How should you approach SAT critical reading passages and questions to maximize your score? There are numerous approaches, each favoring different test-taker characteristics, and some particularly preferred by specific test-prep providers. Take a look at some of these approaches and see which might be right for you.
1. Straight-Ahead
A. Read the passage from start to finish, focusing closely and probing the ideas and details presented.
B. Answer the questions in order. For each question, form your own answer and locate one or more passage excerpts that justify it, before looking at the answer choices. Select the answer choice that best matches your own answer.
Try this approach if: You are a moderate or fast reader with strong comprehension and good retention of details who recalls where to look in the passage to locate the justification for the right answer.
2. Straight-Ahead with Notetaking
A. Read the passage from start to finish, taking notes on key ideas and details, underlining and circling in the text, and adding notation and short phrases in the margins, to enhance your comprehension and retention.
B. Answer the questions in order. For each question, refer to the passage, guided by your notes, and form your own answer based on one or more passage excerpts that justify it, before looking at the answer choices. Select the answer choice that best matches your own answer.
Try this approach if: You are a moderate or fast reader who enhances comprehension and retention by taking notes while reading the passage.
3. Question Seeding
A. Read the questions (but not the answer choices) first, underlining and circling in each question any line references, quotations, italicized words/phrases, and passage-specific detail words. This will help imprint these details as important to watch for as you read the passage, which is next.
B. Read the passage from start to finish, paying close attention any time a word or phrase rings a bell as something you noted in the questions.
C. Answer the questions in order. For each question, form your own answer and locate one or more passage excerpts that justify it, before looking at the answer choices. Select the answer choice that best matches your own answer.
Try this approach if: You are a slow or moderate reader who enhances comprehension, focus, and retention by taking notes on questions before reading the passage.
4. Easter Eggs
A. Scan the questions in order first. For each question that refers to a specific line or lines, mark its question number in the passage margin next to the lines it refers to. Begin reading from the start of the passage.
B. Read until a line or two past the next question number you marked in the margin. Read the question and, before looking at the answer choices, form your own answer based on what you just read. Return to the portion of the passage you just read to locate the excerpt that justifies your answer. Review the answer choices for the answer choice that best matches your own answer. Repeat this step (B) until you have read the entire passage and answered all of the line-specific questions.
C. Answer the remaining (not line-specific) questions in order. For each question, form your own answer and locate one or more passage excerpts that justify it, before looking at the answer choices. Select the answer choice that best matches your own answer.
Try this approach if: You are a slow or moderate reader who enhances comprehension, focus, and retention by answering each line-specific question immediately after reading the section it refers to.
5. Questions-First
Try this approach if: You don't want to take my recommendation that you not try this approach, because, while it can save time on line-specific questions, it can make comprehending the passage more difficult, and therefore lose points on general questions.
6. Random Guessing
Try this approach if: You enjoy making abstract patterns on Scantron answer sheets.
