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This pink pony can save your SAT critical reading score

Posted by stacey

My daughter loves pink. L-O-V-E-S it. A while ago, I was out running errands and I brought her home a cute pink pony stuffed animal. Needless to say, it was a huge hit.

A couple of weeks later, I found a cute little pink octopus that I brought home for her.

No dice. It was pink, but it wasn’t a pony.

So then I found a little blue pony. Nope. That didn’t work either. It wasn’t pink.

Aha – I finally got it.

It has to be PINK and it has to be a PONY!

Here’s how this applies to critical reading.

Wrong answers usually aren’t totally crazy-wrong; they’re usually half-right. Most of my students think that half-right-is-practically-right and quickly choose something that is half-right as the right answer.

Except half-right isn’t all-the-way-right. It’s pink but not a pony. This is not hand grenades or horseshoes. Half-right is still totally incorrect.

Right answers have to be all-the-way-right.

So be on the lookout for those sneaky blue horses and pink octopi. Hold out for the pink ponies!

Filed Under: Reading, Strategies

A secret strategy to increase your SAT Critical Reading score

Posted by stacey

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We don’t pay attention to boring things. I know this isn’t earth shattering information.

However, I’ve got a twist on it that you can use to increase your critical reading score.

John Medina, author of the brilliant book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, lists 12 key ideas for learning by working with how your brain (and body) naturally learn.

One of his findings is that we don’t pay attention to boring things. But the corollary is that we do pay attention to exciting things.

”Emotional arousal helps the brain learn.”

John Medina

Aha! You can turn this to your advantage while working on the critical reading passages on the SAT.

If you read the passages as if they are fascinating and you are so excited to be reading them, your brain will wake up and pay attention and it will be easier to absorb the information.

My students usually roll their eyes when I tell them about this strategy. But once they use it, they are amazed at how much easier the critical reading sections are.