Global Health and IT Solutions

Global Health and IT Solutions Executive Summary In the current society, the number of older people is gradually increasing and these seniors are in most cases living alone. As a consequence, they suffer intense feelings of loneliness that cause common medical problems observed among the older population. Previous studies have shown that older people are afraid of being alone and this causes anxiety and loneliness.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Global Health and IT Solutions specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Because of their deteriorating health and mental and physical abilities, they are at times unable to perform the normal daily routines essential for their lives. These feelings of loneliness or the isolation of the older citizens can cause serious challenges in their lives and therefore the health of such people deteriorates very fast and can die sooner than they could have. Over the past decade, there have been great advances in the field of information technology and these changes have greatly revolutionized the way people interact, work and carry out their daily duties. The internet communication and personal gadgets have transformed services to people and that people are now enjoying easier and faster access to things via digital means. However, in the ages over 65, people seem not to consider new technology as useful for survival and performing important tasks. Introduction Topic Area A very large number of older people report that they do not use even the internet. This bring a great challenge to the fact that it is this basic digital technology that can help solve the problems of the older people’s isolation like developing and maintain social networks and participating in the communities and conducting their private lives actively (Findlay 2003, p. 650). Technology use among the older people has a great potential of bringing great social benefit to the older people like participation (Pollack 200 5, p. 10). This proposal is set to demonstrate that technology has the potential and the ability of enabling older people in their bid of renewing and developing social contact and actively involving their lives. Having considered all this, the use of IT technology can offer older people a chance to engage in meaningful work and other task essential in life (Rogers Fisk, 2006, p. 39).Advertising Looking for research paper on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Interaction with family and friends will be renewed and these older people can discover and build up skills as well as gather experience. Research Questions The study will be based on the hypothesis that the information technology advances and innovativeness can offer older people with a means of actively interacting with other people and participating actively in other personal activities (Independent Age 2010, p. 10). This technology will enable prevention of the feelings of isolation among older people so that they do not suffer loneliness and social seclusion (Victor et al 2005, p. 358). The impact of isolation and loneliness is caused by a number of causes including retirement, deteriorating physical and mental health and bereavement (Independent Age 2010, p. 10). The core questions that have inspired this study include; How can IT technology be used in the prevention and alleviation of the feeling of social seclusion and loneliness among senior citizens over 65 years? What potential does the IT have to enable older people to develop and maintain social contact and active involvement in the society, both which are the main elements of wellbeing and happiness? (Zijlstra Aminian 2008, p. 4) Governments across the world especially the developed nations are making it a priority to invest in technology that would improve the access to new technology by older people as well as those living with disabilities (Pollack 2005, p. 10). The major question emerging from this is ‘to what end is digital participation going to take place? More specifically, this bring the third question Is there any sufficient rationally given to the use of IT to address challenges of older people? (Independent Age 2010, p. 10) Does this strategy really provide a meaningful social interaction and involvement? Objectives of Study The research will seek to fulfil several objectives which at the end of it all will enable older people to be active in the society and alleviate social isolation feelings (Findlay 2003, p. 650). Nonetheless, the research will also seek to address the use of IT as a threat to health and general welfare of older people. Older usually present several weaknesses like hearing loss, impaired vision, memory lapse, physical weakness, and poor health; From this, the study draws the main objective which is to do away with the view that older people are weak, depended and incapable of managing their lives (Independent Age 2010, p. 10).Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Global Health and IT Solutions specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Other goal will include ensuring that people live longer, healthy and satisfying lives; and that older generation also participant in the society actively. Lack of social contact and involvement is a dimension of seclusion and the study will seek to alleviate this exclusion. Moreover, exclusion and loneliness contributes to high prevalence of mental problems like depression. This study will also seek to alleviate the health problems facing older people like stress and depression (Independent Age 2010, p. 17). Literature Review Innovative IT Application for Older Users IT application can be used to enable older people to escape such social isolation (Findlay 2003, p. 652). This is a very reasonable hypothesis and a timely research especially that the current society relies on techno logy for fast and cheap means of interaction with friends, family and even work (Charness et al 2007, p. 249). Many people usually develop great social networks through technology advances and this supplements periodic direct contact with people of shared interests (Victor et al 2005, p. 359). This proposal purports that technology provides the needed solutions to older people. It will hence seek to explore the barriers to the application of IT and later the study will be used to devise recommendations on the best way of applying this theme in future. This paper proposes the following ways of helping the older people to continue living independently and stay active in the society. Social Communication technologies: the use of IT can offer simple use of telephone and video communication like broadband technologies. This will enable older people to keep in touch with family and friends hence eliminating the feeling of seclusion. Note that many people over 65 year across the world live alone (Victor et al 2005, p. 359).Advertising Looking for research paper on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Security and Safety Gadgets: there has been great step up is security technologies and Smart house technology can help in ensuring that the house is secure (close doors and windows) at night or when a person leaves the house (Cheek et al 2005, p. 331). This technology and devices can also other things around the house like gas and water leaks and turning off unwanted lights. Plus, automatic alarms can go off to remind or call for help (Rogers Fisk 2006, p. 39). Shopping, travelling and Social services access: the internet technology currently allows online purchase of items and many businesses also offer home delivery. This way, older people can access public services through online technology and shop for whatever things they need with relying on others Reminders: Memory lapse is a serious challenge for the older people and the problems gets worse with age. By using programmed digital reminders, the elderly van have a schedule for the day and also set alarms for important activiti es like taking medication or doing a household task (Zijlstra Aminian 2008, p. 4) Mobility and User Friendly interface: mobile solution devices can be used together with GPS and other sensors for crucial signs to help older people to move around and be able to access alarm button in case of emergency or deteriorating vital signs (Lezzoni et al 2001, p. 238). Besides, many types of equipment at home and around the compound can be designed to meet the needs of older people like impaired eyesight, mobility and hearing. For the purposes of this research the initials ‘IT’ will be used to refer to these five technologies of overcoming old age challenges. Old age brings a lot of complications especially physical and mental capability challenges (McCreadie Tinker 2005, p. 91). Besides, the issue of social isolation is a serious concern being caused by several factors including death of spouse, poor sight and hearing sense, chronic medical problems and scattering of family mem bers (McCreadie Tinker 2005, p. 91). Despite the cause, the consequences can have a great toll on the life of older people who form a big percentage of the normal population. Ambient Assisted Living The has been development of a system that is known as the â€Å"Ambient Assisted Living† and it refers to the phenomenon where information technology is used to carry out personal activities on daily duties and work making the individual stay active and socially productive (McCreadie Tinker 2005, p. 93; Charness et al 2007, p. 249). Essentially, the use of ICT to ensure independent living among older people can be as simple as the use of an alarm or digital reminders to taking medicine and so on (Rogers Fisk 2006, p. 39). However, technology use can be as sophisticated as to employ a system that can project the time when a person has highest risk of falling (Lezzoni et al 2001, p. 238). Such is however, applicable when there has been a great loss of individual independence. Des pite technology being very simple or complex, the principle of this ambient technology has been that technology has to serve the user. Methodology Method and Design The study will be set to investigate some of the innovative means of applying IT to provide the elderly with ways of dealing with their challenges that come with old age. The study will be descriptive and will employ both the qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate some ground-breaking technologies of engaging older people in community and personal lives. The investigator will conduct some literature search to find out literature that addresses technology that has been used for these purposes. This is the secondary search. Besides the investigator will conduct primary study on real participants who use IT for managing their lives. Data Collection The researcher will interview participants regarding their quality of life as they utilize IT for their personal daily activities and keeping contact with f riends and families. The outcomes will be analyzed against the control group which is a group of older people who do not use technology for their daily activities. Data Analysis For the systematic literature review, the investigator will use recursive abstractions to analyze the data collected so as to come up with the relevant summaries for the proposal. The qualitative data is hence interpreted without making codes and picking relevant topics for study. The questionnaires will be checked for completeness, consistency and accuracy before leaving the location of study. The data will be entered into a computer and sorted. The researcher will be analyze the data by use of the computer software including Microsoft excel and SPSS. These tools are very useful for analyzing descriptive statistics. Significance of Study As a society today, there has been increased survival of older people due to better healthcare systems and lifestyle. As such, the developed nations have greater numbers of older citizens. However, this elderly population has been facing challenges of dependence, loneliness, and social isolation as most live alone (Findlay, 2003, p. 653). As the IT develops further, the society today depends on technology for a lot of assistances like cure of diseases, dealing with crime and achieving vitality among elderly people. The study will contribute deeper to the use of IT to address the social challenges that the elderly face. It is purported that IT will have a positive impact on the functioning of older people in their homes thus removing the notion that they are always dependent (Sixsmith et al 2009, p. 234). This technology will also help them to stay in touch or keep contact with friends and family. The older people can as well participate in community activities by working. This project will seek to make technology use a normal thing, reduce stigma on older people and offer social support that have previously been overlooked (Victor et al 2005, p. 363). When proper use of IT is made possible at home, this would be a much cheaper and a secure way of caring for the old than using institutional care. When the elderly are independent and actively participating in the community, it means family member will have more time to attend other economically beneficial activities hence meaning that the society more productive (Charness et al 2007, p. 249). This also means that there will be less medical costs as the old will be more health and in case they are on medication, they are like to adhere to it full by help of IT (reminders etc). Therefore health cost will drastically reduce. Conclusion With many people in developed nations like the UK and US living longer, the number of people above age 65 has skyrocketed. A considerable number are even aged 85 and above. Ensuring that these longer lives are healthier and still satisfying is the grand challenge the world has to face. IT experts are working hard to ensure that the aging population of today and the future can protract their vitality. This proposal study suggests ways of helping the older people to live independently as much as possible and enable them stay involved in the community and at work. The study also offers ways of helping care givers to provide better care and also this will seek to explore the diverse needs of older people. For the older people, small issues like poor eyesight and short-term memory lapses can rapidly exacerbate to be big problems like loss of home and total dependence on others. A stay at nursing home or adapting a whole system of assisted living is very expensive but this paper seeks to offer simple, cheap, innovative and sustainable IT technologies to help older people remain independent an making sure their homes assist and not hamper them. The use of IT will transform homes into ‘supplement minds’ for the seniors and it would bridge the gap that exists between the cognitive needs and the capabilities of the old. In ess ence an aware home greatly builds independence. Reference List Charness, N., Czaja, S., and Sharit, J., 2007, Age and Technology For Work. In K.S. Schultz, And G.A. Adams (Eds.), Aging And Work In the 21st Century, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers Cheek, P. Nikpour, L , Nowlin, H., 2005. Aging Well With Smart Technology. Nursing Administration Quarterly, Vol. 29, Issue 4, pp. 329-338 Findlay, R. A., 2003. Interventions To Reduce Social Isolation Amongst Older People: Where Is The Evidence? Ageing Society, Vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 647–658. Lezzoni, L., McCarthy, E., Davis, R., Siebens. H., 2001. Mobility Difficulties Are Not Only A Problem Of Old Age,’ Journal of General Internal Medicine, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 235-243. Independent Age, 2010. Older People, Technology And Community The Potential Of Technology To Help Older People Renew Or Develop Social Contacts And To Actively Engage In Their Communities. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation McCreadie, C., T inker, A., 2005. The Acceptability of Assistive Technology to Older People. Ageing And Society, Vol. 25, Issue 1, pp. 91-110 Pollack, M., 2005. Intelligent Technology for an Aging Population: The Use of AI to Assist Elders with Cognitive Impairment. AI Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 9-24 Rogers, W.A., Fisk, A.D., 2006. Cognitive Support For Elders Through Technology, Generations. Journal Of The American Society on Aging, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 38-43 Sixsmith, A. et al., 2009. SOPRANO – An Ambient Assisted Living System For Supporting Older People At Home. Ambient Assistive Health And Wellness Management In The Heart Of The City, Vol. 5597, pp 233-236 Victor, C.R., Scambler, S. J., Bowling, A., Bond, J., 2005. The Prevalence Of, And Risk Factors For, Loneliness in Later Life: A survey of older people in Great Britain. Ageing and Society, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 357–375 Zijlstra, V., Aminian, K., 2008. Mobility Assessment in Older People: New Possibilities and Challenges. Eur opean Journal of Aging. Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 3-12.

