Let’s first review last week’s PSAT PPT!

*The Critical Reading questions are not arranged from easy to difficult. *This is the only section where they are not.

*The least important part of the Critical Reading section is the reading passage. It’s true! *Most students have difficulty with this section because they place too much importance on reading the passage.

*Read the questions before you read the passage, so you can get an idea of what the passage is about, and what you’re looking for.

What 3 things do you need to answer the questions in a CR passage? The author’s point or message The author’s tone Understanding of how the passage is laid out, so you can find the answers quickly.

*After reading the passage, read the question, but cover up the answer choices and answer the question in your own words. This will help to keep you from falling for the PSAT’s tricky answers.

LINE REFERENCES “According to paragraph 3 (lines 34-50), scientists studied the comet in order to” “In lines 56-75, the narrator is primarily concerned with” “The author uses the quotation from Johnson’s book (line 79) to demonstrate that”

PSAT doesn’t want to make the test too easy, so answers are rarely in the lines given in the questions. Read at least two sentences before and/or after to find your answer.

VOCABULARY IN CONTEXT (VIC) 1. Cover up answer choices. 2.Go to the passage, read the sentence that contains the word being tested. 3. Cross out the word if you don’t know what it means. Then, above the word, write your own word for it. If you don’t come up with your own word on your first try, read the sentence before and after. 4. Once you’ve chosen your own word, uncover the answers and find the word whose meaning is closest in meaning to your word.

VIC - THE STUDENT’S FRIEND *You should always answer VIC questions even if you don’t have time to do others. *VIC questions are always short, predictable, and don’t require you to read very much.

* PSAT’s EXCEPT/LEAST/NOT questions are big time- wasters. You’re really answering four questions for the price of one. Most of these questions expect you to find four pieces of information for just one question. Do them last of all.

*Another reason not to answer EXCEPT/LEAST/NOT questions until last is because once you’ve answered the other questions from the passage, you’ll have a good idea of what facts in the passage are important and where to find them.

STUPID ANSWERS? * Remember that you are not necessarily trying to find the BEST answer. *You are trying to find the LEAST WRONG answer from a pool of answers that could be pretty bad.

DUAL PASSAGES Two passages for the price of one Do each passage and its corresponding questions one at a time Do questions that involve both passages last