On every New SAT exam, there’s one fiction passage from “U.S. or World Literature” (yeah, that does basically mean anything in the world, as long as it’s written in English). The literature passage is the first passage in the Reading Section. Let’s discuss!

The new SAT Reading section is in some ways even better than the old SAT at luring you into tempting wrong answer choices. Here are some of the reasons wrong answers on the new SAT are just so darn tantalizing.

The SAT has always loved agreement—it’s easy to test and it’s easy to make the question difficult. But first let’s talk about what agreement is: it is when the subject and verb are consistent in terms of number.

In the Critical Reading sections, when you see a “vocabulary in context” question, it is unlikely that the correct answer will be the primary definition—the one that pops into your head at first. Make sure that you are taking cues from the passage.

The English language contains over a million words, but you’re not expected to know them all. For this part of the exam, is it in your best interest to be well-read and have a solid vocabulary? Of course, but you also need problem-solving skills that are specific to this task. While vocab lists are important, […]

The critical reading section of the SAT can be especially terrifying if you’re a slow reader. With so many passages to analyze and so many questions to answer, this section can quickly become overwhelming. But, despair not! For all you slow readers out there, there is alas a solution! No. No, it’s not pizza. Not […]

If you’ve ever taken an SAT class and gotten to the reading passages, you’ve probably heard someone say it before; you may have even said it yourself. This common refrain goes something like this: I narrow it down to two answers, and I always choose the wrong one. As a teacher, I might find it […]

  A Quick Anecdote First, I should mention that this story is a bit tweaked for dramatic effect (read: not completely true), but the main point of the story is untainted by the details I’m adding. A few years ago, I was working with class of around ten SAT students through a difficult reading comprehension passage […]

Below you’ll find a list of the absolute best SAT Reading tips out there to help you crush the new SAT, starting with our top 5 strategies for the test. Keep reading on for our advice on how to avoid common wrong answers on the SAT, special tips for the vocabulary in context questions, and finally how to use the varying difficulty level of SAT reading passages to your advantage. Consider this your COMPLETE GUIDE to SAT Reading success!

A really difficult type of question on the SAT has you take a scenario discussed in the passage and choose which of five hypothetical scenarios it is closest to. As you probably guessed, these five hypothetical scenarios make up the five answer choices. The passage below is already quite tricky, and the question below it […]