Strategies to Get a Perfect SAT Reading Score

Strategy 1: Understand Your High-Level Weakness—Time

Management or Passage Strategy?

Every student has different flaws in SAT Reading. Some people don't have good
strategies for tackling the passage questions. Others don't manage their time
correctly and run out of time before getting through all the questions.

Here's how you can figure out which one applies more to you:

● Find an official SAT practice test, and take only the Reading section. We
have the complete list of free practice tests here.
● For each section, use a timer and have it count down the 65 minutes for
the Reading section. Treat it like a real test.
● If time runs out for that section and you're 100% ready to move on, then
move on. If you're not ready to move on, keep on working for as long as
you need. For every new answer or answer that you change, mark it with a
special note as "Extra Time."
● When you're ready, grade your test using the answer key and score chart,
but we want two scores: 1) The Realistic score you got under normal
timing conditions, and 2) The Extra Time score. This is why you marked
the questions you answered or changed during Extra Time.

Get what we're doing here? By marking which questions you did under Extra
Time, we can figure out what score you got if you were given all the time you
needed. This will help us figure out where your weaknesses lie.

If you didn't take any extra time, then your Extra Time score is the same as your
Realistic score.

Here's a flowchart to help you figure this out:

Was your Extra Time score a 35 or above?

If NO (Extra Time score < 35), then you have strategy and content weaknesses.
All the extra time in the world couldn't get you above a 35, so your first angle of
attack will be to find your weaknesses and attack them (We'll cover this later).

If YES (Extra Time score > 35), then:

Was your Realistic score a 35 or above?

If NO (Extra Time score > 35, Realistic < 35), then that means you have a
difference between your Extra Time score and your Realistic score. If this
difference is more than 3 points, then you have some big problems with time
management. We need to figure out why this is. Are you using the best passage
reading strategy for you? Does it take you too much time to get the answer for
each question? Generally, doing a lot of practice questions and learning the most
efficient passage strategies will help reduce your time. More on this later.

If YES (both Extra Time and Realistic scores > 35), then you have a really good
shot at getting an 800. Compare your Extra Time and Realistic score—if they
differed by more than 2 points, then you would benefit from learning how to
solve questions more quickly. If not, then you likely can benefit from shoring up
on your last content weaknesses and avoiding careless mistakes (more on this
strategy later).

Hopefully that makes sense. Typically I see that students have both timing and
content issues, but you might find that one is much more dominant for you than
the other. For example, if you can get a 40 with extra time, but score a 35 in
regular time, you know exactly that you need to work on time management to
get a 40.

This type of analysis is so important that it's a central part of my prep

program, PrepScholar. When a new student joins, he or she gets a diagnostic
that figures out specific strengths and weaknesses. The program then
automatically customizes your learning so that you're always studying according
to where you can make the most improvement.

No matter what your weakness is, my following strategies will address all
weaknesses comprehensively.

Strategy 2: Learn to Eliminate 3 Wrong Answers

This strategy was by far the most effective for me in raising my Reading
score. It completely changed the way I viewed passage questions.

I spent some time talking above about how the SAT always has one
unambiguous answer. This has a huge implication for the strategy you should
use to find the right SAT Reading answer.
Here's the other way to see it: Out of the four answer choices, three of them
have something that is totally wrong about them. Only one answer is 100%
correct, which means the other three are 100% wrong.

You know how you try to eliminate answer choices, and then end up with a few
at the end that all seem equally likely to be correct? "Well, this can work...but
then again this could work as well..."

STOP doing that. You're not doing a good enough job of eliminating answer
choices. Remember—every single wrong choice can be crossed out for its own
reasons.

You need to do a 180 on your approach to Reading questions. Instead, find a

reason to eliminate three answer choices. "Can I find a reason to eliminate
this answer choice? How about this one?"

You have to learn how to eliminate three answer choices for every single question.

"Great, Allen. But this doesn't tell me anything about how to eliminate answer
choices."

Thanks for asking. One thing to remember is that even a single word can make
an answer choice wrong. Every single word in each answer choice is put there
by the SAT for a reason. If a single word in the answer choice isn't supported by
the passage text, you need to eliminate it, even if the rest of the answer sounds
good.

