How To Get 800 On SAT Reading - 11 Strategies by A Perfect Scorer PDF

11/27/2020 How to Get 800 on SAT Reading: 11 Strategies by a Perfect Scorer
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How to Get 800 on SAT Reading: 11

Strategies by a Perfect Scorer
Posted by Allen Cheng | Jan 3, 2020 6:09:00 PM

SAT STRATEGIES, SAT READING
Are you scoring in the 600-750 range on SAT Reading + Writing? Do you want to raise
that score as high as possible—to a perfect 800?
Getting to a perfect SAT Reading test score isn't easy. It'll require perfection. But with
hard work and my strategies below, you'll be able to do it. I've consistently scored 800
on Reading on my real SATs, and I know what it takes. Follow my advice, and you'll get
a perfect score—or get very close.
Brief note: This article is suited for advanced students already scoring a 600 on SAT
Reading or above (this equates to a Reading Test Score of 30+ out of 40). If you're
below this range, my "How to Improve your SAT Reading Score to a 600" article is more
appropriate for you. Follow the SAT Reading tips in that article, then come back to this
one when you've reached a 600.
https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-800-on-sat-reading-10-strategies-by-a-perfect-scorer 1/45
Also, the SAT has a single 800 Reading + Writing score, combining the individual Reading
and Writing test scores. Technically, when I mention a perfect Reading test score, I'm
referring to a perfect 40/40 test score, which is essential to getting an 800 Reading and
Writing score. In this guide, I'll use 800 and 40 interchangeably to mean a perfect
Reading score. We won't talk about Writing here, but if you want to improve your Writing
score too, check out my Perfect SAT Writing score guide.
Overview
Most guides on the internet on how to score an 800 are pretty low quality. They're often
written by people who never scored an 800 themselves. You can tell because their
advice is usually vague and not very pragmatic. It's not enough to be reminded of simple
Reading tips like "don't forget to guess on every question!"
In contrast, I've written what I believe to be the best guide on getting an 800 available
anywhere. I have con dence that these strategies work because I used them myself to
score 800 on SAT Reading consistently. They've also worked for thousands of my
students at PrepScholar.
In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring an 800 is a good idea, what it takes
to score an 800, and then go into the 11 key SAT Reading strategies so you know
how to get a perfect SAT Reading score.
Stick with me—as an advanced student, you probably already know that scoring high is
good. But it's important to know why an 800 Reading and Writing score is useful, since
this will fuel your motivation to get a high score.
This guide has been updated for the current SAT, so you can be sure my advice works
for the test you're about to take.
Final note: in this guide, I talk mainly about getting to an 800. But if your goal is a 700,
these strategies still equally apply.
Understand the Stakes: Why an 800 SAT Reading +

Writing?
Let's make something clear: a 1550+ on an SAT is equivalent to a perfect 1600. No top
college is going to give you more credit for a 1590 than a 1550. You've already crossed
their score threshold, and whether you get in now depends on the rest of your
application.
So if you're already scoring a 1550, don't waste your time studying trying to get a 1600.
You're already set for the top colleges, and it's time to work on the rest of your
application.
But if you're scoring a 1540 or below and you want to go to a top 10 college, it's
worth your time to push your score up to a 1550 or above. There's a big di erence
between a 1450 and a 1550, largely because it's easier to get a 1450 (and a lot more
applicants do) and a lot harder to get a 1550.
A 1540 places you right around average at Harvard and Princeton, and being average is
bad in terms of Ivy League-level admissions, since the admissions rate is typically below
10%.
So why get an 800 on SAT Reading+Writing? Because it helps you compensate for
weaknesses in other sections. By and large, schools consider your composite score more
so than your individual section scores. If you can get a perfect 40 in SAT Reading, you
can get a 39 in SAT Writing (for a total of 790 in Reading + Writing) and a 760 in SAT Math
and still be con dent about your test scores. This gives you a lot more exibility.
Harvard's 75th percentile Reading score is 780.
There's another scenario where an 800 in SAT Reading is really important. If you're
planning to apply as a humanities or social science major (like English, political
science, communications) to a top school.
Here's the reason: college admissions is all about comparisons between applicants. The
school wants to admit the best, and you're competing with other people in the same
"bucket" as you.
By applying as a humanities/social science major, you're competing against other

