strategy that works well for me. Before reading the answer choices, come upward with your ain answer to the question.

Gaze into your crystal ball and predict the right answer.

This strategy is exactly designed to counteract the trickiness of the answer choices.

If y'all don't use this strategy, your thinking process likely meanders similar this:

"OK, I just read the question. Answer A is definitely out. B can kind of work. C...it doesn't exactly fit, simply I tin can see how it might work." and and then on. By now, you lot've already fallen into the College Board's trap of muddling the answer choices.

Take the opposite approach. While you're reading the question, come with your own platonic answer to the question before reading the answer choices. This prevents you lot from getting biased by the Sabbatum'southward respond choices, especially the wrong ones.

If it's a "Big Picture" type question asking almost the main point of the passage, respond for yourself, "What would make a expert title for this passage?"

If it'south an "Inference" question, reply for yourself, "What would the writer remember about the state of affairs given in the question?"

Even if you can't answer the question straight away—for example, if you have to refer back to the line number to retrieve what the passage was maxim—try to solve the question earlier looking at the answer choices.

The key here is that the passage must support your answer choice. Every correct answer on Saturday passages needs to exist justified by the passage—otherwise the answer would exist ambiguous, which would crusade problems of cancelling questions I referred to before.

Warning: this only works if yous tin can read and understand passages well, and if you take prior experience with SAT Reading questions! That'south why I don't recommend this strategy notwithstanding before y'all hitting a 600 level since you're more probable to come upwardly with the wrong respond selection in your caput.

Strategy four: Experiment With Passage Reading Strategies and Find the All-time for You

In your prep for the Saturday, you may have read different strategies for how to read a passage and answer questions. Some students read the questions before reading the passage. Others read the passage in detail start.

At your high level, I tin't predict which method will work best for you. We're going for perfection, which ways that your strategy needs to line upwards with your strengths and weaknesses perfectly, or else y'all'll make mistakes or run out of time.

What I volition do, however, is go through the most effective methods. Y'all'll and so accept to figure out through your exam data which 1 leads to the highest score for you.

Passage Method 1: Skim the Passage, And then Read the Questions

This is the well-nigh common strategy I recommend to our students, and in my eyes the most effective. I prefer this one myself.

Here it is:

• Skim the passage on the first read through. Don't try to understand every single line, or write notes predicting what the questions will exist. Just get a general understanding of the passage. You want to try to end reading the passage in 3 minutes, if possible.
• Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a line number, then become back to that line number and understand the text effectually it.
• If you can't answer a question within xxx seconds, skip it.

My preferred way to tackle a passage: skimming it on the kickoff read-through.

This strategy is a revelation for students who used to close-read a passage and run out of time.

This skimming method works because the questions will enquire most far fewer lines than the passage actually contains. For example, lines five-20 of a reading passage might not be relevant to whatever question that follows. Therefore, if you spend time trying to securely sympathize lines 5-20, you'll exist wasting fourth dimension.

By taking the opposite arroyo of going back to the passage when you need to refer to information technology, you guarantee reading efficiency. You're focusing simply on the parts of the passage that are important to answering questions.

Critical Skill: Y'all must exist able to skim effectively. This means beingness able to apace digest a text without having to slowly read every give-and-take. If you're not quite practiced at this yet, exercise it on newspaper articles and your homework reading.

Passage Method 2: Read the Questions First and Mark the Passage

This is the second virtually common strategy and, if used well, equally constructive as the start method. But it has some pitfalls if you don't exercise it correctly.

Here's how it goes:

• Before you read the passage, go to the questions and read each 1.
• If the question refers to a series of lines, mark those lines on the passage. Take a cursory note about the gist of the question.
• Go back to the passage and skim information technology. When you reach one of your notes, slow down and have more notice of the question.
• Answer the questions.

Here'south an example passage that I marked upwardly, with questions coming first. Discover that across underlining the phrase referenced in the question, I left clues for myself on what's important to leave of this phrase.

(questions non relating to specific lines aren't shown above)

In the hands of an Sabbatum expert, this is a powerful strategy. Just like Method 1 above, you lot salve time by skipping parts of the passage that aren't asked about. Furthermore, you lot get a head get-go on the questions by trying to respond them beforehand.

But in that location are serious potential pitfalls to this method if you're non conscientious or prepared enough.