There are a few classic wrong answer choices the SAT loves to use. Here's an
example question.

For example, let's imagine you just read a passage talking about how human
evolution shaped the environment. It gives a few examples. First, it talks about
how the transition from earlier species like Homo habilus to neanderthals led to
more tool usage like fire, which caused wildfires and shaped the ecology. It then
talks about Homo sapiens 40,000 years ago and their overhunting of species like
woolly mammoths to extinction.

So then we run into a question asking, "Which of the following best describes
the main subject of the passage?" Here are the answer choices:

● A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals

● B: The study of evolution
● C: How the environment shaped human evolution
● D: The plausibility of evolution
● E: The influence of human development on ecology

(We're using five answers for purposes of illustration—the SAT will only have
four choices).

As you're reading these answer choices, a few of them probably started sounded
really plausible to you.

Surprise! Each of the answers from A-D has something seriously wrong
about it. Each one is a classic example of a wrong answer type given by the SAT.

Wrong Answer 1: Too Specific

A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals

This type of wrong answer focuses on a smaller detail in the passage. It's meant
to trick you because you might think to yourself, "well, I see this mentioned in
the passage, so it's a plausible answer choice."

Wrong! Think to yourself—can this answer choice really describe the entire
passage? Can it basically function as the title of this passage? You'll find that it's
just way too specific to convey the point of the overall passage.
Wrong Answer 2: Too Broad

B: The study of evolution

This type of wrong answer has the opposite problem—it's way too broad. Yes,
theoretically the passage concerns the study of evolution, but only one aspect of
it, and especially as it relates to the impact on the environment.

To give another ludicrous example, if you talked to your friend about your cell
phone, and he said your main point was about the universe. Yes, you were
talking about the universe, but only a tiny fraction of it. This is way too broad.

Wrong Answer 3: Reversed Relationship

C: How the environment shaped human evolution

This wrong answer choice can be tricky because it mentions all the right words.
But of course the relationship between those words needs to be correct as well.
Here, the relationship is flipped. Students who read too quickly make careless
mistakes like these!
Wrong Answer 4: Unrelated Concept

D: The plausibility of evolution

Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on the tendency of students to overthink
the question. If you're passionate about arguing about evolution, this might be a
trigger answer since any discussion of evolution becomes a chance to argue
about the plausibility of evolution. Of course, this concept will appear nowhere
in the passage, but some students just won't be able to resist.

Do you see the point? On the surface, each of the answer choices sounds
possibly correct. A less prepared student would think that all of these were
plausible answers.

But plausible isn't good enough. The right answer needs to be 100%, totally
right. Wrong answers might be off by even one word—you need to
eliminate these.

Carry this thought into every SAT Reading passage question you do and I
guarantee you will start raising your score.

Strategy 3: Predict the Answer Before Reading the Answer Choices

As we've discussed already, the SAT is designed to goad you into making
mistakes by putting really similar answer choices next to each other.

In Strategy 2, we covered the strategy of ruthless, unforgiving elimination of

answer choices.

Here's another Strategy that works well for me. Before reading the answer
choices, come up with your own answer to the question.
 Gaze into your crystal ball and predict the right answer.

This strategy is exactly designed to counteract the trickiness of the answer

choices.

If you don't apply this strategy, your thinking process likely meanders like this:

"OK, I just read the question. Answer A is definitely out. B can kind of work. C...it
doesn't exactly fit, but I can see how it might work." and so on. By now, you've
already fallen into the College Board's trap of muddling the answer choices.

Take the opposite approach. While you're reading the question, come up with
your own ideal answer to the question before reading the answer choices.
This prevents you from getting biased by the SAT's answer choices, especially
the incorrect ones.

If it's a "Big Picture" type question asking about the main point of the passage,
answer for yourself, "What would make a good title for this passage?"

If it's an "Inference" question, answer for yourself, "What would the author think
about the situation given in the question?"

Even if you can't answer the question straight away—for example, if you have to
refer back to the line number to remember what the passage was saying—try to
solve the question before looking at the answer choices.