humanities/social science folks: people for whom SAT Reading is easy. Really easy.
Here are a few examples from schools. For Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and U Chicago,
the 75th percentile SAT Reading score is a 770 or above. That means at least 25% of
all students at these schools have a 770 in SAT Reading.
But if you can work your way to an 800, you show that you're at an equal level (at
least on this metric). Even if it takes you a ton of work, all that matters is the score you
achieve at the end.
I'll be honest—SAT Reading wasn't my strong suit in high school. When I started
studying, I was scoring around the 700 range. I was always stronger in math and science.
But I learned the tricks of the test, and I developed the strategies below to raise my
score to an 800. Now I'm sharing them with you.
Know That You Can Do It
This isn't just some fuzzy feel-good message you see on the back of a Starbucks cup.
I mean, literally, you and every other reasonably intelligent student can score a
perfect SAT Reading score.
The reason most people don't is they don't try hard enough or they don't study the right
way.
Even if language isn't your strongest suit, or you got a B+ in AP English, you're capable of
this.
Because I know that more than anything else, your SAT score is a re ection of how
hard you work and how smartly you study.
SAT Reading is Designed to Trick You. You Need to Learn How
Here's why: the SAT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the
questions are nothing like what you've seen in school?
I bet you've had this problem: in SAT Reading passages, you often miss questions
because of an 'unlucky guess.' You'll try to eliminate a few answer choices, and the
remaining answer choices will all sound equally good to you.
Well, you throw up your hands and randomly guess.
This was one of the major issues for myself when I was studying SAT Reading, and I
know it a ects thousands of my students at PrepScholar.
The SAT is purposely designed this way to confuse you. Literally millions of other
students have the exact same problem you do. And the SAT knows this.
Normally in your school's English class, the teacher tells you that all interpretations of
the text are valid. You can write an essay about anything you want, and English teachers
aren't (usually) allowed to tell you that your opinion is wrong. This is because they can
get in trouble for telling you what to think, especially for complex issues like slavery or
poverty.
But the SAT has an entirely di erent problem. It's a national test, which means it
needs a level playing eld for all students around the country. It needs a solid test to
compare students with each other. Every question needs a single, unambiguously,
100% correct answer.
There's only ever one correct answer. Find a way to eliminate three incorrect answers.
Imagine if this weren't the case. Imagine that each reading answer had two answer
choices that might each be plausibly correct. When the scores came out, every single
student who got the question wrong would complain to the College Board about the test
being wrong.
If this were true, the College Board would then have to invalidate the question, which
weakens the power of the test.
The College Board wants to avoid this nightmare scenario. Therefore, every single
Reading passage question has only one, single correct answer.
But the SAT disguises this fact. It asks questions like:
1. The author would most likely agree with which of the following statements?
2. The rst paragraph primarily serves to:
3. In line 20, 'dark' most nearly means:
Notice a pattern here? The SAT always disguises the fact that there's always one
unambiguous answer. It tries to MAKE you waver between two or three answer choices
that are most likely.
And then you guess randomly.
And then you get it wrong.
You can bet that students fall for this. Millions of times every year.
Students who don't prepare for the SAT in the right way don't appreciate this. But, if
you prepare for the SAT in the right way, you'll learn the tricks the SAT plays on
you. And you'll raise your score.
The SAT Reading section is full of patterns like these. To improve your score, you just
need to:
Learn the types of questions that the SAT tests, like the one above
Learn strategies to solve these questions, using skills you already know
Practice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakes
The point is that you can learn these skills, even if you don't consider yourself a good
reader or a great English student. I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this.
One last point: let's make sure we understand how many questions we can miss to score
an 800.
What It Takes to Get a Perfect 40 in Reading
If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you need to get that score
on the actual test. There are 52 questions in the Reading section, and how many
questions you miss determines your scaled score out of 40.
From the O cial SAT Practice Tests, I've taken the raw score to scaled score conversion
tables from four tests. (If you could use a refresher on how the SAT is scored and how
raw scores are calculated, read this.)
Raw Score Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4

52 40 40 40 40
51 40 39 40 39
50 39 38 39 39
49 38 37 38 38
48 38 37 38 37
47 37 36 37 36
46 37 35 36 35
45 36 35 36 35

These grading scales are harsh. For tests 2 and 4, if you miss just one question, you
get dropped down to a 39. This means your maximum Reading + Writing score is a 790.
For tests 1 and 3, if you miss one question, you're still at a perfect 40, but miss another
and you drop down to a 39.
The scoring chart curve depends on the di culty of the test. The harder the test, the
easier the curve. But you can't predict what kind of test you're going to get on test day.
The safest thing to do is to aim for perfection. On every practice test, you need to
aim for a perfect raw score for an 800.
Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the di erence you need to get to a 800. For
example, if you're scoring a 35 raw score, you need to answer six to seven more
questions right to get to a perfect 40 and an 800.
As a nal example, here's a screenshot from my exact score report from March 2014,
showing that I missed one question and earned an 800.
(This was from the previous 2400 version of the SAT, but it had a similar grading scale).
OK—so we've covered why scoring a higher Reading score is important, why you
speci cally are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to
your target.
Now we'll get into the meat of the article: actionable strategies and reading tips
that you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement.
Strategies to Get a Perfect SAT Reading Score
What's your greatest weakness?

Strategy 1: Understand Your High Level Weakness—Time Management

or Passage Strategy?
Every student has di erent aws in SAT Reading. Some people don't have good
strategies for tackling the passage questions. Others don't manage their time correctly
and run out of time before getting through all the questions.
Here's how you can gure out which one applies more to you:
Find an o cial SAT practice test, and take only the Reading section. We have the
complete list of free practice tests here.
For each section, use a timer and have it count down the 65 minutes for the
Reading section. Treat it like a real test.
If time runs out for that section and you're 100% ready to move on, then move on.
If you're not ready to move on, keep on working for as long as you need. For every
new answer or answer that you change, mark it with a special note as "Extra Time."
When you're ready, grade your test using the answer key and score chart, but we
want two scores: 1) The Realistic score you got under normal timing conditions,
and 2) The Extra Time score. This is why you marked the questions you answered
or changed during Extra Time.
Get what we're doing here? By marking which questions you did under Extra Time, we
can gure out what score you got if you were given all the time you needed. This will
help us gure out where your weaknesses lie.
If you didn't take any extra time, then your Extra Time score is the same as your Realistic
score.
Here's a owchart to help you gure this out:
Was your Extra Time score a 35 or above?
If NO (Extra Time score < 35), then you have strategy and content weaknesses. All the
extra time in the world couldn't get you above a 35, so your rst angle of attack will be to
nd your weaknesses and attack them (We'll cover this later).
If YES (Extra Time score > 35), then:

Was your Realistic score a 35 or above?
If NO (Extra Time score > 35, Realistic < 35), then that means you have a di erence
between your Extra Time score and your Realistic score. If this di erence is more than 3
points, then you have some big problems with time management. We need to gure out
why this is. Are you using the best passage reading strategy for you? Does it take you too
much time to get the answer for each question? Generally, doing a lot of practice
questions and learning the most e cient passage strategies will help reduce your time.
More on this later.
If YES (both Extra Time and Realistic scores > 35), then you have a really good shot at
getting an 800. Compare your Extra Time and Realistic score—if they di ered by more
than 2 points, then you would bene t from learning how to solve questions more
quickly. If not, then you likely can bene t from shoring up on your last content
weaknesses and avoiding careless mistakes (more on this strategy later).
Hopefully that makes sense. Typically I see that students have both timing and content
issues, but you might nd that one is much more dominant for you than the other. For
example, if you can get a 40 with extra time, but score a 35 in regular time, you know
exactly that you need to work on time management to get a 40.
This type of analysis is so important that it's a central part of my prep program,
PrepScholar. When a new student joins, he or she gets a diagnostic that gures out
speci c strengths and weaknesses. The program then automatically customizes your
learning so that you're always studying according to where you can make the most
improvement.
No matter what your weakness is, my following strategies will address all weaknesses
comprehensively.
Strategy 2: Learn to Eliminate 3 Wrong Answers
This strategy was by far the most e ective for me in raising my Reading score. It
completely changed the way I viewed passage questions.
I spent some time talking above about how the SAT always has one unambiguous
answer. This has a huge implication for the strategy you should use to nd the right SAT
Reading answer.
Here's the other way to see it: Out of the four answer choices, three of them have
something that is totally wrong about them. Only one answer is 100% correct, which
means the other three are 100% wrong.
You know how you try to eliminate answer choices, and then end up with a few at the
end that all seem equally likely to be correct? "Well, this can work...but then again this
could work as well..."
STOP doing that. You're not doing a good enough job of eliminating answer
choices. Remember—every single wrong choice can be crossed out for its own reasons.
You need to do a 180 on your approach to Reading questions. Instead, nd a reason to

eliminate three answer choices. "Can I nd a reason to eliminate this answer choice?
How about this one?"
You have to learn how to eliminate three answer choices for every single question.
"Great, Allen. But this doesn't tell me anything about how to eliminate answer choices."
Thanks for asking. One thing to remember is that even a single word can make an
answer choice wrong. Every single word in each answer choice is put there by the SAT
for a reason. If a single word in the answer choice isn't supported by the passage text,
you need to eliminate it, even if the rest of the answer sounds good.
There are a few classic wrong answer choices the SAT loves to use. Here's an example
question.
For example, let's imagine you just read a passage talking about how human evolution
shaped the environment. It gives a few examples. First, it talks about how the transition
from earlier species like Homo habilus to neanderthals led to more tool usage like re,
which caused wild res and shaped the ecology. It then talks about Homo sapiens 40,000
years ago and their overhunting of species like woolly mammoths to extinction.
So then we run into a question asking, "Which of the following best describes the
main subject of the passage?" Here are the answer choices:
A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals

B: The study of evolution
C: How the environment shaped human evolution
D: The plausibility of evolution
E: The in uence of human development on ecology
(We're using ve answers for purposes of illustration—the SAT will only have four
choices).
As you're reading these answer choices, a few of them probably started sounded really
plausible to you.
Surprise! Each of the answers from A-D has something seriously wrong about it.
Each one is a classic example of a wrong answer type given by the SAT.
Wrong Answer 1: Too Speci c
A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals
This type of wrong answer focuses on a smaller detail in the passage. It's meant to trick
you because you might think to yourself, "well, I see this mentioned in the passage, so
it's a plausible answer choice."
Wrong! Think to yourself—can this answer choice really describe the entire passage?
Can it basically function as the title of this passage? You'll nd that it's just way too
speci c to convey the point of the overall passage.
Wrong Answer 2: Too Broad
B: The study of evolution
This type of wrong answer has the opposite problem—it's way too broad. Yes,
theoretically the passage concerns the study of evolution, but only one aspect of it, and
especially as it relates to the impact on the environment.
To give another ludicrous example, if you talked to your friend about your cell phone,
and he said your main point was about the universe. Yes, you were talking about the
universe, but only a tiny fraction of it. This is way too broad.
Wrong Answer 3: Reversed Relationship
C: How the environment shaped human evolution
This wrong answer choice can be tricky because it mentions all the right words. But of
course the relationship between those words needs to be correct as well. Here, the
relationship is ipped. Students who read too quickly make careless mistakes like
these!
Wrong Answer 4: Unrelated Concept
D: The plausibility of evolution
Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on the tendency of students to overthink the
question. If you're passionate about arguing about evolution, this might be a trigger
answer since any discussion of evolution becomes a chance to argue about the
plausibility of evolution. Of course, this concept will appear nowhere in the passage, but
some students just won't be able to resist.
Do you see the point? On the surface, each of the answer choices sounds possibly
correct. A less prepared student would think that all of these were plausible answers.
But plausible isn't good enough. The right answer needs to be 100%, totally right.
Wrong answers might be o by even one word—you need to eliminate these.
Carry this thought into every SAT Reading passage question you do and I guarantee you
will start raising your score.
Strategy 3: Predict the Answer Before Reading the Answer Choices
As we've discussed already, the SAT is designed to goad you into making mistakes by
putting really similar answer choices next to each other.
In Strategy 2, we covered the strategy of ruthless, unforgiving elimination of answer

