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SAT Reasoning & Subject Tests

SAT Reasoning Test

Shekhar Niyogi tells us more about attempting the critical reading section in SAT

Attempting Critical Reading

An overview – Critical Reading section

Time	Content	Item types	Score
70 min. (two 25 minute sections and one 20 minute section)	Critical reading and sentence-level reading	Reading comprehension, sentence completions, and paragraph-length critical reading	200 to 800

The critical reading section includes short as well as long reading passages. Questions can be based on one, or sometimes two, reading passages. Some questions are not based on reading passages, but ask you to complete sentences.

The critical reading section measures:

Sentence Completions
Passage based Reading

Sentence Completion questions measure your:

Knowledge of the meanings of words
Ability to understand how the different parts of a sentence fit logically together

Suggestions:

Each sentence below has one or two blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Beneath the sentence are five words or sets of words labeled A through E. Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Passage-based Reading questions can be:

The reading questions on the SAT measure a student's ability to read and think carefully about several different passages ranging in length from about 100 to about 850 words. Passages are taken from a variety of fields, including the humanities, social studies, natural sciences, and literary fiction. They vary in style and can include narrative, argumentative, and expository elements. Some selections consist of a pair of related passages on a shared issue or theme that you are asked to compare and contrast.

The following kinds of questions may be asked about a passage:

Vocabulary in Context: These questions ask you to determine the meanings of words from their context in the reading passage.
Literal Comprehension: These questions assess your understanding of significant information directly stated in the passage.
Extended Reasoning: These questions measure your ability to synthesise and analyse information as well as to evaluate the assumptions made and the techniques used by the author. Most of the reading questions fall into this category. You may be asked to identify cause and effect, make inferences, recognise a main idea or an author's tone, and follow the logic of an analogy or an argument.

Approaching Passage-based Reading

Below are samples of the kind of reading passages and questions that may appear on your test. For each set of sample materials, you should:

read the passage carefully,
decide on the best answer to each question, and then
read the explanation for the correct answer.

Suggestions:

The passages are followed by questions based on their content; questions following a pair of related passages may also be based on the relationship between the paired passages. Answer the questions on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passages and in any introductory material that may be provided.

Some of the reading passages in the SAT are as short as a paragraph or two, about 100 words in length. You will also find one or more pairs of related short passages in each edition of the test. Such material can be followed by two to five questions that measure the same kinds of reading skills as are measured by the questions following longer passages.

Here are some tips on cracking the Critical Reading Section that gives many a student a hard time.

Strategy 1

As part of your SAT preparation, read the newspaper every day. Mark any words you don't understand and look them up in a dictionary. Highlight the key sentences and phrases that convey and emphasize the author's meaning. You can also read magazines and books, but I prefer newspapers because most articles are short, timely, and written at a reading level similar to what you'll encounter on the SAT test.

Strategy 2

Investigate and interrogate the text. This is what you'll have to do on the SAT test. Ask probing questions about your reading material. Is the author biased? What does the author imply without stating it directly? What are the author's assumptions? What is the tone of the article — informative? persuasive? entertaining?

Strategy 3

Select newspaper articles on things you know nothing about. Don't rely on the sports, fashion, or entertainment sections, but branch out into business, international affairs, and the metro sections. The less you know about the subject going in, the more you need to rely on the article itself for meaning. One of the biggest traps in the SAT Critical Reading section is that people make assumptions that aren't supported in the passage itself. If you bring prior knowledge with you to the test passage, that could prove to be a serious mistake. You must rely on the text, and nothing but the text.

Quite often, because of the dryness of the reading matter, it is easy to lose focus as the subject or content of the passage does not generate automatic interest and one can lapse into ennui. This is a huge risk. So you must focus on boring passages and be able to keep your concentration focused and be able to analyse and answer within the stipulated time.

The Critical Reading Section can seem to be a real challenge at the outset but with effective strategies to practice with, you will gain confidence of easing your way through them

(The author is an education and career consultant and counsellor for studies abroad.)

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Education Unlimited Inc.
27 B, Park Street
Flat F, 1st Floor
Kolkata (Calcutta) 700016
India
ph: +9133 22271173
alt: +9133 46027272
counsellor@educationunlimited.in