Operation “Soaring Eagle” : The SAT – Reading

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In this post, I’ll be covering everything you’ll need to know about the Reading sections you’ll face in the SAT. Broadly speaking, there are two types of questions you’ll face in the Reading sections:

• Sentence completion
• Comprehension based

Sentence Completion

A sentence completion question is nothing but a sentence with one or two blanks. Since the SAT is primarily an MCQ, you’ll be given 5 options and you have to choose the correct one. This question tests your vocabulary more than anything else. These questions are given in the beginning of any given section, unless the section has only comprehension type questions.

Now the ease with which someone can answer the sentence completion question varies from person to person. If you read extensively and also make it a point to look up new words in a dictionary as and when you encounter them, you might find most, if not all, of the questions absurdly easy. On the other hand, if you’re someone who’s averse to reading in all its forms, you can expect to face some trouble with this kind of question.

However, irrespective of whether you’re just brushing up, or starting from scratch, there is only one solution. Get yourself a good SAT Prep Book. Personally, I just used Barron’s. But there are several alternative such as the Princeton Review and Kaplan. I cannot vouch for them as I haven’t used them myself. Once you have obtained such a book, flip open the section on Word Lists – they give you an idea of what all words you’ll need to know the meanings of to do well in the sentence completion questions.

You might be taken aback at first by the sheer number of words which you will encounter. Some of them might have special marks next to them, which indicate that they are either high-frequency words or words which haven’t figured in any SAT yet, but have a high probability of doing so in future SATs.

Your job is very simple – by test day, have most, if not all, of those words firmly embedded in your brain. This means that you’ll have to set yourself a target of a word list a day or a word list every two days (depending on how much time you’ve got left before your SAT. Go through the words, try to understand, then retain the meaning in your memory. Go through them again before you go to bed or something, just to make sure they’re still there.

Comprehension Type

As the name suggests, comprehension type questions test your comprehension skills. The bottom line is that you need to be fast, and accurate, all at once. Usually, there can be anywhere from 2 to 10 questions linked to 1 or 2 passages. There are a few main types of question sets you’ll encounter:

• A short passage followed by a few questions
• A long passage followed by several questions
• 2 short-medium passages followed by several questions, including ones that ask you to compare and contrast between the passages
• 2 long passages with a similar question pattern as given in the point above

These are more or less the different set lengths of passage+question combinations you’ll encounter. Now the way to attack these questions is different for different kinds of people. Essentially, it comes down to your reading speed. And I’m not just talking about how fast you can blaze through the passage. I’m talking about how quick you can read the passage, and retain most, if not all, of the essence of what it tries to convey. I’m not talking about just a general idea of what the author wants to convey. I’m talking about specifics too.

The reason why this is important is because time is short in the Reading sections. You won’t have the time to go through the entire passage, read the questions, and then re-read the passage. Firstly, the questions for a particular passage are usually given in a logical sequence i.e. the first few questions will deal with the first few paragraphs of the passage. Also, the last few questions are sometimes reserved for the tougher questions, especially the compare and contrast type questions.

There is no point reading the passages so quick that you have to blindly refer back to the passage for each and every question. Ideally, you should be anticipating and forming questions in your mind as and when you’re going through the different parts of the passage. More often than not, you will end up guessing parts of, if not whole, questions given after the passage.

Your aim should be to read the passage as quickly and thoroughly as possible, so as to confidently demolish about 75% of the questions (which are usually easy), and leaving some time for re-reading specific portions of the passage to attack the tougher questions.

The passages usually cover a wide variety of topics: ethical issues, scholarly debates, descriptions of storied, stories. Be prepared to face the lot. Also, there may be several passages which are about American History. This should not be a cause for concern, because all you’ll ever need to know is already given in the passage. Just keep your speed up and your mind working.

Try to give a few practice sections, or a full SAT practice test as soon as possible, so that you can gauge how fast you are. In case you’re consistently falling short of time in the Reading sections, I’m afraid there’s little recourse apart from practice, practice and more practice. Basically, you’ll need to keep giving a number of timed Reading sections to help fine tune the speed v/s understanding balance – which is a very delicate one. You’ll eventually pick up pace. Test takers who have healthy reading habits will usually not experience this sort of an issue, which is another lesson to be learnt, although little can be done about it at this point. So regular practice, in its stead, is a good remedy for this situation.

On the other hand, if you find that you are consistently finishing with time to spare, but your accuracy is suffering, you probably need to take things a bit easier. There are 2 ways to go about this. You can either:

• slow down a bit, spend more time on the tougher questions, and finish with less time to spare
• maintain your speed, but mark those questions which you’re doubtful about for later review

Since you can’t flip between sections during the SAT, you’ll have to review those questions before the proctor declares time for that particular section. However, there is one disadvantage to the second method – you’ll probably have to re-read bits of the passage, especially if the question being reviewed doesn’t refer to the passage you last read. Again, you’ll have to use your discretion here.

Also, there are several guys who’ve told me that concentration is a big issue while reading the passages. Now, first, you need to realize that the SAT is the first of many steps you’ll be taking towards securing a spot in your dream college. Give it the importance it deserves, and steel yourself for the task. When you see those passages, you should ideally be experiencing tunnel vision, or any other equivalent. All other stimuli should be blocked out. If you’re unlucky, you might end up in an uncomfortable, noisy center. None of that should affect you. Your only priority should be getting the questions right. And that can only when the paper has your unwavering attention.

Do all of the above and the Reading sections should be a piece of cake. The next post will deal with the Math sections of the SAT Reasoning test.

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