The key here is that the passage must support your answer choice. Every
correct answer on SAT passages needs to be justified by the passage—otherwise
the answer would be ambiguous, which would cause problems of cancelling
questions I referred to earlier.

Warning: this only works if you can read and understand passages well, and if
you have prior experience with SAT Reading questions! That's why I don't
recommend this strategy yet before you hit a 600 level since you're more likely
to come up with the wrong answer choice in your head.

Strategy 4: Experiment With Passage Reading Strategies and Find the

Best for You

In your prep for the SAT, you may have read different strategies for how to read
a passage and answer questions. Some students read the questions before
reading the passage. Others read the passage in detail first.

At your high level, I can't predict which method will work best for you.
We're going for perfection, which means that your strategy needs to line up with
your strengths and weaknesses perfectly, or else you'll make mistakes or run out
of time.

What I will do, however, is go through the most effective methods. You'll then
have to figure out through your test data which one leads to the highest
score for you.
Passage Method 1: Skim the Passage, Then Read the Questions

This is the most common strategy I recommend to our students, and in my eyes
the most effective. I prefer this one myself.

Here it is:

● Skim the passage on the first read through. Don't try to understand
every single line, or write notes predicting what the questions will be.
Just get a general understanding of the passage. You want to try to finish
reading the passage in 3 minutes, if possible.
● Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a line number, then go
back to that line number and understand the text around it.
● If you can't answer a question within 30 seconds, skip it.

My preferred way to tackle a passage: skimming it on the first read-through.

This strategy is a revelation for students who used to close-read a passage and
run out of time.

This skimming method works because the questions will ask about far fewer
lines than the passage actually contains. For example, lines 5-20 of a reading
passage might not be relevant to any question that follows. Therefore, if you
spend time trying to deeply understand lines 5-20, you'll be wasting time.
By taking the opposite approach of going back to the passage when you need to
refer to it, you guarantee reading efficiency. You're focusing only on the parts of
the passage that are important to answering questions.

Critical Skill: You must be able to skim effectively. This means being able to
quickly digest a text without having to slowly read every word. If you're not quite
good at this yet, practice it on newspaper articles and your homework reading.

Passage Method 2: Read the Questions First and Mark the Passage

This is the second most common strategy and, if used well, as effective as the
first method. But it has some pitfalls if you don't do it correctly.

Here's how it goes:

● Before you read the passage, go to the questions and read each one.
● If the question refers to a series of lines, mark those lines on the passage.
Take a brief note about the gist of the question.
● Go back to the passage and skim it. When you reach one of your notes,
slow down and take more notice of the question.
● Answer the questions.

Here's an example passage that I marked up, with questions coming first. Notice
that beyond underlining the phrase referenced in the question, I left clues for
myself on what's important to get out of this phrase.
(questions not relating to specific lines aren't shown above)
In the hands of an SAT expert, this is a powerful strategy. Just like Method 1
above, you save time by skipping parts of the passage that aren't asked about.
Furthermore, you get a head start on the questions by trying to answer them
beforehand.

But there are serious potential pitfalls to this method if you're not careful
or prepared enough.
Here's one: when you first read the questions before the passage, you won't
have enough time to digest the actual answer choices (nor will they make sense
to you). So you have to make your best guess for what the question is asking
when you're writing a note along the passage.

In some cases, this can lead you astray. Take this example from above:

When I read the question, I saw that it asked me to find how Woolf characterized
the questions I marked in lines 53-57.

The problem is how broad the question is. How something can be characterized
gives a wide range of options. Here are a number of plausible characterizations
as I read the text:

● important, life-changing ("have to ask ourselves")

● communal ("we")
● detail-oriented ("on what terms?")
● urgent ("here and now")
● ambitious
● progressive and future-looking ("where is it leading us")

There's a lot of flexibility in interpretation here, since the questions really do

touch upon all these characterizations.
It turns out "important" and "urgent" are the right interpretations, for answer
choice C.

