How to solve short critical reading questions on the SAT

What's the best answer?

Many people use same strategies in solving the short critical reading questions as the long critical reading passage questions. These strategies will save you time and help you find the best answers to improve your score on the Critical Reading section of the SAT.

Things You'll Need

• pencil

Instructions

1. Read the questions first. In the short passages, there will only be two to four questions (unlike six to ten on teh long passages), so you actually save time by reading the questions and looking for the answers in the passage.

2. Do not read the choices. Go straight into the passage and find the answers there. Since it's so short, you should not spend too much time on finding the sentence that the question is referring to.

3. After reading that section of the passage carefully, answer the best choice in the question. Use the process of elimination. Be careful not to interpret the passage outside of what it says. You should be able to find the answers by the information given in the passage.

4. If you are working with an SAT workbook, correct the answers and find out why you got a certain question wrong. For this section, I would recommend Critical Reading Workbooks from Kaplan, Princeton Review, and Barrons.

Tips & Warnings

• The SAT critical reading section tests how well you take the SAT critical reading section. It does not measure your intelligence by any means.

• Practice makes perfect. More problems you solve, the better you become.

• Don't bother taking notes as you read. This is so short that it shouldn't take long in skimming through it and answering the questions.

• Don't waste time by second-guessing yourself. Studies show that it's usually your first choice.