Free Essays on MacBeth Act IV

Act IV, scene i In a dark cavern, a bubbling cauldron hisses and spits, and the three witches suddenly appear onstage. They circle the cauldron, chanting spells and adding bizarre ingredients to their stew- "eye of newt and toe of frog, / Wool of bat and tongue of dog" (IV.i.14–15). Hecate materializes and compliments the witches on their work. One of the witches then chants: "By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes" (IV.i.61–62). In fulfillment of the witch's prediction, Macbeth enters. He asks the witches to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers a prediction to allay Macbeth's fears. First, a floating head warns him to beware Macduff; Macbeth says that he has already guessed as much. Then a bloody child appears and tells him that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" (IV.i.96–97). Next, a crowned child holding a tree tells him that he is safe until Birnam Wood move s to Dunsinane Hill. Finally, a procession of eight crowned kings walks by, the last carrying a mirror. Banquo's ghost walks at the end of the line. Macbeth demands to know the meaning of this final vision, but the witches perform a mad dance and then vanish. Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth resolves to send murderers to capture Macduff's castle and to kill Macduff's wife and children. Act IV, scene ii At Macduff's castle, Lady Macduff accosts Ross, demanding to know why her husband has fled. She feels betrayed. Ross insists that she trust her husband's judgment and then regretfully departs. Once he is gone, Lady Macduff tells her son that his father is dead, but the little boy perceptively argues that he is not. Suddenly, a messenger hurries in, warning Lady Macduff that she is in danger and urging her to flee. Lady Macduff protests, arguing that she has done no wrong. A group of murderers then enters. When o... Free Essays on MacBeth Act IV Free Essays on MacBeth Act IV Act IV, scene i In a dark cavern, a bubbling cauldron hisses and spits, and the three witches suddenly appear onstage. They circle the cauldron, chanting spells and adding bizarre ingredients to their stew- "eye of newt and toe of frog, / Wool of bat and tongue of dog" (IV.i.14–15). Hecate materializes and compliments the witches on their work. One of the witches then chants: "By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes" (IV.i.61–62). In fulfillment of the witch's prediction, Macbeth enters. He asks the witches to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers a prediction to allay Macbeth's fears. First, a floating head warns him to beware Macduff; Macbeth says that he has already guessed as much. Then a bloody child appears and tells him that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" (IV.i.96–97). Next, a crowned child holding a tree tells him that he is safe until Birnam Wood move s to Dunsinane Hill. Finally, a procession of eight crowned kings walks by, the last carrying a mirror. Banquo's ghost walks at the end of the line. Macbeth demands to know the meaning of this final vision, but the witches perform a mad dance and then vanish. Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth resolves to send murderers to capture Macduff's castle and to kill Macduff's wife and children. Act IV, scene ii At Macduff's castle, Lady Macduff accosts Ross, demanding to know why her husband has fled. She feels betrayed. Ross insists that she trust her husband's judgment and then regretfully departs. Once he is gone, Lady Macduff tells her son that his father is dead, but the little boy perceptively argues that he is not. Suddenly, a messenger hurries in, warning Lady Macduff that she is in danger and urging her to flee. Lady Macduff protests, arguing that she has done no wrong. A group of murderers then enters. When o...

