2.4 SAT Critical Reading - Be an Active Reader

Be an active reader: Regardless how painful the passage may be, you must stay active.  You cannot be absent on any SAT passage since one faulty passage can really hurt your score.  One way to stay engaged is to mark up the passage; be an active reader by underlining areas that you find important.  Be especially mindful of contrasts or words that tend to change the direction of the passage.  For example, an author may present two paragraphs of ideas only to dispute all of the information in the third paragraph.  The author may only use one word such as "however" to signal the change in the passage's direction.  If you don't catch on to the change, you may miss the entire passage since the test maker will use incorrect answer choices that allure students who don't realize the change.   In this sense, you must be an active reader catching on to shifts in passage.  Furthermore, the SAT test maker loves to pick on students who fail to grasp unusual usages of language or novel uses of language. 

The SAT test taker must understand how these uses of language build the author's point or comprehend how the uses of language work in relation to the entire passage.  At the very least, you must underline these uses of language since it is almost certain that the test maker will have a question or two connected to these complex uses of language; underlining these will help you return to these areas quickly.  Mark up the passage, give yourself notes, summarize ideas- do all of this quickly.  Practice this skill be reading newspaper articles.  These articles will be a great source for practicing reading comprehension and building vocabulary.