How to Improve Your Critical Reading Skills

How do you ace the SAT Critical Reading section?similar to what you'll encounter on the SAT.
The most important thing is to learn to readAlso, select newspaper articles on things you
actively. Learn how to extract the meaning andknow nothing about:
intention from the passages.- Business section: credit default swaps, interest
Practice critical reading not just with SAT preprates, hedge funds
books, but with anything and everything you're- International section: rice riots in Asia, real estate
reading, from novels to textbooks to magazinein Dubai, farming in Brazil
ads.- Metro section: urban planning, school board
One idea is to read the newspaper every daymeetings, local festivals
(off-line) and try to understand what the tone and 
intention of each article is. Mark any words youThe less you know about the subject going in,
don't understand, and look them up in a dictionary.the more you need to rely on the article itself for
Highlight the key sentences and phrases thatmeaning.
telegraph the author's meaning.One of the biggest traps in the SAT Critical
Things to look for:Reading section is that people make assumptions
- Is the author biased about the subject?that aren't supported in the passage itself. If you
- What does the author imply without stating itbring prior knowledge with you to the test
directly?passage, that could prove to be a serious
- What are the author's assumptions?mistake.
- What is the tone of the article - informative?You must rely on the text, and nothing but the
persuasive? entertaining?text.
 Critical reading takes lots of practice, but you can
You can do this with magazines and books, too,do a little each day, every day - even without an
but I prefer newspapers because most articlesSAT prep book.
are short, timely, and written at a reading levelGood luck, and keep reading!