My cultural identity and intercultural awareness Essay

My cultural identity and intercultural awareness - Essay Example As a native of Iran, I was accustomed to Iranian ways of thinking, feeling, reacting, dressing etc, all of which can be described as the Iranian culture based on Hofstede’s (2001) definition of culture. By nature, I am emotional and quiet, but not shy, female that loves to socialize, make friends, and self-confident as well as determined young person. My determination and focus helped me in earning admission in UK to study English Language. My experience in the UK has been very different from what it had been when I was growing up in Iran, which made me feel different about myself and my nature. Initially, I felt confused, lost, and low in confidence. Subsequently my self esteem lowered and I also started feeling disgusted and rejected because of low acceptability among my peers. The learning from intercultural awareness seems to provide solutions to the challenges that I am faced and also the answers to most of the questions that I had. With time passing in the UK, I started to realize that people around me are different and have different belief systems, behaviours, and attitudes, which probably is the UK culture. I learnt that culture and language are usually associated with unique ideologies that become the basis for judgment as well as relationship development (Piller, 2011). Judgements that are usually formed on the basis of ideologies lead to the formation of differential opinions about people from other cultures due to differences in their behaviour, attitude, personalities etc (Lewis, 2003). I can understand why it took more than two weeks for me to earn a good friend; my way of dressing clearly indicated that I was from the Middle East, which probably made my classmates to form opinions that I am from a different world and a different kind of perso n that they could not relate to. These opinions together result in stereotyping the individuals or groups based on prior knowledge and understanding related to some

Current Events and U.S. Diplomacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Current Events and U.S. Diplomacy - Essay Example This resulted to massive inflation rates, unemployment, corruption, and a breakdown of social order. When it came to international diplomacy, Russia remained in the sidelines. The Kosovo War was widely condemned by Russia since Serbia was a historical ally of the Russian people. There was more tension when Russia got embroiled in the Chechnya War, which the United States vehemently opposed. As well known throughout history, sharp disagreements between the two-superpower nations, United States and Russia, have always been around. Each of these great nations has their own perspective on how to deal with international relations and their own internal affairs. When Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, it raised some concerns among the United States government officials since Putin was a former KGB officer and was completely virtually unknown during his predecessor’s regime. Kanet (2009) pointed this out: Since former President Boris Yeltsin’s selection of Vladimir Putin as his successor, Russia’s fortunes have improved dramatically. In part, this resulted from good luck and the escalating demand for and price of petroleum and natural gas on the world market; in part, it stems from President Putin’s successful reimposition of central control over the political and economic structures across the vast area of the Russian Federation, regardless of the cost in terms of human rights and democracy. Russia’s resurgence as a major power during the past decade has brought with it a reaffirmation of assertiveness in its relations with other states—both those within its stated sphere of influence and those further from Russian territory. (p.4) The rise of the Russian economy after Yeltsin, and during Putin’s time has raised suspicion from the United States since the Russian economy is being used as a political advantage when it comes to international policy making with other countries. This results to Russia having a more influential

