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SAT Reading: What to Expect

By jill muttera posted February 3, 2012

Timing: SAT Reading is made up of two to three 20-25 minute sections, depending on which subject is unscored. Pacing for SAT Reading can be a little more complicated than for other sections since there are passages to read. Some people only feel comfortable answering the questions on a passage if they have read the whole thing; however, for many people, time constraints won’t allow them to both read the whole passage and answer all the questions. If you find that time is an issue for you, first just read the opening and closing paragraphs, which usually contain the main idea, and perhaps skim the middle. Then read the questions and go back into the passage knowing what you are looking for. Try out a few different approaches to passage-based reading. Ultimately, the right way to do it is the way that works best for you.

Try this SAT reading question for practice before test day!

Format: The two question types on SAT Reading are sentence completion and passage-based reading. Both are standard multiple-choice.

Sentence Completion: You will have to choose the word or words (two) that best complete the sentence. Unless you are a vocabulary genius, there are probably going to be some words on the test that you don’t know, so learn some strategies to up your chances of answering correctly even if you aren’t familiar with all the choices.

Passage-based reading: You will be given several passages throughout the course of SAT Reading, some short and some long. Some may be easy to read; others might be dense and filled with unknown terminology. Each passage will be followed by questions about the passage.

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How to Conquer Difficult SAT Vocabulary

By vivian kerr posted November 5, 2010

Sentence Completions are famous for including challenging words. Even if you don’t have a prodigious vocabulary you can still get many of these arduous SC’s correct! Here are a few questions to ask yourself when you encounter unknown words on Test Day!

Where have I heard this word before? Often the word will ring a bell, but you won’t be able to recall the exact definition. Try and think of a context where you may have seen this word. At your parent’s work? In an advertisement? In school? Write down the context next to the word. Sometimes that will jog your memory! For example, you may not know what “disseminate” means, but maybe you have heard the phrase “disseminate information” from the news. What does one logically do with information? “Disseminate” must mean something like “spread” or “share.”

What other words does it look like? This is especially important to ask if you have been studying word roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Break the word down into its component parts. For example, you may not know what “incontrovertible” means but it shares the same root as the word “controversy” and begins with the prefix “in-“ which means not or opposite of. So we can surmise that the word “incontrovertible” means something like “not having controversy.”

Test your SAT skills with this sentence completion practice question today!

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Sentence Completions: Cause and Effect

By vivian kerr posted August 4, 2010

“Cause and effect” sentence completions can get a bad rap because students often find them less obvious than blanks that give definitions or provide an outright contrast. While it’s true that it can sometimes be tough to predict an answer for the blank in “cause and effect” SCs, they provide a great opportunity to use logic to help you eliminate answer choices and get the correct answer!

If you’ve been studying for the SAT or ACT for any length of time, you already know all about how identifying key words and making predictions can help you get the correct answer on sentence completions. Let’s try an easier “cause and effect” question to warm up!

Now that the board members have reached consensus on several issues, their meetings are not as ——– as they were.

A cooperative

B instructive

C contentious

D unfounded

E legitimate

Here we can identify the keyword “consensus” as something positive. If they are “now” something positive, then in the past, they were probably something negative. Let’s predict something easy like “bad” for the blank. The only two words that we can’t eliminate are C and D. Between “contentious” and “unfounded”, “contentious” is the more negative word. The “cause and effect” idea in this one had to do with the change over time. You’ll often see time play a factor in sentence completions. Try to find out what changed and if it was for the better or worse.

Try this SAT sentence completion practice question and find out why Grockit is the ideal environment for improving your SAT score.

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Two-Blank Sentence Completions on the SAT

By jordan schonig posted June 7, 2010

You might think that the expression “two is better than one” does not apply to the two-blank sentence completions on the SAT. I wouldn’t blame you. It’s hard enough that you have to read the test-maker’s minds and figure out which word they intended to use. Now, with the two-blank problems, you have to do twice the work–or so it seems. That second blank might demand a bit more brain power, but you can use two-blank problems to your advantage. In fact, you can even increase your chances of getting the right answer.

To unlock the power of two-blank sentence completions, you must go through the problem one blank at a time. First, treat the problem as if it were a one-blank sentence completion. Read the sentence, identify clue words to help you predict a blank, and make a prediction for one of the blanks first. Let’s check out an example from Grockit:

The attendees at the normally ——– office Christmas party were delighted by the lavish decorations and ——– atmosphere this year.

mundane…exuberant
banal. . . humdrum
entertaining. . . ornate
litigious. . . modish
monotonous. . . morose

Need more SAT practice? Here’s another SAT sentence completion practice question from Grockit!

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One-Blank Sentence Completions on the SAT

By jordan schonig posted January 29, 2010

In one-blank sentence completion problems, we are presented with a sentence that has a missing word. It is our job to figure out the best word for that sentence. If you’ve never seen one of these problems before, you might be thinking “How should I know what word to use? I didn’t write the sentence. These test writers are either nuts or just lazy.” If you were, in fact, thinking this, then I commiserate with you. But, as much as I also enjoy ridiculing those defenseless test writers (yes, I know, they have feelings too), I have to let you know that the expectations on these questions are not ridiculous. Each sentence completion problem offers clues to help you figure out the answer, and each question is 100% answerable.

Let’s start with an example:

Building a new space shuttle was expected to take several years; thus, officials were surprised when the Plutonic Lander was built with ——–.

A.honor

B.caution

C.trepidation

D.celerity

E.deliberation

Here’s how to approach the one-blank sentence completion, step by step.

Here’s another SAT sentence completion practice question. Good luck!

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SAT Practice: Understanding Vocabulary in Context

By jonathan peters posted November 12, 2009

Solving a sentence completion question is admittedly difficult. How do you know the original intent of the sentence when the most important words are absent? How do you pick the best word or words to go into the sentence? Should you choose the words whose meanings you don’t know? Or should you simply go with the words that you already know? Here’s the short answer: Choose the answer choice that makes the most sense.
How do you pick the answer choice that makes sense? Here’s a sample question I just wrote:

1. Larry reminded himself that although ________ he must remember his way home and not get sidetracked.

A. Hard of hearing
B. Insomniac
C. Regretful
D. Livid
E. Distracted

What do you choose here? First, read the sentence. Then try looking at the answer choices. Any stick out right away? Circle those. Now here’s my method: choose a word that works that is not on the answer list. For example, why not “frazzled?” That could work. Next step, find the word that most resembles “tired” among the answer choices. You can eliminate A, B, C, and D right off the bat. Wait—let’s look at B once again. Could Larry simply be tired or an insomniac and therefore not know how to get home? The answer is no. Unless the sentence specifically states that Larry gets lost when tired, do not make that stretch. Within the logic of this sentence, E works. Use the context of the sentence to determine the answer.

Let’s look at the next sentence:

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SAT Practice: Sentence Completions – Logical Sequence

By james kim posted October 6, 2009

Sentence completions do not simply test one aspect of the verbal section, but several. It is not only important that you know dictionary definitions of words, but also how those words fit together stylistically and logically. One way to ensure that you rack up points on your SAT verbal section is to understand the logical sequence of sentences, which will enable you to eliminate wrong answer choices as well as hone in on the correct one.

For the most part, sentence completion questions provide all the clues to answer the question right in front of you, especially for those that test your ability to follow a logical sequence. Knowing this, you should have much more confidence when coming across these questions. Because the clues are all in the sentence, when reading through it, you should have some sort of idea as to what the blanks could be. Whether by noting the tone of the sentence or maybe some important words that will give you a hint to what the blank is.

For example: (taken from Grockit)

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