archaic, centuries-old language can be hard to understand. fortunately, the sat actually modifies and adapts those older passages so that the language is a little more modern. that way, you’re being tested on general reading comprehension, rather than being tested on knowledge of older versions of english.

i’m glad you asked this. here on the blog, kristin has some good sat reading fiction passage advice on how to detect turning points, characters, and other key elements of fiction as you read.

a lot of general advice that applies to all sat reading also works for fiction passages. so check out lucas’s post on detecting and understanding important sat reading keywords, and be sure to practice sat critical reading strategies.

these strategies, along with some good vocabulary study (such as the use of magoosh sat vocabulary flashcards) will help you really understand sat fiction readiong.

fiction will always come first. after that, the pattern is almost always a social studies passage followed by a science passage, followed by a history passage, followed by another science passage. so you can generally expect the sat reading section to look like this: fiction >> social studies >> science >> history >> science. in rare cases, the pattern could be fiction >> science >> social studies (or history) >> science history (or social studies). and in even rarer cases, there may not be an alternation between science passages and history/social studies passages.