Here'south one: when you lot first read the questions earlier the passage, you won't take enough fourth dimension to digest the bodily answer choices (nor will they make sense to you). So yous have to make your best guess for what the question is asking when y'all're writing a note along the passage.

In some cases, this can pb you off-target. Take this example from above:

When I read the question, I saw that it asked me to find how Woolf characterized the questions I marked in lines 53-57.

The problem is how broad the question is. How something can be characterized gives a broad range of options. Here are a number of plausible characterizations every bit I read the text:

• important, life-irresolute ("have to inquire ourselves")
• communal ("we")
• detail-oriented ("on what terms?")
• urgent ("here and now")
• aggressive
• progressive and future-looking ("where is it leading us")

There'due south a lot of flexibility in interpretation here, since the questions really do touch upon all these characterizations.

It turns out "important" and "urgent" are the right interpretations, for answer pick C.

But when I'1000 reading the passage and meet my note, I tin waste a lot of time coming upwards with potential options that aren't even correct answer choices. In the worst case, it can bias me toward the wrong answer.

Disquisitional Skill: You need to have then much experience with the Sat Reading section that yous tin anticipate what the question is going to ask yous for your notes to be helpful. If you're non sure of this, y'all can easily be led down the incorrect rail and focus on the wrong attribute of the passage.

Passage Method 3: Read the Passage in Particular, And so Respond Questions

This method is what beginner students usually use by default, because it'southward what they've been trained to do in school. Some beginner books like Princeton Review and Kaplan besides propose this as a strategy.

Information technology's my to the lowest degree favorite method considering there are so many means for it to go incorrect. But for the sake of completeness, I'k listing it here in example it works all-time for yous.

Here's how it goes:

• Read the passage in detail, line by line.
• Take notes to yourself about the main indicate of each paragraph.
• Answer the questions.

As you lot might guess, I don't similar this method for the following reasons:

• By reading the passage closely, yous absorb a lot of details that aren't useful for answering questions.
• The notes you take aren't directed toward helping you answer the questions.
• By interpreting the passage ahead of time, you risk being led astray.

Just this might work peculiarly well for you if you're very good at reading for understanding, and if you have so much expertise with the Sat that you can predict what the test is going to enquire y'all about anyway.

Choose Which Works Best for You, Based on Test Information

Because I can't predict which one will work all-time for you, you lot need to figure this out yourself. To practice this, you lot need common cold, hard data from your examination scores.

Try each method on two sample examination passages each, and tally up your percentage score for each. If one of them is a clear winner for you lot, then develop that method further. If there isn't a articulate winner, cull the one that feels most comfortable for you.

As part of our PrepScholar program, nosotros requite you lot avant-garde statistics on your score functioning so that you can experiment with methods that work best for y'all.

Next strategy: Understand your mistakes.

Strategy five: Understand Every Single Mistake Y'all Make

On the path to perfection, yous need to make sure every unmarried ane of your weak points is covered. Fifty-fifty but ane error will knock yous downwardly from an 800, as we saw in the score charts above.

The first step is simply to exercise a ton of practice. If you're studying from complimentary materials or from books, you have access to a lot of practice questions in bulk. Equally part of our PrepScholar program, nosotros take over 7,000 Sat questions customized to each skill.

The second footstep—and the more important role—is to be ruthless near understanding your mistakes.

Every error you brand on a test happens for a reason. If you lot don't empathize exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again.

I've seen students who did 20 practice tests. They've solved over 3,000 questions, merely they're still nowhere nearly a perfect Saturday Reading score.

Why? They never understood their mistakes. They but hit their heads against the wall over and over once again.

Think of yourself every bit an exterminator, and your mistakes are cockroaches. Y'all need to eliminate every single one—and find the source of each one—or else the restaurant you piece of work for will be shut downward.

Hither's what you need to practice:

• On every practice test or question set that you take, marker every question that you're fifty-fifty 20% unsure virtually.
• When you lot grade your test or quiz, review every single question that y'all marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you lot guessed a question correctly, y'all'll make sure to review information technology.
• In a notebook, write down:
       #1: the gist of the question
       #2: why you missed it, and
       #3: what yous'll do to avoid that mistake in the futurity.
  Have split sections past question type (vocab questions, large picture questions, inference questions, etc).

It'south not enough to but think about information technology and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You take to think hard nearly why you specifically failed on this question.

By taking this structured arroyo to your mistakes, you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why.

