Active vs. Passive Voice

Passive language is awkward and wordy. The SAT grammar section does not like sentences written in the passive voice. Make sure the subject is actively "doing" whatever is meant. For example "Steve loves Amy" is a much better sentence than "Amy is loved by Steve" Steve is the subject and he is doing the loving. Amy is the "object" of Steve's affection. Please listen to a short 4 minute lesson from Grammar Girl by clicking on the following link: http://bit.ly/dcUyMP

Do Not Look At the Answers!

This statement is especially true with respect to the sentence completion and passage based reading questions in the Critical Reading sections as well as the Writing multiple choice questions . Do not underestimate the power of prediction! Read the question only and try and predict what the answer should be. Then glance at the answers and find the answer which closely matches your prediction. Many times its as simple as that. Remember many answer choices on the SAT are designed to confuse you, lead you off track and ruin your concentration.

Put this method into practice-- without looking at the answer choices, focus on the particular grammatical rule by correcting the sentence yourself or figure out the vocabulary word which best completes the sentence This saves precious time and increases your accuracy. When doing practice tests, you may want to physically cover the answer choices with your hand to force yourself to gain confidence in your ability to predict. If you are unable to predict an answer, skip the question and come back to it later. Believe me, subconsciously your mind is still trying to process and figure out the answer even while you have moved on to other questions.

How to Approach Improving Sentence Questions

Good writing is short and to the point. A succinct sentence is preferable to a wordy or run on sentence. When approaching the Improving Sentence Questions on the Writing multiple choice section of the SAT try and correct the sentence by inserting the shortest choice possible. If this does not work, then try the next shortest choice and so on. After doing many practice questions in this area the student will begin to discover that the shortest answer choice is usually correct unless such correction makes the sentence a fragment or does not correct the original problem.

Learn From Your Mistakes

When reviewing practice exams, you will learn more from the questions you get wrong than the ones you answer correctly for several reasons. First, if you answer a question correctly, presumably you already know how to do it, so there is no reason to focus on something you already know. Or worse, if you got the question right because it was a lucky guess you may think you know something you don't. Wrong answers represent with certainty, questions and concepts that must be studied. Ask yourself, "Was this a careless error? Do I understand why it is wrong? Is there a better method to get the correct answer?" For sentence completions, study all the vocabulary word answer choices you don't understand. Re-read a passage and try and find the answer. Learn a new rule of grammar from an incorrect short answer writing question. Look for patterns. Do you find that the same type of questions always give you the most difficulty? For example, a student of mine had trouble answering the critical reading main idea questions. So I directed the student to some study aids and quizzes designed specifically for that type of question. This is what I call efficient study time. Use your time wisely by zeroing in on those questions that pose the most difficulty.

SAT Writing Section

According to a new study by the Collegeboard, performance on the SAT Writing Section is the best indicator of a students performance in his or her freshman year of College. According to the data on 150,000 students, the writing section is a better predictor than the math or critical reading sections. Introduced in 2005, the writing section consists of one 25 minute timed essay, one 25 minute multiple choice section and one ten minute multiple choice section. The complete study is to be released this summer. To read more about this please click on the link to USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-04-24-sat_N.htm