SAT/ACT Test Prep: General Strategies for Reading Comprehension
This chapter will give you a more specialized look at each type and variant of reading on the SAT/ACT and talk about the particular strategies for each of these genres. Working with your teacher and doing the practice sets provided, you will begin to become familar with the nuances of each reading class: history/humanities/social studies, natural sciences, and literature/prose fiction.
General Reading Comprehension Strategies:
In this section, you will be introduced to a few reading strategies particular to the SAT and Act reading comprehension sections. Some of these strategies are good for particular kinds of passages and not good for others. Some of these strategies will be helpful to you, while some you might find unhelpful; this will vary from person to person based on their adeptness in reading and speed of reading.
Keep in mind, it is not necessary that you read the entire passage. In fact, you rarely need to read the entire passage, word for word. Most of the time, a generally understanding of the passage is all you need. So, if you are a slow reader and have difficulty reading a whole passage in just a few minutes, do not worry! You do not need to read the whole passage. You just need to work on skimming strategies. How one skims a passage will likely differ based on the kind of reading and the structure of that reading.
Reading Strategy 1: Coded Annotation
Coded Annotation is a method by which you will mark the passage to remind yourself of and draw attention to important aspects of the reading. All students taking the SAT and ACT are strongly encouraged to hone this skill; it will also be useful in reading for college later on. Text annotation and coding can help you better retain the information you read and make it easier to locate important ideas in the text after you have read it. A few considerations are:
Annotation should not add much more time to your reading; thus, do not worry about making these marks clear to anyone but yourself and don’t worry about long-term memory of them. You can forget the annotations and their meaning as soon as you move on to the next reading. So, make the marks simple and quick without much unnecessary detail. If you are writing words, keep it to one to at most three words.
Mark only the things in the passage that matter the most. This is clearly easier said than done. What does matter the most? This can be difficult to say. With more practice and experience with the SAT and ACT, you will come to intuitively know what the test makers think is important in the readings; however, here are a few points that one can generally expect from the SAT and ACT:
| 1. Trivia facts are generally NOT important. For example, in a history reading, if there is a fact like the Magna Carta was signed in 1215, this will not be important on the SAT/ACT. While this might have been important in your history class to note and remember, the SAT/ACT is not testing you ability to find and recall trivia. You need broader concepts and general ideas, not minutia. |
| 2. Lists are often asked about on the SAT/ACT. Lists might not be obvious or simple. If they are long and complex, it is even more likely that they will be asked about in some fashion. Sometimes a list can be given in a bulleted fashion, or it might be numerous concatenated sentences (separated by periods rather than commas), or it might be a long and complex list of things separated by commas like the list you are reading right now. If you think you are reading a list, mark it with a descriptor word that encapsulated the context of the list and move on. Return and read the whole list only if a questions asks about the list. |
| 3. Metaphors and colorful analgias are often asked about. Mark these and think about what the purpose of such an analogy in the context of this particular reading serves. The question that might be asked will likely be asking about the purpose or intent of using such an analogy. |
| 4. Data is important but not always. If the passage you are reading presents data it is likely important if there is very few data presented in the passage; however, if the passage is rife with data and numbers are everywhere, likely the numbers are not important and should be glossed over. In the case of very much data, what will be important are the conclusion of all this data, which will likely be said at the end of all the data. |
PRACTICE TIME!
Use coded annotation to work through this passage. Try to read the entire passage in 3-5 minutes and answer the questions in 7 minutes. To do this, you might find that reading the whole passage carefully will not be possible. You might need to “skim.” Coded Annotation can help you do this better and more efficiently. However, if you find that you are struggling with skimming, do not worry. This is a skill that must be learned and practiced. You will get better the more practice you do, and your teacher can help you along the way.
Reading Strategy 2: Paragraph Distillation
Any short reading with sizable paragraphs lends itself well to paragraph distillation. This is where you only read the most essential part of each paragraph and then note the most fundamental kernel of information for that chunk of text and then move on, only returning to read the whole paragraph if that information becomes pertinent for some question.
- Read the first 2 to 4 sentences of the opening paragraph. This will tell you about the topic and the general purpose of the passage (information, argumentative, historical, etc.). Use text coding as appropriate.