Pauls Case Essay Example for Free

Pauls Case Essay A Misunderstood Person Paul is a very interesting character, who has struggles within himself in the story of Paul’s Case by Willa Cather. His teachers misunderstand him and see him as a trouble maker throughout the story. So Paul begins to be self-conscious about how people portray him because of his actions. Paul reflects on his actions and begins to confuse reality life to fantasy life where he is comfortable in because of all the amenities he had. Paul is misunderstood by his teachers so; Paul begins to live in his fantasy world where he makes his mistakes in the real world. Paul is misunderstood by his teachers because of the way he looks and acts during the meeting the teachers have about him with the principal. This part of the story says. â€Å"His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. †(Cather pg. 245) This is explaining how his teachers are portraying him by comparing his body language to a flower. Which symbolizes him shrugging off what his teachers though about him but, deep inside him he cared because Paul always thought someone was watching him. As the story said, â€Å"Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something. †(Cather pg. 245) His teachers are explaining him as being a selfish person thinking about himself all the time, but what they don’t know is that he does think about them and what they think about him. Paul thinks that someone is always watching because of his teachers always trying to find something wrong about his life style. â€Å"He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile, once or twice he glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watch. †(Cather pg. 260) Towards the end of story he thinks before he jumps because begins to think about someone watching him. Showing how he is always thinking about what others thought about him and how know one ever quiet seem to understand him. Paul seems to always be looking for someone to understand him, but in the end he was always misunderstood because of his choices that he made. Paul begins to confuse his fantasy life to reality and begins to make bad choices in his life. â€Å"The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things† (Cather pg. 251) His fantasy was to become a part of theatre in any way he could. So he begins to think of going to New York to pursue his dreams, but what he doesn’t understand is that, that’s only his dream not reality. Paul pursues this dream by stealing, â€Å"There was above two thousand dollars in checks, and nearly a thousand in the banknotes which he had taken from the book and quietly transferred to his pocket. † (Cather pg. 255) Paul takes the money for his selfish reasons of wanting to live his fantasy. It is wrong because he is living in his fantasy life and thinks nothing about it. All Paul wants to do is be rich because that’s the way he portrays himself in his fantasy life without working for the money. â€Å"Presently he came out of his white bathroom, resplendent in his new silk underwear, and playing with the tassels of his red robe. The snow was whirling so fiercely outside his windows that he could scarcely see across the street† (Cather pg. 254) In the hotel Paul is living the good life because of the money he has stolen just as in his fantasy. The following sentence shows how he finally begins to see reality because it’s showing how he is having a battle within himself about the bad things he did, which end up killing him inside. At the end of the story Paul ends up killing himself because he was never understood by his teachers or anyone else in his life. That made him unhappy within himself so he began to believe more in his fantasy world because he felt comfortable there. Paul didn’t seem to care about anything because he was living his fantasy life of being rich and going to New York. It took Paul a while to understand that he was doing wrong by stealing money and living in his fantasy life instead of reality. Towards the end Pauls’ fantasies end up killing him, since he is never figure out he tries to escape to his fantasies to make him happy but, by doing so he causes more problems to himself making him deeply unhappy. So he decides to kill himself to live free from all the worries that made his life so confusing to him.

Achievement Gap Essay -- Sociology, Gender Roles, Racial Relations

The achievement gap is defined as the disparity between the performance groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, ability and socio-economic status. The achievement gap can be observed through a variety of measures including standardized test scores, grade point averages, drop out rates, college enrollment and completion rates. The Black-White achievement gap is a critical issue in modern society’s education system. Although data surrounding the issue clearly indicates that the racial performance gap exists in areas of standardized tests, graduation rates, dropout rates, and enrollment in continuing education, the causative reasons for the gap are ambiguous—therefore presenting a significant challenge in regard to the most effective way to close the gap. The gap appears before children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood (Jencks 1998). Since 1970, the gap has decreased about 40 percent, but has steadily grown since. Theories suggest the Black-White achievement gap is created by a multitude of social, cultural, and economic factors as well as educational opportunities and/or learning experiences. Factors such as biased testing, discrimination by teachers, test anxiety among black students, disparities between blacks and whites in income or family structure, and genetic and cultural differences between blacks and whites have all been evaluated as explanations for the Black-White achievement gap (Farkas 2004). The research that follows will elaborate on these factors as they affect the decline in academic performance of black males—particularly the literacy achievement of black males. Within the Black-White achievement gap resides a subgroup whose academic performance is distressingly ... ...disparities between the two ethnic communities that can be traced back to the legacy of slavery and other forms of oppression that blacks have suffered.† Supporters of this view felt that educational achievement correlates more strongly with economic status than with any other single variable. Since the majority of the black community lags behind whites in income and wealth, the educational inequalities are caused by the economic inequalities. They believe that once the inequalities disappear, the educational disparities will as well. Many argue that this is not a viable argument. They point to other minority groups such as Asians, some of whom are financially worse off than blacks, and they excel in school . They felt that because the civil rights legislation removed all roadblocks back in the 60’s and 70’s something else must be contributing to the large gap.