No excuses when information technology comes to your mistakes.

Always Get Deeper—Why Did You Miss a Reading Question?

Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't get this question right." That'south a cop out.

Always take it one step further—what specifically did you miss, and what exercise you take to improve in the futurity?

Hither are some examples of common reasons you miss a Reading question, and how you take the analysis i stride further:

Emptying: I couldn't eliminate plenty incorrect answer choices, or I eliminated the correct answer.

One step further: Why couldn't I eliminate the answer choice during the test? How tin can I eliminate respond choices like this in the futurity?

Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or answered for the wrong thing.

Ane step further: Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the time to come to avoid this?

Vocab: I didn't know what the cardinal word meant.

One step further: What discussion was this? What is the definition? Are in that location other words in this question I didn't know?

Get the idea? Yous're actually digging into understanding why y'all're missing questions.

Yep, this is hard, and information technology's draining, and information technology takes work. That'southward why well-nigh students who study ineffectively don't improve.

Many people don't know the correct fashion to study. Of the people who practise, very few will diligently apply the right methods, mean solar day in, and solar day out, with subject.

But you're unlike. Only by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more than than other students. And if you employ these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll meliorate more than than other students also.

Reviewing mistakes is and so important that in PrepScholar, for every one of our 7,000+ practice questions, nosotros explicate in item how to get the correct answer, and why incorrect answers are wrong. Nosotros as well point out bait answers and then that you can you can learn the tricks that the Sabbatum plays on test takers like you.

Bonus Tip: Re-Solve the Question Before Reading the Answer Caption

When you lot're reviewing practice questions, the first thing you lot probably practice is read the answer explanation and at virtually reflect on it a little.

This is a little too easy. I consider this passive learning—you're not actively engaging with the mistake you fabricated.

Instead, attempt something different—find the right respond choice (A-D), but don't expect at the explanation. Instead, try to re-solve the question once over over again and endeavor to get to the correct reply.

This will often be hard. Yous couldn't solve it the first time, then why could you solve it the second fourth dimension around?

But this time, with less time pressure, you might spot a new reason to eliminate the wrong answer choice, or something else volition pop up. Something volition just "click" for you.

When this happens, what you learned will stick with you for 20 times longer than if you just read an reply explanation. I know this from personal experience. Because you've struggled with it and reached a quantum, you retain that information far better than if you just passively absorbed the data.

This is perfect for SAT Reading because y'all'll often miss a question considering of an incorrect interpretation of the text. By forcing yourself to get the right reply, you'll practice getting the correct interpretation of the text. Even improve, you'll be scrounging the passage for clues as to why the correct respond is correct, which is exactly what you need in your passage strategy to begin with.

Information technology'southward too like shooting fish in a barrel to simply read an answer caption and accept it go in ane ear and out the other. Y'all won't actually learn from your mistake, and you'll make that mistake over and over again.

Treat each wrong question like a puzzle. Struggle with each wrong answer for upward to 10 minutes. But then if y'all don't go it should you read the answer explanation.

Strategy 6: Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them

Reading passage questions might look similar, just they really test very different skills. At PrepScholar we believe the major passage skills to exist:

1. Large Picture/Master Point
2. Little Motion picture/Detail
3. Inference
4. Words and Phrases in Context
5. Citing Textual Evidence
6. Perspective
7. Analyzing Give-and-take Pick
8. Analyzing Text Structure
9. Analyzing Multiple Texts
10. Analyzing Quantitative Info

Whew—that'due south a lot of skills. That's a much more detailed breakdown than what appears at start glance, and what nearly books and courses offer.

Each of these question types uses unlike skills in how yous read and analyze a passage. They each crave a unlike method of prep and focused practice.

The SAT requires a lot of skills. Brand sure y'all know which ones are your weaknesses.

If you're like most students, you lot're amend at some areas in Reading than others. Yous might be meliorate at getting the Large Picture of a passage, compared to the Inference. Or you might exist actually stiff in vocabulary, but weak in understanding the function of sentences in a passage.

If you lot're like near students, you also don't accept an unlimited corporeality of time to study. This means for every hour you study for the Saturday, information technology needs to be the well-nigh effective hour possible.

In concrete terms, you need to find your greatest areas of comeback and work on those.

Too many students study the 'impaired' way. They just buy a book and read information technology cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're shocked.

I'm not.