- Read the first 1-2 sentences and last 1-2 sentences of each body paragraph (one each for short paragraphs, two each for very long paragraphs). The first one to two lines of each body paragraph will contain the topic of the paragraph. By reading these lines, you should acquire the main idea of each paragraph. With each paragraph, include a “distillation” phrase next to each paragraph as a road map to use to answer questions later; these phrases should be one to three words and should encapsulate the topic of the paragraph. The remainder of the paragraph you are not reading will be fine details about each topic; you only need that information should a question suggest the general topic of the paragraph. Text code any key points of pivotal ideas as you read.
- Read the first and last few sentences of the final paragraph. This will sum of the ideas, information, conclusions, and/pr argument of the reading. This should give you some sense of how all the information ties together. Often there will be at least one question about the overall purpose/intent of the passage; this paragraph will likely help answer that question.
- Move on to the questions and answer the questions that are specific first, moving on to the broader questions last. Keep in mind that the question tend to move chronologically through the passage.
- Try to use the road map you have created through distillation to answer as many questions as possible, without referring back to the passage. Give yourself an allowance of references. Some questions will simply require you to look back, but some should be reasonable answered from a basic memory of the passages general points and structure. Aim optimally to answer about 50% of the question without looking back at the text (this might take some practice).
This strategy allows one to skim-read the passage quickly, only reading perhaps about 30% of the given text, but still acquiring the fundamental theme, ideas, arguments, etc. of the passage, leaving fine details to be accessed as necessary per the questions given. Thus, by doing this kind of distillation, one can easy read a passage in 1 to 2 minutes, leaving about 8 to 11 minutes to answer the questions, some of which will require you return to the passage and re-read. Since some question will require you to return to the passage and re-read it, it is best to try and not actually read the passage until you are directed to do so by a question; the next strategy takes this idea to the opposite extreme, by looking at the questions first.
PRACTICE TIME!
Use paragraph distillation to work through this passage. You will notice that this passage is far more “paragraph oriented” than the prior literuature passage. We can use this to our advantage in skimming; we know each paragraph will be logically sequences and logically cohesive. Try to read the entire passage in 3-5 minutes and answer the questions in 7 minutes. By using paragraph distillation, you will find that you are only really reading about 30% to 40% of the passage (only the first and last sentences of each paragraph); thus, you should easily be able to get through the passage in only a few minutes.
Reading Strategy 3: Questions First
This strategy can work well for certain kinds of passage, particularly those that are not highly organized into large paragraph chunks. Such passages include literature and prose fiction, wherein there might be lots of dialogue and no obvious, logically presentation of information. Readings like this often defy “paragraph distillation” methods. Furthermore, it can be more difficult to know and/or predict what will be important in these kinds of passages; thus, it might be beneficial to look ahead and see the questions first to then know what to look for while reading.
Of course, not all questions will need to be catalogue before reading, since some are simply asking about vocabulary or broad author intent/purpose questions, which can either be answered without reading at all or can only be answered after having read the whole passage. However, there will be at least 5 to 8 questions that will ask about specific points or details from the passage. It might be good to know those details before reading!
- Skip the passage and start with the questions; do not read the answers.
- Quickly skim each question.
- Skip the questions that are note concept specific (broad questions) or questions that are already pointing you to a specific spot in the passage (i.e. “in lines x-y”).
- Note the questions that address specific ideas. Underline any key words, phrases, or concepts and try to remember these. This should take no more than a minute and you should come out with about 5 key concepts to look for, with about five questions that can be addressed after reading.
- Now skim the passage to find the key words, phrases, and concept that you noted. When you find them, underline them. This should take no more than a minute.
- Now read the first 1-2 sentences of each paragraph and the sections that you have underlined. Distill paragraphs and text code as you see necessary.
- Return to the question with specific concepts and answer those first. Only refer back to the passage as needed, but try to limit this to as few questions as possible.
- Go back and answer all the remaining general and line specific questions. These questions should be somewhat easier to answer now.
The potential pitfall with the strategy is that it can take more time if one does not master efficiency with this method. It can also be challenging if one cannot easily recall the key concepts from the questions as they are reading. This strategy can be powerful, however, if used with practice at the right time, such as on readings that do not have strong paragraph structure.
PRACTICE TIME!
In doing this passage, try reading the questions first in the manner outlined above. This might help to focus your skimming as you skim; you know, as you are reading the passage, what you actually will need to carefully consider. This method might take some extra time, but with practice will speed up. It may or may not be useful depending on the type of passage. This strategy tends to work will in kinds of passages wherein it is more variable or difficult to know what is important or interesting enough to garner a question.