Characterization of Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia Essay

Hamlet is a character of extraordinary complexity and depth. No simple formula can serve to solve his mystery. A different Hamlet might have killed his uncle Claudius on the strength of the Ghost’s accusation, ascended the throne, married Ophelia and lived happily ever after . But such a typical hero was not likely to be of interest to Shakespeare. We can also say that in Hamlet Shakespeare presents a murderer and revenger who is both ruthless and reluctant and his death is the ultimate result of his being charged by the Ghost to carry out instructions which were offensive to his moral principles. Like other tragic heroes of Shakespeare he is also endowed with exceptional qualities like royal birth, graceful and charming personality among his own countrymen. He has a high intellectual quality as Ophelia observes: O what a noble mind is here overthrown! / The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword, / Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state ,/ The glass of fashion , and the mould of form ,/ Th’ observed of all observers. [Act III, Scene I] In spite of possessing all these high qualities which rank him above the other characters the flaw in his character leads to his downfall and makes him a tragic hero. The tragic flaw in the character of Hamlet is that he thinks too much and feels too much. He is often disturbed by his own nature of ‘self analyses’. What is required of Hamlet is prompt action, whereas he broods over the moral idealism which leads to his delay in action. When he gets an opportunity to kill Claudius, he puts aside the thought because he cannot strike an enemy while he is at prayer. Several causes account for his inaction . By nature he is prone to think rather than to act. He is a man of morals and his moral idealism receives a shock when his mother remarries Claudius after his father’s death. Chance too plays an important part in shaping his character. Chance places him in such a position in which he is incapable of doing anything. He becomes inconsistent and is no longer a person who reaches a conclusion only by reasoning. Like other tragic heroes Hamlet too has to face conflict, both internal and external. The internal conflict is between his moral scruples and the act of revenge which he is called upon to perform. Love of his father, the dishonor of his mother and the villainy of his uncle prompt him to take revenge while his nobility, his moral idealism, his principles and his religion revolt against such a brutal act. The result is that, torn within himself, he suffers mental torture. Hamlets wants to take revenge against Claudius, the murderer of his father, the usurper of his rights to the throne and the seducer of his mother . In Hamlet Shakespeare presents a revenger who is both ruthless and reluctant . As a revenger he must act, on behalf of outraged virtue, to restore a violated order, set right what is ‘out of joint’. But the act he is impelled to do, involves him in evil of the kind which he would punish. As the ruthless revenger he exemplifies in his own person the evil which is inseparable from the good in human nature; as the reluctant revenger he can symbolize the good’s abhorrence of it. As compared to Fortinbras and Laertes, Hamlet is slow in taking revenge because of his habit of thinking long and deep. Bradley clearly describes this condition and says he suffered from melancholia, a pathological state which may well develop into lunacy. (p. 121) There is an another aspect of Hamlet’s characterization i.  e. his madness. T. S Eliot argues that ‘the madness of Hamlet lay in Shakespeare’s hand; in the earlier play a simple ruse, and to the end, we may presume, understood as a rule by the audience. For Shakespeare it is less than madness and more than feigned. ’ (p. 102) By pretending to be mad, Hamlet kept open the safety valve and could speak order to relieve the pressure on his mind. This is what T. S Eliot means when he uses the words â€Å"more than feigned. † Samuel Johnson (1765) also considers his madness as fabricated even in his (Hamlet’s) treatment of Ophelia. Johnson says in this regard, ‘He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty. ’ (Johnson, 1765) Shakespeare’s characterization of Gertrude and Ophelia in Hamlet is paradoxical as it challenges as well as complements the contemporary social traditions and norms. Gertrude is the best example of this paradox that is manifested through her extraordinary supremacy over all the major characters of Hamlet, her influence in the court matters and state affairs and her blind obedience to Claudius. Ophelia is also active in her domestic domain but her interest are restricted to amorous and matrimonial maters only and they are further directed by his father Polonius and brother Laertes. She is an epitome of traditional feminist expressions of the age that require chastity, compliance and acceptance of male dominancy from women. Ophelia remains passive in the domestic and emotional domain. Ophelia has no identity of her own and all her domestic and amorous matters are directed by her father. Polonius endeavors to fashion the life and attitude of Ophelia according to his own wishes. He considers his desires as her desires and tries to tailor her approach by various means. Ophelia is further guarded by his brother against any potential threat to her chastity and virginity. At Ophelia’s entry into Hamlet, her brother, Laertes escorts Ophelia advising her on her relationship with Hamlet. So right from the very start, Ophelia is under the sway of Laertes and Polonius. So her character is in complete conformity with the traditional values of that time. Polonius always responds from a position of authority over Ophelia, emphasizing his power as the decision-maker for her. Both her father and brother have a self assigned task of directing Ophelia how to act properly in every domain of her life. Although Shakespeare has characterized Ophelia as inferior to male characters, but characterization of Gertrude has dual characteristic. Sometime it challenges the traditions of the conformist society and sometime it itself become conforms to the values of the society by acting passively.

