There is a very simple way to deal with long, difficult, and boring Critical Reading passages on the SAT: don’t read them. Surprisingly, you can answer all of the questions correctly without reading any of the long passages from beginning to end, and instead using the line references to guide you. Remember, your goal when taking the SAT is to get as many points as possible. You’re not reading for pleasure, you’re reading to find the answer to specific questions posed by the test-makers. So it makes sense to use their questions to guide your reading.
When faced with a long critical reading passage, you should follow a series of steps. First, read the blurb in italics. This will give you valuable contextual information about the passage. Second, look for line references in the questions and answer only questions that have them, skipping any that either lack line numbers or ask about the passage as a whole. Third, go back and answer any questions without line references. Let’s look at those steps in more detail, using an example from the College Board’s website.
Step One: Read the italics. In our example passage, the italics state “This passage is an excerpt from a work published in 2000 by a Chinese American writer.” We didn’t learn too much here, but we do know that this is a recently written work by a person with a mixed cultural background.
Step Two: Answer questions that have line references. In order to do this with the example passage, we are going to skip the first question, because although it has a line reference, it is asking for what “the passage as a whole suggests.” We can’t answer that yet. We can, however, answer the second question by reading lines 75-81. The lines in the line reference are clearly describing how well this Chinese American is fitting in in China, so the answer must be D. Similarly, we would use line references to answer the third question. We need to read the lines around line 53 to learn that the “revelation” is the fact that everyone around the person in question is similar to him or her. To answer the question correctly, we need to figure out which of the given lines shows that statement to be untrue, checking out each answer to see which one accomplishes that. The correct answer is E, because the “epiphany” is that he or she does not fit in.
Step Three: Go back and answer any questions about the passage as a whole. We skipped the first question because it asked what “the passage as a whole suggests” about a specific line. Now we can use what we’ve learned in the line references to answer it. Because we read lines about the person fitting in in China followed by lines that stated that the sense of belonging was false, the answer that makes the most sense is that being a “citizen of the world” is D, “an unrealistic goal.”
A lot of the passage went unread when we used this technique to answer the questions, and if we have extra time at the end, it is perfectly reasonable to go back and read some more of it to gather further evidence for our answers. However, it is important to note that we are reading for just that: to gather evidence for our answers. We need read no more of the passage than we need to answer the questions. Keep your goal in mind: to get as many points as possible. And use these steps when approaching a long passage. You will save time and increase your SAT score.