Studying effectively for the Sat isn't like painting a business firm. You're not trying to embrace all your bases with a very sparse layer of understanding.

What these students did wrong was they wasted fourth dimension on subjects they already knew, and they didn't spend enough time on their weaknesses.

Instead, studying effectively for the Sat is like plugging up the holes of a leaky boat. You demand to find the biggest hole, and fill it. Then you find the next biggest hole, and you lot fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all.

How does this relate to Saturday Reading? You need to find the sub-skills that you lot're weakest in, and so drill those until y'all're no longer weak in them. Fix up the biggest holes.

Within reading, you need to figure out whether you take patterns to your mistakes. Is information technology that you don't get Inference questions? Or perchance y'all're really weak at interpreting details? Or from strategy ane: is it that you lot're running out of time in reading passages?

For every question that you miss, y'all need to place the blazon of question it is. When you notice patterns to the questions you lot miss, you lot then demand to find extra practice for this subskill.

Say y'all miss a lot of inference questions (this is typically the hardest blazon of question for students to get). Y'all need to find a style to become focused practice questions for this skill and then you can drill your mistakes.

Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our SAT prep programme, PrepScholar.

Nosotros designed our programme around the concepts in this article, because they actually work. When you lot start with PrepScholar, yous'll take a diagnostic that will make up one's mind your weaknesses in over forty SAT skills. PrepScholar so creates a written report program specifically customized for you.

To amend each skill, you'll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific expanse weaknesses, so your fourth dimension is always spent about effectively to enhance your score.

We also force y'all to focus on understanding your mistakes and learning from them. If you make the aforementioned mistake over and over over again, we'll call you out on it.

In that location's no other prep system out there that does information technology this way, which is why we go better score results than whatever other program on the market.

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Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction

This is a quick tip that many students ignore. Each passage comes with an italicized introduction, like this for the passage shown to a higher place:

This is a freebie. Information technology gives you lot context for the entire passage. By knowing that the passage is about "the state of affairs of women in English language society," you hit the ground running when yous read the very first sentence. This helps a lot.

Sometimes, the introduction alone can give you the answer for the "Big Moving picture" question almost what the master bespeak of the passage is.

Always always make sure that you lot read this introduction, no matter what passage method y'all use from Strategy iv.

Strategy viii: Exist Interested in the Passage Subject area Matter

The Sat has passages nigh a lot of weird topics. Victorian novels, underwater basket-weaving, and the evolution of gerbils are all off-white game.

It's unlikely that you're naturally thrilled almost all the subjects you'll read about.

This makes it easy to tune out when you're reading the passage. This makes it harder to answer the questions, which will make you more frustrated.

Instead, prefer this mindset: For the next 10 minutes, I am the world's most passionate person about whatsoever field of study this passage is about. This passage is the most frickin' exciting affair I could be reading right now.

For every single passage, be as excited every bit she is.

Forcefulness yourself to intendance virtually what the passage is telling you. Pretend that your life depends on agreement this passage. Maybe you're about to give a lecture on this subject field. Or someone's holding a puppy hostage if you don't answer plenty questions correctly.

Or your crush turns out to be a huge mid-18th century English literature fan, so you pay rapt attention to every unmarried word.

When I was preparing for the SAT in high schoolhouse, I took this and so far to the extreme that I ended up genuinely fascinated past whatever the passage was telling me most. I retrieve reading a passage about volcanic activity and thinking, "Wow, I'm actually glad I just learned this." (I know this sounds crazy.)

If yous stay engaged while reading, you'll sympathize the passage so much better, and you lot'll respond questions with way more accuracy.

Strategy 9: Don't Spend Time on Vocab

Vocab typically gets fashion besides much attention from students. It feels good to study vocab flashcards, because information technology seems like you're making progress. "I studied 1,000 vocab words—this must mean I improved my score!"

This is why other test prep programs love instruction you lot vocab—it feels like they're didactics yous something useful worth your coin, but it's not obvious that vocab really isn't helping your score.

Fortunately, vocab doesn't play a large function in your Sat Reading score anymore. This is especially truthful in the current SAT. They've completely taken out Judgement Completion questions, and the words that you have to clarify in context are usually pretty mutual.

Here are examples of words that you need to sympathise in context in the current SAT:

• ambivalent
• clashes
• convey
• plastic
• postulate

These are somewhat advanced words, merely they're nowhere near the level of the words you used to have to know, like "bizarre," "diatribes," "platitudes," and "progenitor."