But when I'm reading the passage and see my note, I can waste a lot of time
coming up with potential options that aren't even correct answer choices.
In the worst case, it can bias me toward the wrong answer.

Critical Skill: You need to have so much experience with the SAT Reading
section that you can anticipate what the question is going to ask you for your
notes to be helpful. If you're not sure of this, you can easily be led down the
wrong track and focus on the wrong aspect of the passage.

Passage Method 3: Read the Passage in Detail, Then Answer Questions

This method is what beginner students usually use by default, because it's what
they've been trained to do in school. Some beginner books like Princeton Review
and Kaplan also suggest this as a strategy.

It's my least favorite method because there are so many ways for it to go
wrong. But for the sake of completeness, I'm listing it here in case it works best
for you.

Here's how it goes:

● Read the passage in detail, line by line.

● Take notes to yourself about the main point of each paragraph.
● Answer the questions.

As you might guess, I don't like this method for the following reasons:

● By reading the passage closely, you absorb a lot of details that aren't
useful for answering questions.
● The notes you take aren't directed toward helping you answer the
questions.
● By interpreting the passage ahead of time, you risk being led astray.

But this might work especially well for you if you're very good at reading for
understanding, and if you have so much expertise with the SAT that you can
predict what the test is going to ask you about anyway.

Choose Which Works Best for You, Based on Test Data

Because I can't predict which one will work best for you, you need to figure this
out yourself. To do this, you need cold, hard data from your test scores.

Try each method on two sample test passages each, and tally up your
percentage score for each. If one of them is a clear winner for you, then develop
that method further. If there isn't a clear winner, choose the one that feels most
comfortable for you.

As part of our PrepScholar program, we give you advanced statistics on your

score performance so that you can experiment with methods that work best for
you.

Next strategy: Understand your mistakes.

Strategy 5: Understand Every Single Mistake You Make

On the path to perfection, you need to make sure every single one of your weak
points is covered. Even just one mistake will knock you down from an 800, as we
saw in the score charts above.

The first step is simply to do a ton of practice. If you're studying from free
materials or from books, you have access to a lot of practice questions in bulk.
As part of our PrepScholar program, we have over 7,000 SAT questions
customized to each skill.

The second step—and the more important part—is to be ruthless about

understanding your mistakes.
Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't
understand exactly why you missed that question, you will make that
mistake over and over again.

I've seen students who did 20 practice tests. They've solved over 3,000
questions, but they're still nowhere near a perfect SAT Reading score.

Why? They never understood their mistakes. They just hit their heads against
the wall over and over again.

Think of yourself as an exterminator, and your mistakes are cockroaches. You

need to eliminate every single one—and find the source of each one—or else
the restaurant you work for will be shut down.

Here's what you need to do:

● On every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question
that you're even 20% unsure about.
● When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you
marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a
question correctly, you'll make sure to review it.
● In a notebook, write down:
#1: the gist of the question
#2: why you missed it, and
#3: what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future.
Have separate sections by question type (vocab questions, big picture
questions, inference questions, etc).

It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read
the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically
failed on this question.

By taking this structured approach to your mistakes, you'll now have a running
log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why.
 No excuses when it comes to your mistakes.

Always Go Deeper—Why Did You Miss a Reading Question?

Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just
say, "I didn't get this question right." That's a cop out.

Always take it one step further—what specifically did you miss, and what do you
have to improve in the future?

Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a Reading question, and
how you take the analysis one step further:

Elimination: I couldn't eliminate enough incorrect answer choices, or I

eliminated the correct answer.

One step further: Why couldn't I eliminate the answer choice during the test?
How can I eliminate answer choices like this in the future?

Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or answered for the
wrong thing.

One step further: Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the
future to avoid this?
Vocab: I didn't know what the key word meant.

One step further: What word was this? What is the definition? Are there other
words in this question I didn't know?

Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing
questions.

Yes, this is hard, and it's draining, and it takes work. That's why most students
who study ineffectively don't improve.

Many people don't know the right way to study. Of the people who do, very few
will diligently apply the right methods, day in, and day out, with discipline.

But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you
care more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze
your mistakes, you'll improve more than other students too.

