SAT Critical Reading section part 1: Why is it SO HARD!

           Believe it or not, teens love to read.  When I work with students in academic settings, they love to break out their fantasy video game, glamour, and sports magazines, popular novels, and even nonfiction sources to read for pleasure.  Additionally, most of us know someone who has sprinted through an 800 page book the way we stereotypically envision adolescents racing through a few levels of “Halo” or “Call of Duty.”  Think Harry Potter for a minute.  Those books are MASSIVE and yet you know your son/daughter, niece/nephew, or grandchild ate it up in 2-3 days like it was their favorite pizza or dessert. 

              

           So teens can read.  Then why is the SAT critical reading section SO HARD!  It is for a couple of reasons.  First of all, remember that the ETS is purposely trying to trick your student.  The average teenager uses a completely different language than the SAT throws at them.  Even words that we consider vocabulary words often develop different meanings than the standard Webster dictionary assigns them.  Who knows this?  ETS does and they use it to their full advantage to fit your child into a perfectly shaped bell-curve.

Next, it’s time to admit that the passages on the SAT are just plain, downright boring.  Don’t try to convince your student that they’re interesting.  Save your breath.  Besides, do you personally like to read those passages?  You know you’d rather read about sociolinguistics, neuroscience, or the Upper Ganges than you would about anything you could find in “People”, “Rolling Stone”, or “Sports Illustrated”, right?  If you do, I’ll refrain from saying “more power to you” because you’ll lose an important opportunity to connect with your student if you tell them that you do.  That’s less power to you. 

Admitting that the passages are boring gives you the opportunity to join your student’s side in opposition to the ETS and their weapons of unintelligible destruction.  You then can begin the process of learning their tricks, booby-traps and strategies to beat them in their own game.  When your student realizes that it is a game, they will be more motivated not only to play, but to win.