Free Up Your Score by Larry Berger & Michael Colton, Michael Colton, Manek Mistry, Paul Rossi, Workman Publishing

Explicit)
    5. The author seems to believe that
    (A) freeze-drying is a worthless process when applied to animals
    (B) the difficulties of freeze-drying outweigh the benefits
    (C) it would be easier to freeze-dry an arma-dillo than a pinecone
    (D) if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day; if you give a man two fishes, he’ll eat for two days
    (E) the goals of freeze-drying are worth striving for
    (Hint: Type 4, Author’s Logic)
    Answers: 1. (C) 2. (B) 3. (B) 4. (D) 5. (E)
    Now you have an idea of what the critical reading passages are all about. However, most passages won’t be that interesting, that short, or that easy. (We couldn’t help it; we’re also interesting, short, and easy.) For practice, do the reading passages in
The Official SAT Study Guide.
The SAT booklets available at your high school guidance office will also have some reading passages.
The Short Reading Passages
    These passages will show up on the new SAT in place of the long gone analogies. To tell you the truth, it’s a good trade. Instead of memorizing tons of vocabulary, most of which is so specific you will never
ever
use it again in your life (you still have to memorize vocabulary, by the way, but there will be fewer direct questions about it), you get short, perky little passages with two or three questions after them.
    JaJa says: Just because they’re short doesn’t mean that they’re easier! Don’t let the ETS catch you off guard.
    The topics and strategies for tackling the short passages are essentially the same as those for the long passages. But these are friendlier than the long passages. For one thing, if it is talking about the growth cycle of celery, at least it’s only going to be five lines long. It’s really hard to make someone fall asleep during a hundred-word passage (although we suspect that the Evil Testing Serpent is going to try).
    Here’s an example of a short passage:
    Among young college students, a trend is emerging. Today, more than ever, these hardworking people are being saddled with skyrocketing tuition, book fees, and boarding costs. So it is not surprising that many of them are taking desperate measures in order to pay the bills. There have been reports of 19-year-olds selling their souls on eBay, blackmailing their siblings with grainy photos of tattoos that Mom and Dad don’t know about, and hunting for change on the ground under roller coasters. And, in a show of extreme anguish, some of these young people have even looked for work.
    1. In line 4, the word “measures” is used to mean
    (A) events
    (B) quantities
    (C) actions
    (D) calculations
    (E) weights
    (Hint: Type 5, Vocabulary-in-Context)
    2. According to the passage, the desperation many students feel is the result of
    (A) the impossibility of staying in college
    (B) the ever-increasing bills they have to pay
    (C) the poor relationships they are fostering with their brothers and sisters
    (D) the necessity of taking jobs
    (E) seeing that their souls are worth only $4.28 on eBay
    (Hint: Type 2, Explicit)
    Answers: 1. (C) 2. (B)
    See? It wasn’t that difficult at all. Again, not every SAT passage is going to be this exciting, but not every SAT passage is written by brilliant and resourceful teenagers.
A BOUT SAT W ORDS
    hypogyrrationalrhombocuboids
    diffeomorphism
    supermartingale
    myelomeningocele
    dacryocystorhinoscopy
    floccinaucinihilipilification
Learning the Words You Need to Rock the Verbal Section
    You probably don’t know what any of the above words mean. You probably don’t care what they mean. Once you have finished this book, you still won’t know what they mean.
    These words may be interesting and useful. But who cares? They were put here simply to intimidate you. They will not be on the SAT. This is because the SAT tests you on the type of words that a college student would be likely to run into. A college student who ran into any of these words would suffer a concussion.
    JaJa says: Circle and look up every word that you are