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Try some alternative preparation methods. For example, there's a music CD called Rock the SAT, and it contains songs whose lyrics incorporate key vocabulary words. That should improve your reading comp. Or play an online game like Free Rice, which improves your vocab AND helps feed the starving masses. Hope it helps!

When you read an essay critically, you need to think about the logical structure of the essay and the overall flow of it. There's a difference between reading for pleasure and reading something critically.

To improve your reading comprehension, go to www.aldaily.com and read some of the essays there. You should find something that interests you. When you read an essay, do these things:

1. Identify the core theme of the passage. This is of utmost importance.

2. Identify the purpose of the passage (instructing, describing etc).

3. Identify the tone of the authors writing (neutral, critical, supportive).

4. Map the course of the essay. For example, The author will start off by presenting an argument. Then he will either present evidence to support it, or refute it. Look for words like "however" which mark a twist.

At first it won't make sense, but if you keep reading and thinking about these things you'll see patterns and eventually you'll be able to identify the pattern for any essay you read. It sounds strange, but it works.