choices.
Here's another Strategy that works well for me. Before reading the answer choices,
come up with your own answer to the question.
Gaze into your crystal ball and predict the right answer.
This strategy is exactly designed to counteract the trickiness of the answer choices.
If you don't apply this strategy, your thinking process likely meanders like this:
"OK, I just read the question. Answer A is de nitely out. B can kind of work. C...it doesn't
exactly t, but I can see how it might work." and so on. By now, you've already fallen into
the College Board's trap of muddling the answer choices.
Take the opposite approach. While you're reading the question, come up with your
own ideal answer to the question before reading the answer choices. This prevents
you from getting biased by the SAT's answer choices, especially the incorrect ones.
If it's a "Big Picture" type question asking about the main point of the passage, answer
for yourself, "What would make a good title for this passage?"
If it's an "Inference" question, answer for yourself, "What would the author think about
the situation given in the question?"
Even if you can't answer the question straight away—for example, if you have to refer
back to the line number to remember what the passage was saying—try to solve the
question before looking at the answer choices.
The key here is that the passage must support your answer choice. Every correct
answer on SAT passages needs to be justi ed by the passage—otherwise the answer
would be ambiguous, which would cause problems of cancelling questions I referred to
earlier.
Warning: this only works if you can read and understand passages well, and if you have
prior experience with SAT Reading questions! That's why I don't recommend this
strategy yet before you hit a 600 level since you're more likely to come up with the
wrong answer choice in your head.
Strategy 4: Experiment With Passage Reading Strategies and Find the

Best for You
In your prep for the SAT, you may have read di erent strategies for how to read a
passage and answer questions. Some students read the questions before reading the
passage. Others read the passage in detail rst.
At your high level, I can't predict which method will work best for you. We're going
for perfection, which means that your strategy needs to line up with your strengths and
weaknesses perfectly, or else you'll make mistakes or run out of time.
What I will do, however, is go through the most e ective methods. You'll then have to
gure out through your test data which one leads to the highest score for you.
Passage Method 1: Skim the Passage, Then Read the Questions
This is the most common strategy I recommend to our students, and in my eyes the
most e ective. I prefer this one myself.
Here it is:
Skim the passage on the rst read through. Don't try to understand every
single line, or write notes predicting what the questions will be. Just get a general
understanding of the passage. You want to try to nish reading the passage in 3
minutes, if possible.
Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a line number, then go back to
that line number and understand the text around it.
If you can't answer a question within 30 seconds, skip it.
My preferred way to tackle a passage: skimming it on the rst read-through.
This strategy is a revelation for students who used to close-read a passage and run out
of time.
This skimming method works because the questions will ask about far fewer lines than
the passage actually contains. For example, lines 5-20 of a reading passage might not be
relevant to any question that follows. Therefore, if you spend time trying to deeply
understand lines 5-20, you'll be wasting time.
By taking the opposite approach of going back to the passage when you need to refer to
it, you guarantee reading e ciency. You're focusing only on the parts of the passage
that are important to answering questions.
Critical Skill: You must be able to skim e ectively. This means being able to quickly
digest a text without having to slowly read every word. If you're not quite good at this
yet, practice it on newspaper articles and your homework reading.
Passage Method 2: Read the Questions First and Mark the Passage
This is the second most common strategy and, if used well, as e ective as the rst
method. But it has some pitfalls if you don't do it correctly.
Here's how it goes:
Before you read the passage, go to the questions and read each one.
If the question refers to a series of lines, mark those lines on the passage. Take a
brief note about the gist of the question.
Go back to the passage and skim it. When you reach one of your notes, slow down
and take more notice of the question.
Answer the questions.
Here's an example passage that I marked up, with questions coming rst. Notice that
beyond underlining the phrase referenced in the question, I left clues for myself on
what's important to get out of this phrase.
(questions not relating to speci c lines aren't shown above)
In the hands of an SAT expert, this is a powerful strategy. Just like Method 1 above, you
save time by skipping parts of the passage that aren't asked about. Furthermore, you get
a head start on the questions by trying to answer them beforehand.
But there are serious potential pitfalls to this method if you're not careful or
prepared enough.
Here's one: when you rst read the questions before the passage, you won't have
enough time to digest the actual answer choices (nor will they make sense to you). So
you have to make your best guess for what the question is asking when you're writing a
note along the passage.
In some cases, this can lead you astray. Take this example from above:
When I read the question, I saw that it asked me to nd how Woolf characterized the
questions I marked in lines 53-57.
The problem is how broad the question is. How something can be characterized gives a
wide range of options. Here are a number of plausible characterizations as I read the
text:
important, life-changing ("have to ask ourselves")