Developmental Theory, Moral Development, and Gender and Cultural Influences

Most people are confused about how humans grow, mature, and develop a unique personality. This research paper will discuss the two different theories of Kohlberg and Erikson pertaining to human’s personality, moral development, and their gender and cultural differences.It will further explain the role of each stage of human development in shaping a certain aspect of their behavior, and how it changes over a period of time. Developmental Theory, Moral Development, and Gender and Cultural Influences Human beings start to develop from the time of their birth and will continuously change and develop until they reach the stage of adulthood.There are many theories that attempt to explain how human beings develop their personalities and identities over a period of time. Looking at the different theoretical views in psychology, it can be very confusing and misleading in terms of how an individual matures and develops.However, these theories will further explain and somehow let people understand the whole process of maturation and development of an individual. Two developmental theories will be discussed in this paper, as well as their similarities and differences.The paper also aims to present how these theories affect the development of an individual from birth to adulthood. The theories to be discussed are Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development and Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.Erikson's Model of Psychosocial DevelopmentErik Erikson is a developmental psychologist who believes that a person develops their personality in a series of stage and ages. Erikson’s theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. Erikson's model of psychosocial development is a very significant, highly regarded, and meaningful thought.Erikson developed the eight stages of psychosocial development of an individual. In each stage, he believes that people experience problems and conflicts in life; thus, it serve s as a turning point in a person’s development throughout his or her life stages. These problems are expected to develop or impede the psychological ability of an individual (Wagner, 2008). The first stage of Erikson’s developmental theory is the Trust vs. Mistrust. This occurs between births and when a child reaches one year old. It is said to be the most fundamental stage in life.It is a stage where a child learns to trust the people around such as the mother or parents who are expected to be there and provide them with their vital needs like care, love, trust and food. Since an infant is absolutely dependent, developing trust is usually based on dependability and quality of the child’s caregivers.If a child finally develops trust, he or she will now feel secure living in the world. On the other hand, if trust is not developed in this stage, a child may develop fear and a belief that he or she lives in an unpredictable and conflicting environment (Chelsi, 2006 ). The second stage occurs when a child becomes a toddler.This stage is called Autonomy Vs Shame and Doubt. In this stage of development, early childhood is focused on enhancing a greater sense of personal control. For instance, when a child learns to control certain parts of his or her body like toilet training and learning how to walk, then he or she will have a sense of control.This child will feel independent as well and develop a sense of autonomy to do something on his or her own. However, if the child fails to attain personal control, it will result in feelings of shame and doubt (Wolfe, 2007). Stage three of Erikson’s theory is called Initiative vs.  Guilt.This stage happens when a child becomes preschool already between the ages of four and five. In this stage, a child become more active and will play and explore a lot. It is also where a child develops a conscience and begins to understand what is right from wrong.Support is extremely needed in this stage because if it is not present, feelings of guilt can develop and will be the source of conflict later in the child’s life (Wagner, 2008). Fourth stage in this theory is Industry vs. Inferiority. This stage occurs when a child reaches the age of 2-12 years old and when they attend early school.Every child needs to feel that he or she has achieved something in every work he or she does, most especially in school. That is why school is very important in this stage of development. If a child constantly successfully achieves something with the use of his or her own skill or ability, there will be a greater chance that the child will feel proud and confident within him- or herself. On the other hand, if the child fails to achieve something, it may result in feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem in the child’s personality (Wagner, 2008). Identity vs. Confusion makes up the fifth stage of Erikson’s theory.This stage takes place during the adolescence period of an individua l. Adolescents will try to discover their identity and figure out their personality and where they should belong in the world. It is the stage wherein a child begins experimenting since it is a way to discover him- or herself. If the child was not able to discover and know him- or herself, then there will be role and identity confusion in them. Consequently, he or she will be confused with his or her function in the world and can cause dilemma later on in the next stages of life (Chelsi, 2006).The sixth stage of this theory is Intimacy vs. IsolationThis happens during early adulthood between the ages of 18 and 40. It is a stage wherein a person explores personal relationship, specifically intimate relationships with other people. Thus, in this stage, people begin to date and find a partner to marry.Those who are successful will achieve a sense of intimacy and security from their partner or other people, while failure to do so may result in isolation and feeling of loneliness and dep ression (Wagner, 2008). Stage seven occurs at the age of 40 to 65, and it is called Generativity vs. Stagnation. In this stage, an individual continues to build lives but focuses now with career and family.This is where a person learns to care and be concerned for other people. Being active and participative in the world is what people feel if they succeed in this stage. However, having less self-worth is what people would feel if they fail to meet this stage successfully (Wagner, 2008). Lastly, the eighth stage in Erikson’s theory is called integrity vs. despair. This occurs in old age between ages fifty and up. It is a stage where people look back on their life and reflect on what happened.There may be a feeling of satisfaction or regret. They will have a sense of integrity when they feel happy and fulfilled with what happened in their life, while they may feel despair and bitterness if they think that their life was just a waste. Life is full of learning new things and cha llenges that help people grow and develop. This theory of Erikson is truly helpful for understanding a child and adult’s development (Wagner, 2008). The six stages of Erikson’s theory is related to the gender differences of an individual, with the fifth stage (Identity vs.Confusion) being the more crucial.This is because in this stage, it is said that people are try to seek their real personality and identity by choosing where they should belong and knowing their purpose in life (Streitmatter, 1993). Environmental, cultural, and ethnicity factors are present in the whole stage of a person’s development. These factors influence an individual over the period of time when a person matures and lives his or her life. Environment such as the family, school, and the whole society is always involved in the process.In addition, a certain culture and