Critical Reading an Overview-1

Person

himaniverma

Critical Reading an Overview-1

Author: himaniverma

The Critical Reading Section follows the essay. This section was formerly known as the verbal section, and as it's name denotes it requires an analytical and sharp reading to solve.
It is one of the toughest sections for some for no other reason that students are not use to reading and to comprehending tough vocabulary or passages. It includes short as well as long reading passages. The questions are based on one, or sometimes two, reading passages. While some other questions are not based on passages but ask you to complete sentences.
The Critical Reading section has a time limit of 70 minutes. In this given time you have to solve

2 sections of 25 minutes each and 1 section of 20 minutes.
These contain critical reading and sentence level reading

which have

Reading ComprehensionSentence completion and Paragraph length critical reading.
Now for all avaricious readers, these questions require a level of vocabulary, that should not be a problem. but only if you have in the habit of reading good books. However, if you are not a good reader, or if English is your nemesis, you will need to work hard to raise the standard of your vocabulary to the required level.
All questions are a must and scores touch the top if done well, thinking sharp, thinking fast and thinking clear will do wonders on this test. Remember you will have only about a minute for each question.
Sentence CompletionSentence completion questions account for about one quarter of the marks for the critical reading section of SAT. Sentence Completion questions measure your knowledge of the meanings of words. They also test your ability to understand how the different parts of a sentence fit logically together

How to attempt Sentence Completion

Each question contains one or two blanks, and you have to find the best answer choice to make the sentence that makes complete sense.
Read the sentence carefully so that you can understand the hidden meanings in the sentence.
In the test the sentence completion questions will be graded from easy to hard.
On an average you require a little under one minute to answer each question.

How to attempt Reading Comprehension
Questions test your ability to understand a passage and answer question on the basis of what is stated and implied in the passage. Before you begin to read the passage one needs to identify the main idea of the passage and then understand the tone and attitude of the passage.

What to expect

In the new SAT exam the passages given vary in length.
Passages range in length from about 100 to about 850 words.
Some passages may take you 3 minutes and have a short paragraph where you only have to read and answer two questions.
While there are other passages that will take up to 15 minutes to read and you will have to answer 13 questions.
One section will/might contain two related long passages on a shared issue or theme that you are asked to compare and contrast.
Passages are taken from a variety of fields, including the humanities, social studies, natural sciences, and literary fiction
They vary in style and can include narrative, argumentative, and expository elements. Be sure to read the directions and the time allowed at the beginning of each of our mini tests.

There is no shortcut to improving your critical reading ability- what might help is a lot of practice.

There are different kinds of questions that can make up the reading section. The following are pointers on the questions that may be asked about a passage:

Vocabulary in Context: These questions ask you to determine the meanings of words from their context in the reading passage. Always make sure you have read their meaning carefully, because the meaning requires a little thinking and is not the first word that jumps to your head always.

Literal Comprehension: These questions assess your understanding of significant information directly stated in the passage. These are usually direct questions asking for factual information understanding of the text. For these it is important that you have read up the text and are clear on it.

Extended Reasoning:by their very name these questions require a comprehension of the text which is neither very clearly provided nor arrived at. What matters here are your analytical skills and comprehension ability, along with the ability to put the answer into words succinctly.
These questions measure your ability to synthesize and analyze information as well as to evaluate the assumptions made and the techniques used by the author. Most of the reading questions fall into this category. You may be asked to identify cause and effect, make inferences, recognize a main idea or an author's tone, and follow the logic of an analogy or an argument.

Important Tip
For comprehension questions it is always a good idea to have read the passage well.

For passages that are very long, begin by skimming through the passage and getting a fair idea on where is what. Otherwise you might well find that you are looking for facts which you don't have any idea about.

For the long passages once you are clear about the location of the information then it is better to begin straight away rather than spend any more time matching each question with an answer.

Ask The Experts