When it comes to SAT Test Preparation and the Reading Section, students often run out of time during the test. Following these suggestions and practicing will help improve SAT Reading scores.
This Reading #101 Tip provides methods to use when answering the SAT Sentence Completions. These are the Vocabulary questions in the beginning of the Reading Sections on the SAT. Students are asked to select the correct words that match the blanks within the sentences. Often times, the Sentence Completion questions deal with vocabulary words of which students have never heard. To answer them correctly or make the best educated guess, do the following.
Let's look at an example from the Collegeboard SAT Study Guide:
1) Ravens appear to behave _________, actively helping one another to find food.
(A) mysteriously
(B) warily
(C) aggressively
(D) cooperatively
(E) defensively
When working on these Sentence Completion questions, you'll want to look for clues within the sentence. When a comma or semi-colon follows the blank, the answer or description of the word is the word or group of words directly following the blank. In this case, the blank has something to do with "actively helping one another."
The first thing students should do is predict their own answer. In this example, my prediction would be "helpful" or something similar that means "actively helping one another."
Now look at the answer choices and see which of the words mean something similar to "helpful."
(A) "mysteriously" is not the same thing as helpful, so mark it off.
(B) "warily" does not mean helpful, so mark it off.
(C) "aggressively" also does not mean helpful, mark it off.
(E) "defensively" is almost the opposite of helpful, so mark it off.
You are left with (D), "cooperatively," which means helpful, so answer (D) and move onto the next question.
Now this question may have seemed obvious and many students may have already known the meaning to all of these words; but what if there were more words of which you were not familiar?
Some of the SAT Sentence Completion questions contain two (2) blanks. These may appear more difficult, but students can simplify the questions by working on one of the blanks, if necessary.
Here's another example from the Collegeboard SAT Study Guide:
2) Hoping to ________ the dispute, negotiators proposed a compromise that they felt would be ________ to both labor and management.
(A) enforce . . useful
(B) end . . divisive
(C) overcome . . unattractive
(D) extend . . satisfactory
(E) resolve . . acceptable
Students need to look for keywords to determine if the blanks are similar or opposite each other in nature. In this case, the words "dispute," "negotiators," and "compromise," provide clues to the answers.
If there is a dispute and negotiators would like compromise, then they want to "resolve" the dispute. So, your prediction might be "resolve" for the first blank. In this case, if this was your prediction, you could easily find (E) with "resolve" as the first answer and then read the sentence with the answers from (E) to confirm it is the correct answer.
If you did not predict the word "resolve" for the first blank, follow the same process as the first example above. Determine which of the blanks you have predicted and mark off any answers that do not match your prediction.
If you are not able to specifically find one answer choice that matches your prediction, but have marked off at least one (and I really prefer 2, because that helps increase your odds of a correct answer), then take an educated guess. Circle your educated guess and move onto the next question.
Remember, the test it timed and you may not have time to spend more than one (1) minute per question. And, if you are a slow reader, you will want to save this time for the longer passage questions.
My suggestion to all of my students is to purchase the "Official Collegeboard SAT Study Guide" to use for SAT Preparation. This guide has ten (10) SAT Practice Tests as well as practice questions for each section of the SAT.
I hope this SAT Test Preparation - Reading #101 Tip has provided you with some solid study methods. For these and more SAT Test Preparation Tips, subscribe to my site using the SUBSCRIBE with Email button on the top right menu of this page.
Good luck and good studying!
