Hi! I would like to share my story about mastering the SAT Critical Reading section to help others achieve a great score on the CR. There are many great guides on College Confidential and I have learned much from them, so not all of this information will be new. However, there is much I have to say that I feel others can benefit from so I will begin. The story begins with the second paragraph and continues to the end of the third; the guide begins at the beginning of the fourth paragraph.嗨!我在这里想通过分享自己奋战SAT阅读的故事来帮助大家在CR上取得理想的分数.college confidential上有许多的引导让我受益匪浅,所以我的经验可能不是最新的.然而,我觉得这篇文章能够给大家带来帮助,下面我就开始我的分享.故事发布在2,3大段,而我的经验从第四段开始.

 

It started with the PSAT in my sophomore year of high school. I had eagerly taken it to see how much I would have to study for the junior PSAT to earn National Merit Semifinalist recognition. Scores arrived back in December and I opened the paper to find out that I had scored a 203 composite with a 60 CR. I was worried over this score and if I would be able to even improve it at all. Thankfully, I was allowed to focus more on my schoolwork throughout sophomore year and the topic of SAT did not come up until summer…My parents forced me to take an SAT prep class but my Critical Reading section remained in the low 600s, not improving at all. It was when I first entered the realm of College Confidential that I realized the vast abundance of SAT preparation materials I had available. I quickly ordered a copy of the Official SAT Study Guide and prepared to use the methods online to score 700+ on the CR. 我的故事得从高中二年级的PSAT说起.我之所以急切地参加这个是为了看看自己还要为获得国家优秀青年奖做多少努力.12月刚出分,我打开成绩单发现自己取得了203的总分,在阅读部分只有60.我对自己的成绩非常也担心自己是否能够再取得进步.谢天谢地，第二年我在我的功课上更加的专注而SAT直到夏天才进入我的计划。在父母的强迫下，我上了SAT的准备课程但是我的阅读部分的分数一直停留在600出头，没有很大的提高。就是在这个时候我踏入了college confidential的大门，并意识到了我其实拥有非常丰富的SAT备考材料。我迅速地预订了一本SAT og并准备用网站上的方法来冲击700+的高分。

 

Once I had received the famed Blue Book, I took timed sections of the Critical Reading to gauge my score. I was ecstatic to find that I was already starting to improve after taking a few practice sections of critical reading. I utilized strategies from CC such as underlining sentences from the passages as shown in the questions asked. I tried to complete the questions as quickly and accurately as I could so I would have more time on the real SAT. I was improving, but I was stuck in the high 600s to low 700s range, becoming more and more frustrated with my score. I was sometimes extremely knowledgeable about all of the vocabulary words on the practice SAT, while at other times I was clueless with 5 or more vocabulary words on another practice SAT. Time flew by…I had been studying for 2 months and the October 9 SAT was just a few weeks away. I panicked; I had not been able to raise my CR score much since getting it to the low 700s range. I was wondering why the famed Critical Reading strategies on College Confidential were not helping me as much as I thought they should. In the end, however, I realized that the best strategy would not be a specific one-size-fits-all strategy, but a blend of favorite strategies to merge into a personal strategy. At the end of this practice with my new, personal strategy, I was more confident going into the real SAT and I finished off my SAT preparation with an 800 on the Critical Reading section. 

trategy that is the best for you.我一拿到这本著名的蓝皮书，并用几个计时的部分对自己进行了估分。我惊喜地发现在做了几个部分的阅读之后我已经开始提高了。我使用了CC上的方法，诸如在问题所对应的句子下划线。我尝试着用最大的速度和最大的准确率去做题以便能在真实考试中有更充裕的时间。的确我在不停地进步，但是仍然卡在了700分上下，对于我的分数，我变得越来越沮丧。有时候我认识一套SAT练习题上的所有词汇，但有时我却会遇到5个或者5个以上的生词。时间飞逝，我已经学习了有两个月有余，而且距离10月9号的考试只有几个学期里。我感到十分恐慌，自从我进入700出头这个分数段以后，我就一直没能再提高我的阅读分数了。我纳闷为什么这么著名的批判性阅读方法没有起到我期望的效果。可是最终，我意识到最好的阅读方法不是所谓的一成不变的，而是许多拿手的方法组合在一起形成的。最终凭借着这种我个人研究出的万能的阅读方法，我自己地走进了考场并在阅读部分取得了800分的满分成绩。

 

Now for the technical matters of how I improved my SAT score. I bought the Official SAT Study Guide and did about 7 of the practice tests from there. The number of practice tests taken will vary from person to person, but one will usually have to do a good number of practice tests to achieve a high score on Critical Reading and other sections. Also, just a reminder, but remember that no one strategy will work for everyone! If this strategy doesn’t work for you, try another one until you develop your own personal s现在讲讲我去的SAT高分的技巧吧。我买了OG并做了其中的7套测试题。做测试题的数量可以因人而异，但是一个人想要在sat中取得高分必须做一定量的练习题。此外，一个小小的提醒，没有万能的方法。如果一种方法不适合你，尝试着另外一种吧，直到你拥有适合你自己的一套。

 

1) I took one or two practice sections of CR from the Blue Book daily. I timed these to simulate the real testing situation since one may get nervous on the real day and use up more time on the questions.

1）我每天从OG中抽取一到两个section的阅读。我计时来模拟真实考试的情景，因为人常常会在真实考试时感到紧张，从而在一个问题上花比平时更多的时间。

 

2) I looked over my correct and wrong answers and tried to rationalize why the correct answer is correct for my wrong answers. After I did this I would then check the official explanations provided by College Board on their website.

