Tackling CR so that he cries

SAT = Sit awaiting trouble , SAT = stupid american test, SAT = sickening abominable torture, or whatever you want to call it, SAT for me is Spoon-feeding Abolition Treat. Or to make it sound more understandable, A special experience of stopping ourselves from being too dependent on others. For years, we have, in one way or another, been spoonfed by our teachers with all the information, just so that we get straight As in spm, and eventually.. well, end up seeing each other in uniten. Don't you think it's about time we stop this and start standing on our own feet like a real man or woman should? Hahaha, as if I weren't spoonfed too..


Ok, sorry for the craps. May be this is why I'm dubbed "mr. philosopher" by my friends, always talking about unnecessary and deep subjects. Somehow, I think i sound more like an empty vessel trying to make the loudest noise (x_x). Now, where was I? oh ya, CR..... Although cr is hard, that doesn't mean that we cannot conquer it, right? If you say yes, give yourself a pat on the back. So, I came up with a theory (or rather opinion ) about cr. You see, Critical Reading = CR = Cristiano Ronaldo = headache! May this is why it's so worrying.. I see myself as a defender having to go against this quick-feet, trickster + actor in a football match.. I must be careful not to let him get past me, not to allow him any space or time on the ball, and finally and most importantly, not to mis-tackle him in the penalty area as he will pretend as if I break his leg, scream agonisingly on the ground, and score the penalty later. If this happens, I would have failed to defend my goal, my goal of flying to U.S. So, to be good goal-defenders, we must learn how to 'play' against CR so that he cannot even touch the ball, get frustrated, cry like a baby and walk out of the pitch. Hahaha!! ( btw, I assume no one of you like CR) .... Here are some ways which worked, I would say, very well for me. I'm not sure if this works for you, but it did work for me. Anyway, use it if it suits you, tell it to someone else if it doesn't =P. So, here goes...


How to make CR cry tips..


Part 1-Sentence Completion


1. RELAX
Don't get tensed up. I know that SAT and toefl are all about speed, but there's a difference between doing it fast and calm, and doing it like a ghost is chasing you, ending up with nothing but nervousness. Just take a deep breath before you start and take it as nothing more than the football news column in the newspaper (or any reading material that you like). Assume it's just a standard-five grammar exercise. Don't flood your minds with "I cannot get this one wrong", "fish!! time's running out", yadda yadda yadda.. Just relax, sit back and answer. But make sure you keep track of the time, too!!


2. Get the feel of the sentence. Feel what the author/subject in the sentence is feeling.
Now here comes the "feel theory". I noticed that every sentence given has its own feel, apart from the ideas presented. This will give you an indication of what the answer will be like, as in the following example, which I took from college boards' official website :

The novel's protagonist, a pearl diver, naïvely expects that the buyers will compete among themselves to pay him the best price for his pearl, but instead they ------- to ------- him.
(A) venture . . reward
(B)pretend . . praise
(C)conspire . . reimburse
(D)refuse . . cheat
(E)collude . . swindle

In this sentence, just like any other, the trick to get the feeling of it is by reading the sentence in one go without pausing to look at the individual words. In this case, you'll have to 'empty' your feeling after each question (just as how you would reset your calculator after a question during spm). By reading the one above, we get the feeling that something bad and negative happened in the situation in the sentence. Therefore, we know that both the two words to be filled in must be negative, go hand in hand and doesn't contradict each other. So, A, B and C can simply be dismissed as the second word is positive. Two left. Next, we eliminate D because the first word (refuse) opposes the negativity of 'cheat'. Thus, the answer is C. By feeling the sentence alone, we can get the answer. Try other questions using this method, hope it works.. =)

3. Try to get the 'taste' of the words that you don't know.
When you come across words that you don't know, sometimes it does help if you 'taste' the word or guess how it sounds like (bad, neutral, good). Some words actually sound negative, some sound positive while some are neutral. This is especially useful when answering questions which involve smell, sound, and feelings. For example, you may not know the meaning of "putrid", but can you feel that it 'tastes' bad in a way or another? If you can, congratulations. Indeed, putrid means decayed and having an unpleasant smell. Of course, this only works for some words, not all. There is no substitute to hardwork in memorizing the new vocabs.

4. Be sure of the tendency of both the sentence and the words
Any word will always have either one of these three properties : positive, negative or neutral. In cr, it is all about understanding what is the type of the word to be filled into the blanks. If the sentence suggests that the word is negative, eliminate the positive words and choose the negatives. If you have to choose between two negative words, pick the one which fits the context of the sentence. Remember, the properties are contextual. The literal meaning might be positive, but when used in context to the sentence, it could be negative. So, be wary of this.

Ok, that would be all. Having suggested these tips, I'd like to say that the other tips like get enough sleep, do lots of practices etc. still apply. The ones stated above are just additional. Hope this works for you! Feel free to comment on this.(^_^)
Regards,

Colin.