communal ("we")
detail-oriented ("on what terms?")
urgent ("here and now")
ambitious
progressive and future-looking ("where is it leading us")
There's a lot of exibility in interpretation here, since the questions really do touch upon
all these characterizations.
It turns out "important" and "urgent" are the right interpretations, for answer choice C.
But when I'm reading the passage and see my note, I can waste a lot of time coming
up with potential options that aren't even correct answer choices. In the worst
case, it can bias me toward the wrong answer.
Critical Skill: You need to have so much experience with the SAT Reading section that
you can anticipate what the question is going to ask you for your notes to be helpful. If
you're not sure of this, you can easily be led down the wrong track and focus on the
wrong aspect of the passage.
Passage Method 3: Read the Passage in Detail, Then Answer Questions
This method is what beginner students usually use by default, because it's what they've
been trained to do in school. Some beginner books like Princeton Review and Kaplan
also suggest this as a strategy.
It's my least favorite method because there are so many ways for it to go wrong. But
for the sake of completeness, I'm listing it here in case it works best for you.
Here's how it goes:
Read the passage in detail, line by line.

Take notes to yourself about the main point of each paragraph.
Answer the questions.
As you might guess, I don't like this method for the following reasons:
By reading the passage closely, you absorb a lot of details that aren't useful for
answering questions.
The notes you take aren't directed toward helping you answer the questions.
By interpreting the passage ahead of time, you risk being led astray.
But this might work especially well for you if you're very good at reading for
understanding, and if you have so much expertise with the SAT that you can predict
what the test is going to ask you about anyway.
Choose Which Works Best for You, Based on Test Data
Because I can't predict which one will work best for you, you need to gure this out
yourself. To do this, you need cold, hard data from your test scores.
Try each method on two sample test passages each, and tally up your percentage score
for each. If one of them is a clear winner for you, then develop that method further. If
there isn't a clear winner, choose the one that feels most comfortable for you.
As part of our PrepScholar program, we give you advanced statistics on your score
performance so that you can experiment with methods that work best for you.
Next strategy: Understand your mistakes.
Strategy 5: Understand Every Single Mistake You Make
On the path to perfection, you need to make sure every single one of your weak points
is covered. Even just one mistake will knock you down from an 800, as we saw in the
score charts above.
The rst step is simply to do a ton of practice. If you're studying from free materials
or from books, you have access to a lot of practice questions in bulk. As part of our
PrepScholar program, we have over 7,000 SAT questions customized to each skill.
The second step—and the more important part—is to be ruthless about

understanding your mistakes.
Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand
exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over
again.
I've seen students who did 20 practice tests. They've solved over 3,000 questions, but
they're still nowhere near a perfect SAT Reading score.
Why? They never understood their mistakes. They just hit their heads against the wall
over and over again.
Think of yourself as an exterminator, and your mistakes are cockroaches. You need to
eliminate every single one—and nd the source of each one—or else the restaurant
you work for will be shut down.
Here's what you need to do:
On every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question that
you're even 20% unsure about.
When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you
marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question
correctly, you'll make sure to review it.
In a notebook, write down:
#1: the gist of the question
#2: why you missed it, and
#3: what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future.
Have separate sections by question type (vocab questions, big picture questions,
inference questions, etc).
It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the
answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you speci cally failed on
this question.
By taking this structured approach to your mistakes, you'll now have a running log of
every question you missed, and your re ection on why.
No excuses when it comes to your mistakes.
Always Go Deeper—Why Did You Miss a Reading Question?
Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I
didn't get this question right." That's a cop out.
Always take it one step further—what speci cally did you miss, and what do you have to
improve in the future?
Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a Reading question, and how
you take the analysis one step further:
Elimination: I couldn't eliminate enough incorrect answer choices, or I eliminated the

correct answer.
One step further: Why couldn't I eliminate the answer choice during the test? How can I
eliminate answer choices like this in the future?
Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or answered for the wrong
thing.
One step further: Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to
avoid this?
Vocab: I didn't know what the key word meant.
One step further: What word was this? What is the de nition? Are there other words in
this question I didn't know?
Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing
questions.
Yes, this is hard, and it's draining, and it takes work. That's why most students who study
ine ectively don't improve.
Many people don't know the right way to study. Of the people who do, very few will
diligently apply the right methods, day in, and day out, with discipline.
But you're di erent. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care
more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes,
you'll improve more than other students too.
Reviewing mistakes is so important that in PrepScholar, for every one of our 7,000+
practice questions, we explain in detail how to get the correct answer, and why incorrect
answers are wrong. We also point out bait answers so that you can you can learn the
tricks that the SAT plays on test takers like you.
Bonus Tip: Re-Solve the Question Before Reading the Answer Explanation
When you're reviewing practice questions, the rst thing you probably do is read the
answer explanation and at most re ect on it a little.
This is a little too easy. I consider this passive learning—you're not actively engaging
with the mistake you made.
Instead, try something di erent— nd the correct answer choice (A-D), but don't look
at the explanation. Instead, try to re-solve the question once over again and try to
get to the correct answer.
This will often be hard. You couldn't solve it the rst time, so why could you solve it the
second time around?
But this time, with less time pressure, you might spot a new reason to eliminate the
wrong answer choice, or something else will pop up. Something will just "click" for you.
When this happens, what you learned will stick with you for 20 times longer than if
you just read an answer explanation. I know this from personal experience. Because
you've struggled with it and reached a breakthrough, you retain that information far
better than if you just passively absorbed the information.
This is perfect for SAT Reading because you'll often miss a question because of an
incorrect interpretation of the text. By forcing yourself to get the right answer, you'll
practice getting the correct interpretation of the text. Even better, you'll be
scrounging the passage for clues as to why the correct answer is correct, which is exactly
what you need in your passage strategy to begin with.
It's too easy to just read an answer explanation and have it go in one ear and out the
other. You won't actually learn from your mistake, and you'll make that mistake over and
over again.
Treat each wrong question like a puzzle. Struggle with each wrong answer for up to
10 minutes. Only then if you don't get it should you read the answer explanation.
Strategy 6: Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them
Reading passage questions might look similar, but they actually test very di erent skills.
At PrepScholar we believe the major passage skills to be:
1. Big Picture/Main Point

