For those who have taken the SAT / GRE / LSAT

Re: For those who have taken the SAT / GRE / LSAT

Ex SAT/LSAT tutor here:

I think guides need to be kept bare-bones if they are to be effective -- and the most important points need to be kept fresh. Otherwise it's like reading a guide on how to ride a bike, when really you need to just practice riding the darn thing. I think the best thing you can do is offer a few general guidelines, then take old tests and deconstruct why the answers are what they are relative to those guidelines. You'll find that you really don't need many guidelines to start nailing 720+ consistently.

Reading comprehension can be summarized as answering questions from a ridiculously literal perspective (if there's no literal evidence to support something, it will be wrong even if it "feels" right). IMO this is the single most important piece of advice you can offer.

The questions tend to be in chronological order relative to the text, so what I like to do is read the first question, then read up to that point and answer the question, then go onto the second question, then read ahead to the relevant point and answer that question, etc. Sometimes you can even get by without reading the entire passage.

Reading books to practice vocab / understand literature better is vague and won't help with the SAT (you're better off just finding a book that has historical lists of common SAT words).

I truly believe that's all there is to it. I'd still be happy to read what you've got if you wish to PM it etc.

Re: For those who have taken the SAT / GRE / LSAT

Studying latin stems is a good idea for vocabulary. They are relevant and people typically know more of them than they realize. Most of the words you don't know are not difficult to deconstruct with a simple background in Latin I.

Re: For those who have taken the SAT / GRE / LSAT

LSAT is my favorite light machine gun in battlefield 3

Re: For those who have taken the SAT / GRE / LSAT

writing an e-book about specific techniques isn't going to be easy at all
idk if you're writing an e-book to help people achieve good scores or help people understand what the reading section is like

anyhow if you're going for good score on reading

key things:
words you need to know (wordsmart was p. helpful for me)
setting a practice schedule for the month/2months prior to your SAT date
practicing the past 4-5 years of SAT reading sections (barrons, princeton rev, etc)
making sure to complete practice tests in ONE sitting, no getting up or taking breaks etc.. gotta get used to the environment & time constraint
reviewing mistakes on said practice exams
answer questions literally as rubix said - don't try to interpret too much.. the answers are all in the text - you don't need to dig into your brain to try and find the answer

paying attention to keywords/concepts in the reading sections so you don't waste time going back and forth

answering all the literal questions (easy go-fetch type of questions) first, and then answering all the conceptual questions (what was the author's intent, how does the author express this, etc..)

i dont remember much else lol but i did get a 800 so