Bonus Passages
“In tracing the emergence of the guiding ideals and visions of our own digital age, we may cast our eyes back a little earlier still: to the dreams of seventeenth-century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.”
Jonathan Gray, "Let Us Calculate!"
When Google wanted to recognize Leibniz’s birthday with a doodle, they choose to celebrate Leibniz’s contributions to computation (represented by the binary code for the letters G-O-O-G-L-E).
Approximate reading time: 15 minutes.
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““Now, Mr. Hale,” he said in a sort of semi-official voice, “before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning.””
Susan Glaspell, "A Jury of her Peers"
Susan Glaspell’s "A Jury of Her Peers," based upon a story Glaspell covered for a Des Moines’s newspaper, is one of the first true crime stories.
Approximate reading time: 35 minutes.
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“ Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home town, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. ”
Douglass, Du Bois, and King: Three Passages on Black History
History passages on the SAT are most frequently about the expansion of human rights. These three passages from Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are the kind of passages that can appear on the SAT.
Approximate reading time: 15, 15, and 45 minutes.
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“Few individuals in the history of education have had greater impact on education policy and practice than Benjamin S. Bloom. His research and writing guided the development of many educational programs and provided insights into the untapped potential of educators to have all students learn well”
Thomas Guskey, “BENJAMIN S. BLOOM’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND SCHOOL LEARNING”
This essay is adapted from a paper presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association by University of Kentucky professor Thomas R. Guskey.
Approximate reading time: 25 minutes.
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“There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. ”
Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Minister's Black Veil"
From one of America's greatest authors, The Minister's Black Veil is the tale of a quaint New England community and its minister's secret.
Approximate reading time: 27 minutes.
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“How old was I then? Eleven or twelve years? More probably thirteen, for before then is too early to be seriously in love; but I won’t venture to be certain, considering that in Southern countries the heart matures early, if that organ is to blame for such perturbations.”
Emilia Pardo-Bazan: First Love
A young man falls for the girl in an ivory portrait found in his aunt's room.
Approximate reading time: 13 minutes.
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BOOKS AND BLOGS
Practicing your reading skills can be difficult. The most important thing you can do, however, is read. Read for at least ten minutes every day. Find a book and read it every day until you have finished. After that, read another book.
As you read, you're reading speed and reading comprehension will improve. You can work on the strategies we've worked on in our tutoring sessions, but the most important thing you can do is read.
If you're looking for a good book, I've been collecting recommendations from students over the years, which are listed below.
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffery
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabrial Garcia-Marquez
About a Boy, by Nick Hornby
In addition, check out this buzzfeed article which suggests books based on your favorite movie. (Note that I can't vouch for these books, since I haven't read them all myself.)
Online repositories of articles by authors like Malcolm Gladwell and Oliver Sacks can be a good resources as well.
The second most important thing you can do is build your vocabulary. There are a lot of ways you can do this. I recommend trying out the vocabulary games in Elevate for iOS or Android. I also like the games you can find at VocabTest.com.