2. Little Picture/Detail
3. Inference
4. Words and Phrases in Context
5. Citing Textual Evidence
6. Perspective
7. Analyzing Word Choice
8. Analyzing Text Structure
9. Analyzing Multiple Texts
10. Analyzing Quantitative Info
Whew—that's a lot of skills. That's a much more detailed breakdown than what appears
at rst glance, and what most books and courses o er.
Each of these question types uses di erent skills in how you read and analyze a
passage. They each require a di erent method of prep and focused practice.
The SAT requires a lot of skills. Make sure you know which ones are your weaknesses.

If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in Reading than others. You
might be better at getting the Big Picture of a passage, compared to the Inference. Or
you might be really strong in vocabulary, but weak in understanding the function of
sentences in a passage.
If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study.
This means for every hour you study for the SAT, it needs to be the most e ective
hour possible.
In concrete terms, you need to nd your greatest areas of improvement and work
on those.
Too many students study the 'dumb' way. They just buy a book and read it cover to
cover. When they don't improve, they're shocked.
I'm not.
Studying e ectively for the SAT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover
all your bases with a very thin layer of understanding.
What these students did wrong was they wasted time on subjects they already knew,
and they didn't spend enough time on their weaknesses.
Instead, studying e ectively for the SAT is like plugging up the holes of a leaky
boat. You need to nd the biggest hole, and ll it. Then you nd the next biggest hole,
and you x that. Soon you'll nd that your boat isn't sinking at all.
How does this relate to SAT Reading? You need to nd the sub-skills that you're
weakest in, and then drill those until you're no longer weak in them. Fix up the
biggest holes.
Within reading, you need to gure out whether you have patterns to your mistakes. Is it
that you don't get Inference questions? Or maybe you're really weak at interpreting
details? Or from strategy 1: is it that you're running out of time in reading passages?
For every question that you miss, you need to identify the type of question it is.
When you notice patterns to the questions you miss, you then need to nd extra
practice for this subskill.
Say you miss a lot of inference questions (this is typically the hardest type of question
for students to get). You need to nd a way to get focused practice questions for this
skill so you can drill your mistakes.
Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our SAT prep program,
PrepScholar.
We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they
actually work. When you start with PrepScholar, you'll take a diagnostic that will
determine your weaknesses in over forty SAT skills. PrepScholar then creates a
study program speci cally customized for you.
To improve each skill, you'll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over
20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your speci c area weaknesses,
so your time is always spent most e ectively to raise your score.
We also force you to focus on understanding your mistakes and learning from
them. If you make the same mistake over and over again, we'll call you out on it.
There's no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get
better score results than any other program on the market.
Check it out today with a 5-day free trial:
SAT Free Signup

Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction
This is a quick tip that many students ignore. Each passage comes with an italicized
introduction, like this for the passage shown above:
This is a freebie. It gives you context for the entire passage. By knowing that the passage
is about "the situation of women in English society," you hit the ground running when
you read the very rst sentence. This helps a lot.
Sometimes, the introduction alone can give you the answer for the "Big Picture"
question about what the main point of the passage is.
Always always make sure that you read this introduction, no matter what passage
method you use from Strategy 4.
Strategy 8: Be Interested in the Passage Subject Matter
The SAT has passages about a lot of weird topics. Victorian novels, underwater basket-
weaving, and the evolution of gerbils are all fair game.
It's unlikely that you're naturally thrilled about all the subjects you'll read about.
This makes it easy to tune out when you're reading the passage. This makes it harder to
answer the questions, which will make you more frustrated.
Instead, adopt this mindset: For the next 10 minutes, I am the world's most
passionate person about whatever subject this passage is about. This passage is
the most frickin' exciting thing I could be reading right now.
For every single passage, be as excited as she is.