Reviewing mistakes is so important that in PrepScholar, for every one of our

7,000+ practice questions, we explain in detail how to get the correct answer,
and why incorrect answers are wrong. We also point out bait answers so that
you can you can learn the tricks that the SAT plays on test takers like you.

Bonus Tip: Re-Solve the Question Before Reading the Answer Explanation
When you're reviewing practice questions, the first thing you probably do is read
the answer explanation and at most reflect on it a little.

This is a little too easy. I consider this passive learning—you're not actively
engaging with the mistake you made.

Instead, try something different—find the correct answer choice (A-D), but
don't look at the explanation. Instead, try to re-solve the question once
over again and try to get to the correct answer.

This will often be hard. You couldn't solve it the first time, so why could you solve
it the second time around?

But this time, with less time pressure, you might spot a new reason to eliminate
the wrong answer choice, or something else will pop up. Something will just
"click" for you.

When this happens, what you learned will stick with you for 20 times longer
than if you just read an answer explanation. I know this from personal
experience. Because you've struggled with it and reached a breakthrough, you
retain that information far better than if you just passively absorbed the
information.

This is perfect for SAT Reading because you'll often miss a question because of
an incorrect interpretation of the text. By forcing yourself to get the right
answer, you'll practice getting the correct interpretation of the text. Even
better, you'll be scrounging the passage for clues as to why the correct answer is
correct, which is exactly what you need in your passage strategy to begin with.

It's too easy to just read an answer explanation and have it go in one ear and out
the other. You won't actually learn from your mistake, and you'll make that
mistake over and over again.

Treat each wrong question like a puzzle. Struggle with each wrong answer for
up to 10 minutes. Only then if you don't get it should you read the answer
explanation.

Strategy 6: Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them

Reading passage questions might look similar, but they actually test very
different skills. At PrepScholar we believe the major passage skills to be:
 1. Big Picture/Main Point
2. Little Picture/Detail
3. Inference
4. Words and Phrases in Context
5. Citing Textual Evidence
6. Perspective
7. Analyzing Word Choice
8. Analyzing Text Structure
9. Analyzing Multiple Texts
10. Analyzing Quantitative Info

Whew—that's a lot of skills. That's a much more detailed breakdown than what
appears at first glance, and what most books and courses offer.

Each of these question types uses different skills in how you read and
analyze a passage. They each require a different method of prep and focused
practice.

The SAT requires a lot of skills. Make sure you know which ones are your weaknesses.

If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in Reading than others.
You might be better at getting the Big Picture of a passage, compared to the
Inference. Or you might be really strong in vocabulary, but weak in
understanding the function of sentences in a passage.

If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to
study. This means for every hour you study for the SAT, it needs to be the
most effective hour possible.

In concrete terms, you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and
work on those.
Too many students study the 'dumb' way. They just buy a book and read it cover
to cover. When they don't improve, they're shocked.

I'm not.

Studying effectively for the SAT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying
to cover all your bases with a very thin layer of understanding.

What these students did wrong was they wasted time on subjects they already
knew, and they didn't spend enough time on their weaknesses.

Instead, studying effectively for the SAT is like plugging up the holes of a
leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole, and fill it. Then you find the next
biggest hole, and you fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all.

How does this relate to SAT Reading? You need to find the sub-skills that
you're weakest in, and then drill those until you're no longer weak in them.
Fix up the biggest holes.

Within reading, you need to figure out whether you have patterns to your
mistakes. Is it that you don't get Inference questions? Or maybe you're really
weak at interpreting details? Or from strategy 1: is it that you're running out of
time in reading passages?

For every question that you miss, you need to identify the type of question
it is. When you notice patterns to the questions you miss, you then need to
find extra practice for this subskill.

Say you miss a lot of inference questions (this is typically the hardest type of
question for students to get). You need to find a way to get focused practice
questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes.

Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction

This is a quick tip that many students ignore. Each passage comes with an
italicized introduction, like this for the passage shown above:
This is a freebie. It gives you context for the entire passage. By knowing that the
passage is about "the situation of women in English society," you hit the ground
running when you read the very first sentence. This helps a lot.

