【SAT高分系列】SAT阅读满分技能（3）

Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction

技巧7：阅读斜体的文章介绍

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

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

Sometimes, the introduction alone can give you the answer for the "Big Picture" question about what the main point of the passage is.

Always always make sure that you read this introduction, no matter what passage method you use from Strategy 4.

Strategy 8: Be Interested in the Passage Subject Matter

技巧8：对文章的主题感兴趣

The SAT has passages about a lot of weird topics. Victorian novels, underwater basket-weaving, and the evolution of gerbils are all fair game.

It's unlikely that you're naturally thrilled about 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, adopt this mindset: For the next 10 minutes, I am the world's most passionate person about whatever subject this passage is about.

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

Force yourself to care about what the passage is telling you. Pretend that your LIFE depends on understanding this passage. Maybe you're about to give a lecture on this subject. Or someone's holding a puppy hostage if you don't answer enough questions correctly.

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

When I was preparing for the SAT in high school, I took this so far to the extreme that I ended up genuinely fascinated by whatever the passage was telling me about. I remember reading a passage about Native American life and thinking, "Wow, I'm really glad I just learned this." (I know this sounds crazy.)

If you stay engaged while reading, you'll understand the passage so much better, and you'll answer questions with way more accuracy.

Strategy 9: DON'T Spend Time on Vocab

技巧9：不要在词汇上浪费时间

Vocab typically gets way too much attention from students. It feels good to study vocab flashcards, because it 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 program slove teaching you vocab - it feels like they're teaching you something useful worth your money, but it's not obvious that vocab actually isn't helping your score.

Fortunately, vocab doesn't play a big role in your SAT Reading score anymore. This is especially true in the redesigned 2016 SAT. They've completely taken out Sentence Completion questions, and the words that you have to analyze in context are usually pretty common.

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

ambivalent

clashes

convey

plastic

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

College Board lowered the emphasis on vocab because of complaints that memorizing esoteric vocab was useless in college success and career success. Instead, it's now asking you to figure out the meaning of more common words the way the author intended.

For example, "plastic" can mean "malleable," "artificial," or "sculptural". Only one of these is right 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 learn,and how to learn vocab effectively.

First, I've written a super detailed guide on the best way to study SAT vocabulary. This method makes your studying much more efficient so you retain words longer and engage with the most difficult vocab most often.

Second, you need to take notes on vocab words that you don't know that you see in your practice questions. Don't just focus on the right answers - understand the definition of wrong answers as well.

Only take notes from official SAT tests. It's hard to predict what words the SAT will use, and the SAT doesn't often repeat words from previous tests. But the official free practice tests or from the Official Study Guide that we integrate in our Prep Scholar program are the best sources.

Strategy 10: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check

技巧10：留时间检查

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

In high school, I was able to finish a Reading section in about 60% of the time allotted. For SAT Reading, this means finishing all 5 passages and 52 questions in 40 minutes.

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

How did I get so fast?

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

2) Through a lot of hard 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 rule out wrong answers instantly because they just feel wrong. I've surveyed thousands of questions and understood every single SAT skill deeply to design Prep Scholar, so I can typically understand 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 within 3 minutes.

Each passage question should take you no more than 30 seconds.If you can do this well, you'll finish the entire section in 40 minutes, leaving a lot of time to double check.

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

Double check any questions you marked that you're unsure of. Try hard to eliminate answer choices. If it's a reading passage question, make sure that the passage supports your answer.

If I'm 100% sure I'm right on a question, I mark it as such and never look at it again. If I'm not sure, I'll come back to it on the third pass.

At least 2 minutes before time's up, I rapidly double check that I bubbled the answers correctly. I try to do this all at once so as not to waste time looking back and forth between the test book and the answer sheet. Go 5 at a time ("A D B C B") for more speed.If you notice yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a problem and aren't clear how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the next question. Even though you need a near perfect raw score for an 800, don't be afraid to skip. You can come back to it later, and for now it's more important to get as many points as possible.

Quick Tip: Bubbling Answers

Here's a bubbling tip that will save you 2 minutes per section.

When I first started test taking in high school, I did what many students do: after 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 2, bubble in answer 2. And soforth.

This actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct 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 different areas of the test.

Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, then bubble all of them in at once.

This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You also eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot.

By saving just 10 seconds per question, you get back 200 seconds on a section that has 20 questions. This is huge.

Note: If you use this strategy, you should already be finishing the section with ample extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of time before you have the chance to bubble in the answer choices all at once.

Strategy 11: Be Ready for Turbulence in Scores

技巧11：做好分数上下浮动的准备

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

You know the best strategies to use for tackling the passage. You know how to identify your weaknesses and learn from them. You know how to save 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 find that Reading has the most volatile score. How you vibe with a passage has a big impact on your score. You might get a string of questions wrong just because you couldn't really understand what the passage was really about. This doesn't happen on Math or Writing.

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

You might swing from an 800 on one practice test to a 710 on another. Don't let that faze you. Don't start doubting all the hard work you've put in.

Keep a calm head, and, like always, work hard on reviewing your mistakes.

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

Pick yourself up. This happens. If you've consistently been getting 800's on practice tests, you should take the test again and try to score higher. Very likely, you will. And because most schools nowadays Super score the SAT, you can combine that new 800 with your other sections for an awesome SAT score.