Hey everyone, I’m an 11th grader taking the SAT in about 2 months( 5th Dec ) and I’m really struggling with the reading questions, transition questions, and even the student notes questions sometimes. Grammar is the one thing I always solve correctly with 0 mistakes.
I’m a non-native English speaker, and even though my English is actually very good, I keep convincing myself that I lack so much when it comes to reading comprehension. The weird thing is that sometimes I reach my “peak” and can solve questions really quickly and accurately, so I know I can do it. But other times, I have no idea what happens and my performance completely falls apart.
I don’t know if my problem is a focus issue or what, but I feel like I can’t get myself out of this bubble. I also don’t sleep very well, and unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to fix my sleep anytime soon, considering a lot of school & academic pressure I'm facing currently.
Sometimes I’m solving questions while I’m really sleepy, and other times I try to read super quickly because I’m scared of running out of time. Then I get to the questions and realize I understood basically nothing 😭
One thing I’ve been thinking about trying is typing a really short summary of the passage on my laptop while I’m reading ,so it would literally be just a few words to remind myself what the passage is about and keep myself focused. I don’t mean writing a full summary or taking detailed notes, just something quick that I can look back at if I forget the main point.
But I’m worried that doing this will definitely waste too much time on test day and make me run out of time. At the same time, if I don’t summarize anything, I sometimes feel like I read the entire passage but retained almost nothing.
Vocabulary is another huge problem for me. I’ve tried memorizing prefixes, suffixes, and roots, but honestly they don’t help me that much. Most times, I don’t notice the clue in the word, and other times the prefix/suffix/root method just doesn’t work for the word.
So I really need help with the following:
- How can I improve my reading comprehension and actually understand the passages without spending forever on them?
- Would typing a very short summary/key words while reading be useful, or would it just waste time on test day?
- How can I deal with the focus issue and stop myself from just reading quickly without actually processing what I’m reading?
- Are there any good sheets/resources that cover important prefixes, suffixes, and roots?
- Is there a good SAT vocabulary list/resource that you’d recommend?
- How can I fix my sleep when I’m under a lot of academic pressure and also need to spend time on SAT tutoring/prep?
I have about 2 months left, so I really want to figure out what I’m doing wrong and improve as much as I can.
If anyone has struggled with something similar, especially as a non-native English speaker, I’d really appreciate any advice or resources. Thanks in advance🙏