Sometimes, the introduction alone can give you the answer for the "Big Picture"
question about what the main point of the passage is.

Always always make sure that you read this introduction, no matter what
passage method you use from Strategy 4.

Strategy 8: Be Interested in the Passage Subject Matter

The SAT has passages about a lot of weird topics. Victorian novels, underwater
basket-weaving, and the evolution of gerbils are all fair game.

It's unlikely that you're naturally thrilled about all the subjects you'll read about.

This makes it easy to tune out when you're reading the passage. This makes it
harder to answer the questions, which will make you more frustrated.

Instead, adopt this mindset: For the next 10 minutes, I am the world's most
passionate person about whatever subject this passage is about. This
passage is the most frickin' exciting thing I could be reading right now.

For every single passage, be as excited as she is.

Force yourself to care about what the passage is telling you. Pretend that your
life depends on understanding this passage. Maybe you're about to give a
lecture on this subject. Or someone's holding a puppy hostage if you don't
answer enough questions correctly.

Or your crush turns out to be a huge mid-18th century English literature fan, so
you pay rapt attention to every single word.

When I was preparing for the SAT in high school, I took this so far to the extreme
that I ended up genuinely fascinated by whatever the passage was telling me
about. I remember reading a passage about volcanic activity and thinking, "Wow,
I'm really glad I just learned this." (I know this sounds crazy.)

If you stay engaged while reading, you'll understand the passage so much
better, and you'll answer questions with way more accuracy.

Strategy 9: Don't Spend Time on Vocab

Vocab typically gets way too much attention from students. It feels good to study
vocab flashcards, because it seems like you're making progress. "I studied 1,000
vocab words—this must mean I improved my score!"

This is why other test prep programs love teaching you vocab—it feels like
they're teaching you something useful worth your money, but it's not obvious
that vocab actually isn't helping your score.
Fortunately, vocab doesn't play a big role in your SAT Reading score
anymore. This is especially true in the current SAT. They've completely taken out
Sentence Completion questions, and the words that you have to analyze in
context are usually pretty common.

Here are examples of words that you need to understand in context in the
current SAT:

● ambivalent
● clashes
● convey
● plastic
● postulate

These are somewhat advanced words, but they're nowhere near the level of the
words you used to have to know, like "baroque," "diatribes," "platitudes," and
"progenitor."

College Board lowered the emphasis on vocab because of complaints that

memorizing esoteric vocab was useless in college success and career success.
Instead, it's now asking you to figure out the meaning of more common words
the way the author intended.

For example, "plastic" can mean "malleable," "artificial," or "sculptural." Only one
of these is right in the context of the passage.

This doesn't mean that vocab is totally useless. For one, SAT Writing still has a
few vocab questions (read more about this in my Perfect SAT Writing guide).
Furthermore, sometimes knowing the definition of the words in context is
helpful.

Here are a few tips on what to learn, and how to learn vocab effectively.

First, I've written a super detailed guide on the best way to study SAT
vocabulary. This method makes your studying much more efficient so you
retain words longer and engage with the most difficult vocab most often.

Second, you need to take notes on vocab words that you don't know that
you see in your practice questions. Don't just focus on the right answers—
understand the definition of wrong answers as well.

Only take notes from official SAT tests. It's hard to predict what words the SAT
will use, and the SAT doesn't often repeat words from previous tests. But the
official free practice tests from the Official Study Guide that we integrate in our
PrepScholar program are the best sources.

Strategy 9B: Don't Spend Time Reading Books or Magazines

Over the many years I've studied for tests or run a test prep company, I've heard
this advice for SAT Reading: "Read great novels and well-written magazines, like
in the New York Times or the Atlantic. This will help with reading
comprehension."

I hate this advice.

A test like SAT Reading is very specific. It tests reading comprehension in very
specific and formulaic ways, as I showed with all the question types in Strategy 3.

Reading for general leisure does NOT train you effectively for the test. You're not
exercising the same skills you need on the test, nor is it goal-driven enough to
help you make progress.