Higher Board lowered the accent on vocab because of complaints that memorizing esoteric vocab was useless in college success and career success. Instead, it'due south now asking you to effigy out the meaning of more than common words the way the author intended.

For example, "plastic" can mean "malleable," "artificial," or "sculptural." Just ane of these is correct in the context of the passage.

This doesn't mean that vocab is totally useless. For one, SAT Writing still has a few vocab questions (read more about this in my Perfect SAT Writing guide). Furthermore, sometimes knowing the definition of the words in context is helpful.

Here are a few tips on what to larn, and how to learn vocab effectively.

Beginning, I've written a super detailed guide on the best fashion to report SAT vocabulary. This method makes your studying much more than efficient so y'all retain words longer and engage with the most difficult vocab most frequently.

2d, you need to take notes on vocab words that you don't know that you encounter in your practise questions. Don't just focus on the right answers—understand the definition of wrong answers as well.

Simply have notes from official SAT tests. It's hard to predict what words the SAT will use, and the SAT doesn't often echo words from previous tests. But the official free practice tests from the Official Study Guide that we integrate in our PrepScholar plan are the best sources.

Strategy 9B: Don't Spend Time Reading Books or Magazines

Over the many years I've studied for tests or run a examination prep company, I've heard this advice for Sat Reading: "Read great novels and well-written magazines, similar in the New York Times or the Atlantic. This will assist with reading comprehension."

I hate this communication.

A test similar SAT Reading is very specific. It tests reading comprehension in very specific and formulaic ways, as I showed with all the question types in Strategy 3.

Reading for general leisure does NOT train y'all effectively for the test. You're not exercising the same skills y'all need on the test, nor is it goal-driven enough to assist you make progress.

This terrible advice is like saying you lot tin train for a swim run across by standing in the shower for longer. Yes, by beingness in the shower, you lot'll exist in water, just similar you will in the swimming puddle. Simply you're non using the same skills.

Yes, if you take a lifetime of stiff reading, with thousands of hours of leisure reading experience, you will do better on Sabbatum Reading. Just right now, reading general material won't help you efficiently.

Take your extra fourth dimension and do Sabbatum Reading practice questions instead.

Strategy 10: Stop With Extra Time and Double Check

Your goal at the end of all this work is to get so practiced at Sabbatum Reading that you solve every question and have actress time left over at the end of the section to recheck your piece of work.

In loftier school, I was able to finish a Reading section in about threescore% of the fourth dimension allotted. For SAT Reading, this means finishing all passages and 52 questions in 40 minutes.

This ways I have a whopping 25 minutes left over to recheck my answers two times over.

How did I get so fast?

#i: I have an efficient reading strategy that works best for me. Namely, I skim the passage and work through the questions afterward.

#two: Through a lot of difficult piece of work, I have a strong instinct for the test. I understand the test so well that when I read a question, I can predict the answer within a few seconds. I can dominion out wrong answers instantly because they just feel wrong. I've surveyed thousands of questions and understood every single Sat skill deeply to design PrepScholar, so I tin typically sympathise exactly what the College Board is asking.

Kind of like Neo seeing code in The Matrix.

Here are some time benchmarks that might help:

• You should finish skimming a long passage inside iii minutes.
• Each passage question should take yous no more than 30 seconds.

If you tin can do this well, you lot'll end the entire section in 40 minutes, leaving a lot of time to double bank check.

What's the best manner to double cheque your work? I have a reliable method that I follow:

• Double cheque any questions yous marked that y'all're unsure of. Try difficult to eliminate answer choices. If it's a reading passage question, make sure that the passage supports your answer.

• If I'thou 100% sure I'm correct on a question, I mark it as such and never wait at it again. If I'thousand not sure, I'll come up back to it on the tertiary laissez passer.

• At to the lowest degree two minutes before fourth dimension'south up, I chop-chop double check that I bubbled the answers correctly. I try to practise this all at once so as non to waste fourth dimension looking back and along between the test book and the answer sheet. Go v at a time ("A D B C B") for more speed.

If you notice yourself spending more than thirty seconds on a problem and aren't clear how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the side by side question. Even though y'all demand a near perfect raw score for an 800, don't exist agape to skip. You tin come up dorsum to it later, and for at present it'south more important to get equally many points as possible.

