Anyone else have trouble with these sections? My last practice test I got a 520 reading and a 480 writing
any tips? I'm a rising junior, so I have a little bit of time, but not much with the courses I'm taking...
Depends on what is keeping your score down. If it is timing, then you need to practice, practice, practice to get used to reading faster. Also, luckily the SAT provides you with line references for most questions, so a general rule for people to pick up some time is to read the first paragraph of the passage to get an idea of what is going on, then jump to the questions and look at the line references and read 5 lines up and 5 lines down from the line reference. This will give you enough information to answer the question but won't force you to read and then re-read a ton.
If just getting wrong answers is tripping you up, you might try a different approach. I tell students that they go wrong by searching only for the correct answer. The SAT reading is tricky, and will give you answers that
seem perfect, but will have 1 word or so that will throw it off (especially those answers that are 2 words, 1 adjective and 1 noun...the adjective is VERY important there). So instead of looking for just right answers, I tell students to look at every answer and tell me where it is wrong. If you can't tell me something is wrong, then that is the right answer.
All too often if you look for the right answer, you will talk yourself into a poor answer. Sometimes you have to get
really picky. Anytime you try and justify an answer by saying to yourself "well, if they mean it
this way, it would be right" then you are thinking too deeply and are more likely to be wrong.
Hopefully that makes sense. Are you having a problem like above, or something different?
For the Writing Score, don't worry too much about it. Just try and keep it in the ballpark of your other scores. First thing is to write an awesome essay. It needs to take up the full 2 pages, make it s 2- or 3-pronged essay so it looks very organized and write neatly. The graders only take 3 minutes to look over your essay and will have an idea of your grade
when they first set eyes on your essay. Think about it, you have a stack of essays to read through, you've already read a couple hundred..you know what a 10 or 12 looks like. Also, make sure you take a side on the essay and make sure all of your points are relevant to this point of view. Never try to "see both sides". It dilutes down what you are writing about and makes it hard to give evidence. You don't have to believe in that POV, just make sure you can defend it. The biggest mistake people make on the essay is not making it long enough or organized enough and also getting off topic.
After that, really just try and review basic concepts in grammar. I always tell student to first identify verbs, then make sure it is the correct tense and then move to the subject and make sure the subject and the verb match up. Then I move to modifiers and make sure that they match up with what they are modifying. Those are the easiest things to miss if you aren't systematic about how you are examining the grammar.
