Strategies for SAT Reading Comprehension

The SAT Critical Reading test is misunderstood by most people and they fail to properly prepare for the test. But that doesn’t have to be your situation.

Here are strategies for you to improve your SAT Critical Reading comprehension score:

Strategy #1 Understand Its Parts

The Critical Reading Test is basically a reading comprehension test with sentence completion problems thrown in for good measure. So, it is important that you practice reading, writing and improve your vocabulary.

A good source of reading material is periodicals like Time and Newsweek. Reading these periodicals serves two purposes:

You will be informed on current events for the essay portion of the SAT.
You will be practicing with articles similar to the ones used on the SAT.

Strategy #2 Improve Your Vocabulary

Start working on your vocabulary, now. It not only will help you with your SAT or ACT test; it will help you with school now and in college. An expanded vocabulary improves your intelligence, your speaking and your image. You can’t lose by working on your vocabulary.

A great start for improving your vocabulary is to get yourself a good dictionary like the American Heritage Dictionary. This is one of the dictionaries used by the SAT writers when writing SAT questions. If you don’t have the American Heritage Dictionary, buy one. It is a great investment that you will use in college.

Another great way to improve your vocabulary is to join an email service that sends you SAT specific words at regular intervals. There are several vocabulary services available but many charge a membership fee. A good free service is at MrcauseyTutors.

Strategy #3 Practice Your Writing

The best way to solidify your reading and your new vocabulary words is to use them in your writing. You should make every effort to use your new vocabulary in your IMing, your text messages, and your emails. Your family and friends will be impressed while at the same time you are creating a vocabulary memory.