The Best Way to Read the Passage in SAT Reading

How to Read the Critical Reading Passages

Here's a tried and true method for reading passages that we recommend for most students. It
uses effective methods to understand the important points of the passage before you even
read it, and it helps you save time digesting the passage.

Step 1
A good standard approach is to glance over the questions before you begin to read the
passages. This way, you'll have a sense of what you're looking for and where to focus your
attention.
You can circle the Big Picture / Main Point questions right off the bat, so you can leave these for
the end, once you're finished reading and comprehending the passage as a whole.
As for the specific line questions, you can make a mark on the specific lines referenced and
pay special attention to them when reading.
This is not to suggest that you won't be reading the whole passage; instead, it's a way to know
what you're looking for before you start. While this is an approach that works well for most
students, you should also feel free to use the method that works best for you.

Step 2
Quickly read the information blurb that comes at the very beginning of the passage. This
may help you situate the passage in context. When is the author writing, for instance? Is she an
author of fiction, a scientist, or a historian?
Having this context at the beginning may help you begin to have an understanding of the tone,
style, and purpose of the passage.

Step 3
Now, go ahead and read the passage. You should read quickly, even skimming for important
features. These include the last line of the introduction (usually the thesis of the passage),
opening sentences of paragraphs, and the conclusion.
Also look out for transitional words and phrases that might mark a shift in or continuation of
ideas. This approach will be much more helpful and time-saving than trying to understand each
and every word.
Another consideration is your own mindset. You probably know that being interested in a
subject helps you pick it up faster. You may think you can't help what you're interested in, but
actually you have a great deal of control over your mindset. If you try to approach the
passages being really interested in, even fascinated by, the topic at hand, then you'll be able to
speed up your reading and improve your retention.
You might be skeptical, but the SAT actually can have some pretty intriguing, random
information, and they have such a great range you're likely to be interested in some, if not all, of
the passages.

Step 4
On to answering the questions. Leave the ones you circled for the end. It can be helpful to
predict your own answer before actually looking at the answer choices. They are designed and

worded so that they all sound plausible, so they could distract you from your original
understanding of the question.
It can also be distracting to go back and forth between the test booklet and bubble sheet, so
it's a good idea to answer the entire set of questions in your test booklet and then transfer all
your answers to the bubble sheet in one chunk.
The detail questions will go in order with the passages, so the first detail question might refer to a
line near the beginning of the passage and continue in order after that. They're not all mixed up
in random order, but rather coincide with the flow of the passage.

Step 5
Once you've answered the other questions, you can go back to the general purpose questions
you circled. You should have your best sense of the passage at this point, after you've read it
and answered other questions about it.
Finally, you can go ahead and carefully transfer your answers to the bubble sheet.
These 5 steps are an effective approach for most students reading and answering questions on
the Critical Reading passages. If you've never tried this kind of reading strategy
before, definitely try it out on your next practice test and see if your score improves. This is
especially effective if you find that you keep running out of time!
Let's discuss some other tips and strategies that are helpful to keep in mind.

Be on the lookout for SAT "red herrings"!

Tips and Strategies for Critical Reading

Look to Eliminate Wrong Answers
None of the answers will be glaringly wrong. In fact, they're worded in such a way that they'll
often all seem plausible! This means you'll have to play interception on your own brain. It may
be easily distracted by answers that seem sort of right, but you have to halt your distracted
thought process in its steps. If you find yourself overly rationalizing or justifying an answer, it's
probably not the correct one.
There is only one 100% correct answer, and it won't cause you too much overthinking.
Generally, wrong answers are too specific, too broad, describe a relationship in reverse order,
or just present a totally unrelated concept. This article goes into further detail about how to
eliminate 4 wrong answers in order to land on the one 100% correct one.
A good rule of thumb is to avoid extremes. Words like "never" or "always" are not usually present
in the correct answer. But to follow my own advice, I should never say never!
Another good mindset to use is one that looks for evidence.

Back Up Your Answers With Evidence

Don't just choose an answer that "feels" right - instead, make sure you can back up all your
answers with evidence direct from the text.
None of these questions require you to have any pre-existing knowledge of the topic. Instead,
they're testing your reading comprehension. All your answers should be proven and supported
by the passage. Even if the answer were to be factually inaccurate (don't worry, it won't be),
the questions are still completely about the passage, not about knowledge you already have.

Know Your Literary Terms and Techniques

Critical Reading will test your understanding of literary terms and techniques like imagery,
symbolism, simile, metaphor, rhetorical questions, idioms, irony, foreshadowing, hyperbole, motif,
theme, style, and tone, among others.
Make sure you don't just know the definition of these terms, but how to apply and find them in
something you read. It's one thing to know that a tone can be somber, hopeful, or suspicious it's another to determine the tone of a given passage.
Test prep will help you get better and better at this, along with reading and analyzing as much
as you can in and out of the classroom.

Study Vocabulary
As mentioned above, the vocabulary questions based on passages will not necessarily test your
understanding of obscure big words, especially not on the new SAT. Instead, they might be
common words that are used in an unusual way within the context of the passage.
This means you should practice interpreting meaning in context, along with understanding
thedenotations (definitions) and connotations (what words imply or suggest) of words.
To give a simplistic example, note how the phrase, "Nice job," can have two very different
connotations in these two contexts.
1. "Nice job," Kathy snickered to her friends, after tripping you in the cafeteria.
2. "Nice job!" Kathy said admiringly, as you showed her the bowl you made in ceramics.
Understanding words, as well as tone, is all about context. Given these steps and strategies, how
can you strengthen your Critical Reading skills?

Practice, Practice, Practice

The Critical Reading section on the SAT is not always so closely aligned with your high school
English classes. Your classes may encourage you to be creative and support all kinds of
interpretations and nuanced discussions.
Not so on the multiple choice SAT. There is only one absolutely correct answer. You can
strengthen your ability to read and answer questions quickly with serious test prep, which will not
only help your reading comprehension skills, but also your time management and pacing.

If you're applying as a humanities or social sciences major, you especially want to make sure
you score highly on the Critical Reading section of the SAT. Take practice tests, identify your
weaknesses, understand your mistakes, and practice often and effectively so you can score
highly on Critical Reading. With the right approach and sufficient test prep, you could even
achieve a perfect 800.