SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

If you're reading this guide, you may have heard the term SAT Reading Comprehension. It's an older term to describe a specific type of SAT Critical Reading question. While the term is outdated, SAT Reading Comprehension is still very important today.

The questions from Reading Comprehension are used as a part of the new 2016 SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section. If you hadn’t heard about the new 2016 SAT, read all about the changes to the SAT here before continuing to read this article. Reading Comprehension is a big part of the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section. You need to understand what it is, what types of skills it tests, and how to practice it in order to succeed on the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section.

Sometimes the SAT Reading section will ask you about literary terms. But how often? And which terms do you need to be familiar with in order to get these questions right? This article will give you the low-down on what you need to know.

If the Reading section of the SAT is challenging for you, you may be wondering what you can do to make sure you’re extra prepared. In this article, I’ve put together our top strategies for gaining confidence and improving your scores.

As you may know, the College Board recently debuted its new version of the SAT. There are some pretty significant changes in the Critical Reading section, and you should make sure you're fully prepared for what’s ahead.

In this article I’ll tell you what the major differences are and how you can make sure you’re using the right studying strategies to get ready for the redesigned SAT.

Inference questions make up nearly 15% of all SAT Reading questions (based on analysis of four publicly available new SATs). Answering inference questions correctly requires the ability to take information given in the text and then draw logical, supported conclusions from it.

To do well on the SAT Reading section, you'll need to prepare yourself to understand the material and pace yourself according to the structure of the test. In this article, I’ll take you through 10 quick tips for improving your Reading performance!

PowerScore is a test prep company with fingers in many pies, including the SAT prep pie (the most standardized of pies?). They have published a trilogy of SAT Prep books: SAT Math Bible, SAT Writing Bible, and SAT Reading Bible (which is what I'll be reviewing today). Like most prep books, the SAT Reading Bible has some positive and some negative aspects. Read on to figure out whether or not this book is appropriate for you and if you should add it into your own test prep.

There are many different strategies out there for solving SAT Reading questions, but succeeding on this section really only requires mastery of one fundamental rule.

That rule is this: There’s only one 100% correct answer choice, and all the others can be eliminated without any ambiguity.

Read on to find out how this applies to your test-taking strategy and how you can use the rule to improve your scores.

Though direct analogy questions were eliminated along with the old SAT Verbal Reasoning section in 2005, analogy questions remain in place in a more abstract form in the Critical Reading section. 

In this article, I’ll show you what analogy questions look like, the best way to approach them, and some step by step examples for solving them with real questions from the SAT!

How do you learn new words, especially big ones like "obstreperous" and "percipient" that you don't often hear in daily conversation? Do you pore over long lists, make flash cards, or focus on one or two at a time? 

For those playing the long game, SAT Word of the Day sites and email lists can be useful resources for gradually building your vocabulary over time. This guide will point you to the best sources of SAT Word of the Day and give you some strategies for how to use them effectively. First, why might you want to study vocabulary this way?

Need to study vocabulary for the SAT but aren’t sure where to start? We have links to the best free lists of SAT vocab from around the web.

We also have found other vocab study resources – from videos to apps to browser plug-ins – to help you study in the way that works best for you. Read on and conquer SAT vocabulary!

There are 3 types of SAT reading passages that you, as the test taker, need to be familiar with. The 3 types of passages mainly differ in length, but also somewhat in content. Therefore, the strategies for tackling them need to be different.

Below, we'll go over the different types of reading passages on the SAT and what you can expect from the questions that follow them. 

NOTE: This article was written about the old SAT Critical Reading section. For more information about passages on the current SAT Reading, we recommend instead reading this article.

Imagine you’re taking the SAT Critical Reading, when all of a sudden you come across a sentence completion question that completely stumps you. What are strategies you can use to help with this situation, and what are some ways to avoid this situation altogether? The College Board’s advice is helpful, but only goes so far.

Keep reading for solutions to this issue. I'll go over ways to avoid sentence completion questions entirely, common wisdom advice, and what I think really works.

NOTE: This article discusses a type of question that no longer appears on the SAT. For more information about what is included in the SAT Reading section, read this article.

What are the best books for the SAT critical reading section (which used to be called the verbal section)?  Here we review a few of the top books that we feel helps students the most.  We discuss which skills you should be learning from books, and which you should instead be learning from flashcards or practice.  You can get these books online, or better yet from the library.

The College Board wants the world to think that the SAT is detached from real-world trivia, a pure test of reasoning and skill. But, of course, this is essentially impossible--hence the scores of SAT prep options out there (of which we are one).

As an attempt at a useful reference buoy in the SAT ocean, this post is an outline of the categories of writing that SAT Reading passages always fall into.