Force yourself to care about what the passage is telling you. Pretend that your life
depends on understanding this passage. Maybe you're about to give a lecture on this
subject. Or someone's holding a puppy hostage if you don't answer enough questions
correctly.
Or your crush turns out to be a huge mid-18th century English literature fan, so you pay
rapt attention to every single word.
When I was preparing for the SAT in high school, I took this so far to the extreme that I
ended up genuinely fascinated by whatever the passage was telling me about. I
remember reading a passage about volcanic activity and thinking, "Wow, I'm really glad I
just learned this." (I know this sounds crazy.)
If you stay engaged while reading, you'll understand the passage so much better,
and you'll answer questions with way more accuracy.
Strategy 9: Don't Spend Time on Vocab
Vocab typically gets way too much attention from students. It feels good to study vocab
ashcards, because it seems like you're making progress. "I studied 1,000 vocab words—
this must mean I improved my score!"
This is why other test prep programs love teaching you vocab—it feels like they're
teaching you something useful worth your money, but it's not obvious that vocab
actually isn't helping your score.
Fortunately, vocab doesn't play a big role in your SAT Reading score anymore. This
is especially true in the current SAT. They've completely taken out Sentence Completion
questions, and the words that you have to analyze in context are usually pretty
common.
Here are examples of words that you need to understand in context in the current SAT:
ambivalent
clashes
convey
plastic
postulate
These are somewhat advanced words, but they're nowhere near the level of the words
you used to have to know, like "baroque," "diatribes," "platitudes," and "progenitor."
College Board lowered the emphasis on vocab because of complaints that memorizing
esoteric vocab was useless in college success and career success. Instead, it's now
asking you to gure out the meaning of more common words the way the author
intended.
For example, "plastic" can mean "malleable," "arti cial," or "sculptural." Only one of
these is right in the context of the passage.
This doesn't mean that vocab is totally useless. For one, SAT Writing still has a few vocab
questions (read more about this in my Perfect SAT Writing guide). Furthermore,
sometimes knowing the de nition of the words in context is helpful.
Here are a few tips on what to learn, and how to learn vocab e ectively.
First, I've written a super detailed guide on the best way to study SAT vocabulary.
This method makes your studying much more e cient so you retain words longer and
engage with the most di cult vocab most often.
Second, you need to take notes on vocab words that you don't know that you see in
your practice questions. Don't just focus on the right answers—understand the
de nition of wrong answers as well.
Only take notes from o cial SAT tests. It's hard to predict what words the SAT will use,
and the SAT doesn't often repeat words from previous tests. But the o cial free practice
tests from the O cial Study Guide that we integrate in our PrepScholar program are the
best sources.
Strategy 9B: Don't Spend Time Reading Books or Magazines
Over the many years I've studied for tests or run a test prep company, I've heard this
advice for SAT Reading: "Read great novels and well-written magazines, like in the New
York Times or the Atlantic. This will help with reading comprehension."
I hate this advice.
A test like SAT Reading is very speci c. It tests reading comprehension in very speci c
and formulaic ways, as I showed with all the question types in Strategy 3.
Reading for general leisure does NOT train you e ectively for the test. You're not
exercising the same skills you need on the test, nor is it goal-driven enough to help you
make progress.
This terrible advice is like saying you can train for a swim meet by standing in the
shower for longer. Yes, by being in the shower, you'll be in water, just like you will in the
swimming pool. But you're not using the same skills.
Yes, if you have a lifetime of strong reading, with thousands of hours of leisure reading
experience, you will do better on SAT Reading. But right now, reading general material
won't help you e ciently.
Take your extra time and do SAT Reading practice questions instead.
Strategy 10: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check
Your goal at the end of all this work is to get so good at SAT Reading that you solve
every question and have extra time left over at the end of the section to recheck
your work.
In high school, I was able to nish a Reading section in about 60% of the time allotted.
For SAT Reading, this means nishing all passages and 52 questions in 40 minutes.
This means I have a whopping 25 minutes left over to recheck my answers two times
over.
How did I get so fast?
#1: I have an e cient reading strategy that works best for me. Namely, I skim the
passage and work through the questions afterward.
#2: Through a lot of hard work, I have a strong instinct for the test. I understand the
test so well that when I read a question, I can predict the answer within a few seconds. I
can rule out wrong answers instantly because they just feel wrong. I've surveyed
thousands of questions and understood every single SAT skill deeply to design
PrepScholar, so I can typically understand exactly what the College Board is asking.
Kind of like Neo seeing code in The Matrix.
Here are some time benchmarks that might help:
You should nish skimming a long passage within three minutes.

Each passage question should take you no more than 30 seconds.
If you can do this well, you'll nish the entire section in 40 minutes, leaving a lot of time
to double check.
What's the best way to double check your work? I have a reliable method that I
follow:
Double check any questions you marked that you're unsure of. Try hard to
eliminate answer choices. If it's a reading passage question, make sure that the
passage supports your answer.
If I'm 100% sure I'm right on a question, I mark it as such and never look at it again.
If I'm not sure, I'll come back to it on the third pass.
At least two minutes before time's up, I rapidly double check that I bubbled the
answers correctly. I try to do this all at once so as not to waste time looking back
and forth between the test book and the answer sheet. Go ve at a time ("A D B C
B") for more speed.
If you notice yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a problem and aren't clear
how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the next question. Even though you need a
near perfect raw score for an 800, don't be afraid to skip. You can come back to it later,
and for now it's more important to get as many points as possible.
Quick Tip: Bubbling Answers
Here's a bubbling tip that will save you two minutes per section.
When I rst started test taking in high school, I did what many students do: after I
nished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and lled it in. Then I solved the next
question. Finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question 2, bubble in answer 2.
And so forth.
This actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct
tasks—solving questions, and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental
switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to di erent areas of the
test.
Here's a better method: solve all your questions rst in the book, then bubble all of
them in at once.
This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather than
switching between two di erent tasks. You also eliminate careless entry errors, like if
you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot.
By saving just ten seconds per question, you get back 200 seconds on a section
that has 20 questions. This is huge.
Note: If you use this strategy, you should already be nishing the section with ample
extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of time before you have the chance to
bubble in the answer choices all at once.
Strategy 11: Be Ready for Turbulence in Scores
Now you know what it takes to achieve perfection in SAT Reading.
You know the best strategies to use for tackling the passage. You know how to identify
your weaknesses and learn from them. You know how to save time, and you know to
stay engaged while reading a passage.
Even despite all this, sometimes a passage just won't click with you.
Of all SAT sections, I nd that Reading has the most volatile score. How you vibe with a
passage has a big impact on your score. You might get a string of questions wrong just
because you couldn't really understand what the passage was really about. This doesn't
happen on Math or Writing.
No matter what happens, you need to keep calm and keep working.
You might swing from an 800 on one practice test to a 710 on another. Don't let that
faze you. Don't start doubting all the hard work you've put in.
Keep a calm head, and, like always, work hard on reviewing your mistakes.
This might even happen on the real SAT. You might get below your target score and be
crestfallen.
Pick yourself up. This happens. If you've consistently been getting 800's on practice tests,
you should take the test again and try to score higher. Very likely, you will. And because
most schools nowadays superscore the SAT, you can combine that new 800 with your
other sections for an awesome SAT score.
In Overview
Those are the main strategies I have for you to improve your SAT Reading score to an
800. If you're scoring above a 600 right now, with hard work and smart studying, you can
raise it to a perfect SAT Reading score.
Even though we covered a lot of strategies, the main point is still this: you need to
understand where you're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You
need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored.
Here's a recap of all the strategies, in case you want to go back and review any:
Strategy 1: Understand Your High Level Weakness: Time Management or Passage