2）我仔细回看了我做对和做错的选项，并尝试去弄清为什么正确的选项在我的错题中是符合的。这之后，我会去官网上查看官方给出的解释。 

 

3) For the Sentence Completions, I did NOT memorize a lot of vocabulary from Direct Hits or any other book, but I did learn the vocabulary that I did not know on the practice SATs from the Blue Book. I also learned strategies to determine the correct answer for the sentence completions. For example, I would look to see if the definition of a word was in the sentence, or if the sentence wanted words that were similar or contrasting by watching out for key words such as “although”, “however,” “like”, etc. However, if you are missing several words on the sentence completions, it would be beneficial to learn more words than just those available on the Official SAT Study Guide. This depends on how much time you have to study for the SAT.

3)对于句子填空部分，我并没有在Direct Hits或者其他书中背很多单词,但是我在做OG的SAT练习当中确实掌握了许多单词.例如,我会去看看单词在句子中是否体现了它的意思,或者句子想要通过“although”,“however”,“like”这样的词体现出它的近义词和反义词.然而,如果你总是在句子填空中出错,在OG伴侣中背一些单词会对你有所帮助.这都取决于你在sat上花的时间.

 

4) For the Reading Comprehension, I read the passage first if it was short and then looked at the questions, and I read the questions first for line numbers if the passage was long. I always read the short summary in the beginning of the passage to get some background information about the topic and what I should be reading about.

4)至于阅读理解题,碰到短文章, 我会先读全文再看题目.如果是长文章,我会根据行数提示来读.我总是会游览文章开头的简介,来了解文章的背景信息和内容.

 

5) For short passages, I just sped through the text and answered the questions with the text, choosing the answer directly supported by the text.

5)对于短文章,我只是浏览全文,根据上下文答题,并选择答案.

 

6) For longer passages, I looked forward to the questions to see if line numbers were mentioned. For the questions that did mention lines, I made sure to go back in the passage to bracket the line numbers. Doing this let me read the passage up to that certain part and look to the question to see if I could answer the question with the information I had just read.

6)对于长一点的文章,我提前看那些题目中提到行数的问题.对于这些提到行数的问题,我回到原文中,用括号标出这些行数.这样做有助于让我有重点地阅读文章,然后带着这些我所读到的信息去回答问题.

 

7) For the main idea and big picture questions, I answered those after reading the whole passage or paragraph, depending on if the question was asking about the overall passage or a paragraph.

7)对于那些文章主旨题,我会根据它们对应的全文或者段落,在读完整段文章或者段落后回答它们.

 

8) I made sure to predict an answer for the question by using the information solely in the passage. Please keep out your personal biases when answering the questions. Even if you don’t agree with the viewpoint of the author, just accept it as if it is the given truth. 

8)我确定自己用原文中的信息来回答问题.在回答问题是请抛开你们脑中的偏见.即使你并不赞同作者的观点,那就把它们当成一种假设的真理去接受.

 

9) Lastly, I played devil’s advocate a lot on these questions. When I narrowed the question answers down to 2, I would ask myself, “Why is this answer choice clearly WRONG?” I looked directly into the passage and if there was no support at all for the answer choice, I would eliminate it. Doing this helped me improve from the low 700s to the high 700s. Earlier on, I had been stuck between two answer choices and had chosen the one that I had “felt” was better. This is wrong. If the answer choice is not directly supported in the passage, it is incorrect. 

9)最近,我总是在做这些题的时候唱反调.当我把问题的答案排除到两个的时候,我会问自己,“为什么这些错误的选项是错误的呢?”我直接阅读全文,如果没有文章中的信息进行支持,我就会排除这个选项.这种方法是我从700分出头提高到了接近800.从前,我总是纠结于两个选项,然后选择一个我认为更好一点的选项.但这样做是错的.如果问题中的选项并没有被文章直接支持,那么它就是错的.

 

10) With all that being said, time management is a crucial part of this. The sentence completions should take less time (30 seconds or less) so you have more time to read the passages and answer those questions. Also, I like to bubble in my answers in my answer sheet as I go along, but others like to answer all the questions and then bubble the answers in the answer sheet. I think that bubbling in the answers as you go along is better so you don’t run out of time while bubbling in the answers in the last-minute frenzy, but this is up to you.

10)综上所述,时间分配是十分重要的.句子填空应该占用更少的时间(30秒或者更少),这样你就有更多时间去应付文章阅读和那些问题.此外,我喜欢一边回答问题一边涂答题卡,但是其他人喜欢回答完所有问题之后再去涂答题卡.我认为边答题边涂答题卡更好,因为这样你就不用在最后一分钟急急忙忙地去涂卡,但是用不用这种方法取决于你自己.

 

11) Overall, my best piece of advice that I can give you is to read this strategy, try it, and merge it or adapt it if it doesn’t work out the best way for you. No strategy can fit all people, so the best strategy in the end will be your own developed strategy.

11)总之,我能给的最大的建议就是让你了解我的方法,去尝试,与你自己结合,或者适应(如果这对你来说不是最好的方法)没有一种方法适合所有的人,所以最好的方法最终是你自己创造的.

 

With all of this being said, I wish you luck on the SAT. Do not fret if your scores don’t seem to improve at all. I was doing the Blue Book’s practice SATs and my Critical Reading scores were staying around 700. Somehow it just “clicked” after another test and I started understanding the reading comprehension questions a lot more and answering them more confidently and accurately. As long as you practice you will improve eventually.综上所述,我希望大家在SAT考试中好运.如果你的分数看上去提不高,请不要气恼.我在做SATOG的过程中，我的阅读分数始终徘徊在700上下，不知怎么的在一次练习后我突然开窍，我开始更加深入地了解SAT的出题，更有信心，更准确地回答它们。最终一句话，熟能生巧。

 

原作者:Apoc314     译者:苽熟の兯奏

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