The reading and writing sections of the SAT are designed to evaluate your skills in these areas. The test contains three multiple-choice Critical Reading sections, two multiple-choice Writing Skills sections, and one essay section. Each examination contains one "equating" section that allows the writers of the SAT to test questions for possible use in the future. This equating section, which can be a reading, writing, or mathematics section, will be indistinguishable from those that count towards your score, so you should approach each section accordingly.
The Critical Reading sections consist of sentence completion and reading comprehension questions. The sentence completion questions test your vocabulary and logic skills.
- Enhance your vocabulary by reading challenging words in context in these Vocabulary Example sentences.
- Review test-taking tips for the sentence completion questions.
The multiple-choice Writing Skills sections test your knowledge of grammar and diction with three types of questions. The Improving Sentences questions test your ability to identify and correct errors. The Identifying Sentence Errors questions require you to determine whether certain portions of sentences contain errors; these questions do not require you to correct the errors. The Improving Paragraph questions follow a passage that may contain errors in grammar and diction and possibly awkward syntax. The associated questions will require you to correct the errors in a manner that conforms to the style of the passage.
- Enhance your grammar and diction skills by reviewing some basic concepts and becoming familiar with the types of errors in test questions.
- Practice your skills by identifying errors in the Grammar Examples and Celebrity Quotes sections of this site.