It Can Go to Your Head

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Besting the Beast Part III: Critical Reading Tips

The Critical Reading Section in the SAT is the haven for those exponents of the fustian, Spartan, epicurean and erudite relish that tinctures the gamut of raconteurs' ramblings you must imbibe in order to succeed in this section. A sapid soup of sumptuous stories, poems and plays stirred into a slew of sections spanning over an hour, the sheer variety is mind-numbing. Your role is to sift through debris and superfluous information with the finesse of a neurotic archaeologist on his first dig. Heavy-handedness is anathema to Critical Reading. Dismantle the passage, don't bludgeon it.

• Success in this section is a wheel, and its revolves entirely upon a painstaking logic. You must be more than careful; you must be captious. Knit together a tapestry of details, weave your logic together, do not prick yourself with solecisms or drop stitches with reckless assumptions.
  
• Do not read the passage like a leisure novel, skim it in a minute. I abjure the oft touted discipline of reading the passage. The pertinent knowledge one gathers piecemeal by perusing the passage for the information asked for dispenses with much of the surfeit sump contained in the passage. If you acquire a propensity for addressing specifics then the time won't sluice away between your fingers.
• Do not vacillate. Equivocating is grounds for skipping the question immediately. Come back to it after you have completed the section.
• If you are really struggling, read the passage slowly. This is only advisable in a situation of extremis. When mental rigor mortis begins to set in, do a danse macabre with questions. The terpsichorean twirling of "what", "who" , "where" and "why" can make a Lazarus out of your logic.

Designed for All Races, Sexes and Species

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Besting the Beast Part II: Sangfroid and Style in Your Essay

The long awaited sequel finally bore upon me with an immense onus, rousing me from Hypnos' grasp to totter to the keyboard and douse myself in the ambrosial nectar of word knowledge and now I am sated. But I segue, as is my custom from the matter at hand.

The Daedalian ideal is to be shirked, but while an exacting cast is necessary, punctiliousness is to be likewise shunned. The author (you) must covet a meticulous attention to style, syntax and diction. Think of your essay as a meal. It must not be laden with overripe orchards of vocabulary and obscure references but it must not be stark, bland or forbidding to the reader. Embrace the crisp, the essay's boon is its bite. Let the reader masticate your logic, chew through the meaty sinews of your rhetoric, savor the tartness of your thinking throughout. If i must be trite, less is more. Choose your words carefully and weave them together with utmost care. Establishing a precise, cool frame of mind is essential to success. Sangfroid is the byword. Here are more words:

• When choosing examples to underscore your essay topic, strive for variety. Do not choose Huck Finn, Abraham Lincoln, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Martin Luther King or Gandhi because this is tantamount to force feeding the reader sleeping pills. These have obviously been done to the point where they are not only cliche, but boring, hackneyed, trite and utterly pedestrian.

• Don't let the time control you. Control your essay and control your score. Think before you write so as to maximize your time continuously writing. If you stop and start, stuttering through your essay, your time will evaporate.

• Focus. Be where you are. When you are writing your essay, don't waft through daydreams of three hours later, cavorting with your friends. Put your nose to the grindstone!

• Keep to the topic. Make sure the examples you choose are germane to the topic and show exactly how. Here is an example: Many persons believe that to move up the ladder of success and achievement, they must forget the past, repress it, and relinquish it. But others have just the opposite view. They see old memories as a chance to reckon with the past and integrate past and present. Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

• Say you decide you use Black militant Malcolm X. In his autobiography (which makes for visceral, compelling reading) he speaks at length of his myriad experiences and interactions with the seamy underbelly of the criminal underworld and the uncompromising yoke of racism which he had to shoulder as a young man. This is a superb choice of person and book which allows for a plethora of opportunities for developing your essay.

With the correct tools you can develop your essay into a cogent, crisp, clear train of thought which will intrigue and excite your reader. I have given you some of the tools and now it is up to you to wield them. It is merely a question of keeping to the OLD WORD ORDER.

This Could Be You

Besting the Beast: Mastering the SAT Critical Reading Section - Part I

The byzantine halls of language are bedecked with silken tapestries of syntax, strewn with the careless sprays of simile and sprinkled with gentle confetti frostings of style. Yet the granite pillars of the linguistic arts are words. Words are the spring from which Scrabble springs...and a good score on the SAT Verbal section. Yes, loyal readers, this will be a lacuna in this raconteur's raucous Scrabble ravings. Running the entire eclectic gamut from the arcane to the pedestrian, SAT vocabulary ranks right up there with the other Kafkaesque, phantasmagoric nightmares such as public speaking and African killer bees. But before you swathe yourself in a straitjacket, know that this looming leviathan of the SAT Verbal section can be conquered!

In spite of my rich, lustrous cascades of language, please don't be misled. A plethora of pomposity, postulated by a posturing panjandrum will not endear you to the reader. However, what will make you utterly appealing are the simple fruits of focus. I obtained an 800 on my SAT Verbal but only an 11/12 on my SAT essay. I fell into some of the pitfalls I encourage you to avoid, and I also followed most of the rules I have chosen to set out for you here:

• For one, you need to write as neatly as possible...for the first sentence. Your first sentence must be a rich weave of logic and words that sucks the reader in to the black hole of your essay.

• A compelling sentence in the essay must be supplemented by a clear logical train of thought. Progress from thesis to opening paragraph. If your essay deals with innovation don't go straight to talking about a fictional character. Talk about a factual character, move to his or her abstract characteristics, tie that to a fictional character and then move back to fact.

• Be Original. Everyone has written on To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye or Walden. Use characters from works of similar literary merit, but not as well known. I believe suitable books would be Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange or A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. Competent writers aims to communicate while distinguishing themselves from the motley crowd.

• Be concise. An eight paragraph epistle in which one attempts to stuff with knowledge will result in a stifling essay and poor time management. Think out your essay before you write; it will result in a compact essay of about 4 or 5 paragraphs in which you fully develop your thoughts.

These are the basic guidelines for an essay. In part two I will delve further into the essay and reveal some facts about the Critical Reading section. Arrivederci.

Vowel Dumps

An insidious imbroglio of vowels often stares out implacably at me from the rack, and, no matter how they are arranged, end up being reminiscent of the howl of some feral beast when pronounced. If you are finding it difficult to manoeuvre around the proboscine phalanxes of vowels never fear. Vowel dumps take out the trash. Rife with words like ROUE, OLEO, AUREI, COOEE, URAEI and MIAOU vowel dumps are tantamount to landfills brimful with vowels. Especially troublesome vowels are the I and the U and they need to be dealt with using esoteric combinations such as LUAU, PUPU, NISI, TITI, UNAU and INIA. An exhaustive list of such words is exactly as it sounds.