This terrible advice is like saying you can train for a swim meet by standing
in the shower for longer. Yes, by being in the shower, you'll be in water, just
like you will in the swimming pool. But you're not using the same skills.

Yes, if you have a lifetime of strong reading, with thousands of hours of leisure
reading experience, you will do better on SAT Reading. But right now, reading
general material won't help you efficiently.

Take your extra time and do SAT Reading practice questions instead.

Strategy 10: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check

Your goal at the end of all this work is to get so good at SAT Reading that you
solve every question and have extra time left over at the end of the section
to recheck your work.

In high school, I was able to finish a Reading section in about 60% of the time
allotted. For SAT Reading, this means finishing all passages and 52 questions in
40 minutes.

This means I have a whopping 25 minutes left over to recheck my answers two
times over.

How did I get so fast?

#1: I have an efficient reading strategy that works best for me. Namely, I skim
the passage and work through the questions afterward.

#2: Through a lot of hard work, I have a strong instinct for the test. I
understand the test so well that when I read a question, I can predict the answer
within a few seconds. I can rule out wrong answers instantly because they just
feel wrong. I've surveyed thousands of questions and understood every single
SAT skill deeply to design PrepScholar, so I can typically understand exactly what
the College Board is asking.

Kind of like Neo seeing code in The Matrix.

Here are some time benchmarks that might help:

● You should finish skimming a long passage within three minutes.

● Each passage question should take you no more than 30 seconds.
If you can do this well, you'll finish the entire section in 40 minutes, leaving a lot
of time to double check.

What's the best way to double check your work? I have a reliable method
that I follow:

● Double check any questions you marked that you're unsure of. Try hard to
eliminate answer choices. If it's a reading passage question, make sure
that the passage supports your answer.
● If I'm 100% sure I'm right on a question, I mark it as such and never look
at it again. If I'm not sure, I'll come back to it on the third pass.
● At least two minutes before time's up, I rapidly double check that I
bubbled the answers correctly. I try to do this all at once so as not to
waste time looking back and forth between the test book and the answer
sheet. Go five at a time ("A D B C B") for more speed.

If you notice yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a problem and aren't
clear how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the next question. Even though
you need a near perfect raw score for an 800, don't be afraid to skip. You can
come back to it later, and for now it's more important to get as many points as
possible.

Quick Tip: Bubbling Answers

Here's a bubbling tip that will save you two minutes per section.

When I first started test taking in high school, I did what many students do: after
I finished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and filled it in. Then I solved
the next question. Finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question 2,
bubble in answer 2. And so forth.
This actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two
distinct tasks—solving questions, and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in
both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to
different areas of the test.

Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, then
bubble all of them in at once.

This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather
than switching between two different tasks. You also eliminate careless entry
errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into
question 7's slot.

By saving just ten seconds per question, you get back 200 seconds on a
section that has 20 questions. This is huge.

Note: If you use this strategy, you should already be finishing the section with
ample extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of time before you
have the chance to bubble in the answer choices all at once.

Strategy 11: Be Ready for Turbulence in Scores

Now you know what it takes to achieve perfection in SAT Reading.

You know the best strategies to use for tackling the passage. You know how to
identify your weaknesses and learn from them. You know how to save time, and
you know to stay engaged while reading a passage.

Even despite all this, sometimes a passage just won't click with you.

Of all SAT sections, I find that Reading has the most volatile score. How you vibe
with a passage has a big impact on your score. You might get a string of
questions wrong just because you couldn't really understand what the passage
was really about. This doesn't happen on Math or Writing.

No matter what happens, you need to keep calm and keep working.

You might swing from an 800 on one practice test to a 710 on another. Don't let
that faze you. Don't start doubting all the hard work you've put in.

Keep a calm head, and, like always, work hard on reviewing your mistakes.

This might even happen on the real SAT. You might get below your target score
and be crestfallen.
Pick yourself up. This happens. If you've consistently been getting 800's on
practice tests, you should take the test again and try to score higher. Very likely,
you will. And because most schools nowadays superscore the SAT, you can
combine that new 800 with your other sections for an awesome SAT score.