My students and followers of this blog hear me repeat all the time that standardized tests are simply reading tests. Don’t get confused by grammar, science or math sections of the test. Since each section of the test requires excellent reading comprehension skills, the test is essentially a reading test.  And as my students know, one way to get better at a reading test is more reading. Nevertheless, sometimes simply explaining the connection between reading and test scores i

Truth be told, the SAT and ACT are just reading tests.  Sure, there are sections and questions about Science and Math. But these are just glorified reading tasks since each section and question requires significant reading comprehension. A word problem in Math, for example, is more about understanding how to translate words into an equation than doing the calculations.   So, how do you get better at a reading test? No surprise here: you have to read.  The more pertinent qu

Truth be told, the SAT and ACT are just reading tests.  Sure, there are sections and questions about Science and Math. But these are just glorified reading tasks since each section and question requires significant reading comprehension. A word problem in Math, for example, is more about understanding how to translate words into an equation than doing the calculations.   So, how do you get better at a reading test? No surprise here: you have to read.  The more pertinent qu