Strategy
Strategy 2: Learn to Eliminate 3 Wrong Answers
Strategy 3: Predict the Answer Before Reading the Answer Choices
Strategy 4: Experiment with Passage Reading Strategies and Find the Best for You
Strategy 5: Understand Every Single Mistake You Make
Strategy 6: Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them
Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction
Strategy 8: Be Interested in the Passage Subject Matter
Strategy 9: DON'T Spend Time on Vocab
Strategy 10: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check
Strategy 11: Be Ready for Turbulence in Scores

Keep reading for more resources on how to boost your SAT score.
What's Next?
We have a lot more useful guides to raise your SAT score.
Read our complete guide to a perfect 1600, written by me, a perfect scorer.
Read our accompanying guide to a 800 on SAT Math.
Learn how to write a perfect-scoring 12 SAT essay, step by step.
Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? We have the industry's leading SAT
prep program. Built by Harvard grads and SAT full scorers, the program learns your
strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep
program to you so you get the most e ective prep possible.
I built the PrepScholar program based on the principles in this article—the

principles that worked for me and thousands of our students. I'm con dent they'll also
work with you.
Check out our 5-day free trial today:
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Allen graduated from Harvard University summa
Allen Cheng
cum laude and earned two perfect scores on the
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How to Get 800 on SAT Reading: 11

Posted by Allen Cheng | Jan 3, 2020 6:09:00 PM

Understand the Stakes: Why an 800 SAT Reading +

Harvard's 75th percentile Reading score is 780.

By applying as a humanities/social science major, you're competing against other

Know That You Can Do It

SAT Reading is Designed to Trick You. You Need to Learn How

Well, you throw up your hands and randomly guess.

But the SAT disguises this fact. It asks questions like:

And then you guess randomly.

And then you get it wrong.

What It Takes to Get a Perfect 40 in Reading

Raw Score Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4

Strategies to Get a Perfect SAT Reading Score

What's your greatest weakness?

Strategy 1: Understand Your High Level Weakness—Time Management

Here's a owchart to help you gure this out:

Was your Extra Time score a 35 or above?

If YES (Extra Time score > 35), then:

Was your Realistic score a 35 or above?

Strategy 2: Learn to Eliminate 3 Wrong Answers

You need to do a 180 on your approach to Reading questions. Instead, nd a reason to

A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals

Wrong Answer 1: Too Speci c

A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals

Wrong Answer 2: Too Broad

B: The study of evolution

Wrong Answer 3: Reversed Relationship

C: How the environment shaped human evolution

Wrong Answer 4: Unrelated Concept

D: The plausibility of evolution

Strategy 3: Predict the Answer Before Reading the Answer Choices

In Strategy 2, we covered the strategy of ruthless, unforgiving elimination of answer

Strategy 4: Experiment With Passage Reading Strategies and Find the

Passage Method 1: Skim the Passage, Then Read the Questions

My preferred way to tackle a passage: skimming it on the rst read-through.

Here's how it goes:

(questions not relating to speci c lines aren't shown above)

important, life-changing ("have to ask ourselves")

Passage Method 3: Read the Passage in Detail, Then Answer Questions

Here's how it goes:

Read the passage in detail, line by line.

Choose Which Works Best for You, Based on Test Data

Next strategy: Understand your mistakes.

Strategy 5: Understand Every Single Mistake You Make

The second step—and the more important part—is to be ruthless about

Here's what you need to do:

No excuses when it comes to your mistakes.

Always Go Deeper—Why Did You Miss a Reading Question?

Elimination: I couldn't eliminate enough incorrect answer choices, or I eliminated the

Vocab: I didn't know what the key word meant.

Strategy 6: Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them

1. Big Picture/Main Point

Check it out today with a 5-day free trial:

SAT Free Signup

Strategy 7: Read the Italicized Passage Introduction

Strategy 8: Be Interested in the Passage Subject Matter

For every single passage, be as excited as she is.

Strategy 9: Don't Spend Time on Vocab