Quick Tip: Bubbles Answers

Hither's a bubbling tip that volition relieve you two minutes per section.

When I first started test taking in high school, I did what many students exercise: later on I finished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and filled it in. Then I solved the next question. Finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question two, chimera in answer two. And and then forth.

This actually wastes a lot of time. Y'all're distracting yourself between two singled-out tasks—solving questions, and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to dissimilar areas of the test.

Hither's a ameliorate method: solve all your questions first in the book, then bubble all of them in at in one case.

This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two dissimilar tasks. You too eliminate devil-may-care entry errors, like if you skip question vii and chimera in question eight's answer into question 7's slot.

By saving simply ten seconds per question, you get back 200 seconds on a section that has 20 questions. This is huge.

Notation: If you utilise this strategy, you should already exist finishing the section with ample extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of fourth dimension before you take the run a risk to bubble in the answer choices all at one time.

Strategy 11: Be Ready for Turbulence in Scores

Now you know what information technology takes to achieve perfection in SAT Reading.

You know the all-time strategies to use for tackling the passage. You know how to identify your weaknesses and learn from them. You know how to salve time, and you know to stay engaged while reading a passage.

Even despite all this, sometimes a passage just won't click with you.

Of all SAT sections, I notice that Reading has the most volatile score. How y'all vibe with a passage has a big bear upon on your score. You might go a string of questions incorrect merely considering y'all couldn't really understand what the passage was really virtually. This doesn't happen on Math or Writing.

No matter what happens, you demand to keep calm and keep working.

You lot might swing from an 800 on ane practice test to a 710 on another. Don't permit that faze y'all. Don't get-go doubting all the hard piece of work you've put in.

Keep a calm head, and, like ever, piece of work difficult on reviewing your mistakes.

This might even happen on the real SAT. Yous might get beneath your target score and be crestfallen.

Option yourself upwards. This happens. If you lot've consistently been getting 800's on practise tests, you should have the test again and try to score higher. Very likely, you will. And because most schools nowadays superscore the SAT, yous can combine that new 800 with your other sections for an crawly SAT score.

In Overview

Those are the main strategies I have for you to ameliorate your Sat Reading score to an 800. If you're scoring above a 600 right now, with hard piece of work and smart studying, you lot can raise information technology to a perfect Sabbatum Reading score.

Fifty-fifty though we covered a lot of strategies, the chief point is still this: you need to understand where y'all're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no fault ignored.

Here's a recap of all the strategies, in case y'all want to become back and review any:

Strategy 1: Empathise Your Loftier Level Weakness: Time Management or Passage Strategy
Strategy 2: Learn to Eliminate three Wrong Answers
Strategy three: Predict the Answer Before Reading the Reply Choices
Strategy 4: Experiment with Passage Reading Strategies and Find the Best for You
Strategy 5: Sympathise Every Single Mistake You Make
Strategy six: Observe Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them
Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction
Strategy 8: Exist Interested in the Passage Discipline Matter
Strategy nine: DON'T Spend Time on Vocab
Strategy x: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check
Strategy 11: Be Ready for Turbulence in Scores

Keep reading for more resources on how to boost your Sabbatum score.

What's Next?

We take a lot more useful guides to enhance your SAT score.

Read our complete guide to a perfect 1600, written by me, a perfect scorer.

Read our accompanying guide to a 800 on SAT Math.

Learn how to write a perfect-scoring 12 SAT essay, step by step.

Want to improve your Saturday score by 160 points? We take the industry's leading SAT prep program. Built past Harvard grads and SAT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through avant-garde statistics, and so customizes your prep program to you and so y'all get the nearly effective prep possible.

I congenital the PrepScholar program based on the principles in this article—the principles that worked for me and thousands of our students. I'm confident they'll also work with you.

Check out our 5-day costless trial today:

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About the Author

Every bit co-founder and head of product pattern at PrepScholar, Allen has guided thousands of students to success in Sat/ACT prep and college admissions. He's committed to providing the highest quality resources to assist you lot succeed. Allen graduated from Harvard Academy summa cum laude and earned two perfect scores on the Saturday (1600 in 2004, and 2400 in 2014) and a perfect score on the Deed. Y'all can also notice Allen on his personal website, Shortform, or the Shortform blog.

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Source: https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-800-on-sat-reading-10-strategies-by-a-perfect-scorer

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