ethnicity of a person may give a great influence as well in shaping an individual’s personality, which makes them a certain persona living and functioning in the world. There may be a culture that is acceptable to the norms of a specific group of people, but then that specific culture may not be common and not acceptable to the other, so it is very important to know also where a person originated so that a person may understand why some people has different beliefs, values, and behavior in life (Child Development, 2006).Kohlberg’s Developmental Model of Moral Development Kohlberg’s theory is quite different from Erikson’s theory. His theory focuses on the moral development. It is divided into three levels with two different stages on each level, which gives a total of six different stages of moral development. Level one is the pre-conventional morality level, and it has two stages. The first stage is the obedience and punishment orientation. It is a stage wherein a child learns what is right and wrong actions and behavior.Children also learn in this stage that for every actio n they make they will gain a certain consequences of it. For example, if a child does something good, then they will be rewarded. On the other hand, if a child does something bad, then they will know that there will be a certain punishment and consequences for their actions. The second stage under pre-conventional level is called individualism and exchange. At this stage, a child learns to be concerned not only for himself or herself but for other people as well.Children start to learn reciprocity and stand in the position of doing something for other people if it is for his or her self-interest. Hence, the child will follow a certain rule if he or she knows that she or he will gain something from it. Children at this stage are very focused and concerned with fairness and equality. The justice here is â€Å"do unto others what as they do unto to you. † Thus, if a person does something good to somebody, then he or she expects that the person will do something good to him or he r as well.The same thing happens if a person does something bad to somebody; he or she then can expect that the person will do something bad to him or her in return (Crain, 1985). Level two is conventional morality, and the third stage is good interpersonal relationships.In this stage, children do something because they already know that it is good, and they will be able to have good relationship with family, classmates, friends, and neighbors. They now know the concepts of trust, care, love, and being concern with other people, giving them a good impression of themselves from other people’s perspective.In this stage, children aim to please people around them, and intentions are basically all good, since they are very concerned with having a good image to portray in the society, and since they are expected to behave in a way that the society asks them to behave. Fourth stage is maintaining the social order. It is still quite related to the third stage, but in this stage, a pe rson become fully concerned not only the people around them but the whole society and environment already.Now in this stage, a person learns about obeying laws and respecting the people and the authority, and they focus on performing a certain duty so that there will be a social order in the society. People at this stage will be knowledgeable about the societal law, and they are automatically expected to abide such laws that are imposed into their society and environment (Crain, 1985). Next is level three, and it is called the post-conventional morality where the last two stages lies ahead. The fifth stage is social contract and individual rights.During this stage, an individual believes and looks into his or her own moral values and principles in life and becomes aware that it should be also good for the society. People develop their own opinions, beliefs, and values in life in this stage.They also understand that codes of conduct are relative to their social group. This varies fro m culture to culture and subgroup to subgroup. A person enters into an agreement with fellow human beings to treat them fairly and nicely and to respect authority when it is equally moral and deserved. Lastly, the sixth stage is called the universal principles.This stage involves the universal ethical principles in an individual’s life. A person uses his or her conscience and their own ethical principles to decide what is right and wrong behavior and actions. Here people are motivated by their conscience that surpasses cultural, religious, or social convention rules (Uncgrad, 2007). Kohlberg’s theory and stages of moral development is said to affect the gender differences, environmental, cultural, and ethnic influences in ways. A research says that gender differences have no effect in the moral judgment of a person.However, they discovered that female are more likely to mature than male in the adolescent stage, making female more advanced when it comes to moral reasoni ng. Research states that girls are generally about two years ahead of boys in cerebral cortical and social-cognitive functioning (Silberman & Snarey, 2007). On the other hand, factors such as the environment, culture, and ethnicity of a person have a great effect also in developing a person’s moral judgment since these are factors that are always present in an individual’s life.For instance, when two different races such as Western people and Asian people are compared, the difference in culture and beliefs is very evident that it is only likely that they will have different moral judgment (Mulder, 1997). Both theories of Kohlberg and Erikson critically discuss and explain how a person builds their personality and moral development in the life span of an individual.Understanding both different stages of Kohlberg and Erikson will also prevent people from having conflicts and dilemmas in facing and dealing with life since people already know the sources and origins of hum an’s personality and moral development. References Chelsi (2006). Erik Erikson's Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development. Associated Content. Crain, W.C (1985). Chapter Seven: Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Theories of  Development   (pp. 118-136). US: Prentice-Hall. Mulder, B. (1997). Moral Development's Development: Recent Research. Hope College.  Retrieved October 14, 2008 from http://www.hope.edu/academic/psychology/335/webrep/moraldev.html. Quintana, S. M. , et al. (2006). Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Child Development:  Contemporary Research and Future Directions. Child Development, 77 (5), 1129-1141. Silberman M. A & Snarey J. (2007). Gender differences in moral development  during early adolescence: The contribution of sex-related variations in maturation. Current Psychology, 12 (2), 163-171. Streitmatter, J. (1993). Gender differences in identity development: An examination of  longitudinal data. Adolescence, 28, 55–66. Uncgrad, (2007). Kohlberg's Stages of Development. Associated Content. Retrieved October 14, 2008 from  http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/461832/kohlbergs_stages_of_development html?cat=7. Van Wagner, K. (2005). Stages of Psychosocial Development. About.com  Retrieved October 14, 2008 from  http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/psychosocial.htm. Wolfe Good (2007). Erik Homburger Erikson's Grid of Psychosocial Stages of Childhood  Development. Associated Content. Retrieved October 14, 2008 from  http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/299357/erik_homburger_eriksons_grid_of_psychosocial.html?cat=58.

An Analysis on Religion, Healing and Death Essays

An Analysis on Religion, Healing and Death Essays An Analysis on Religion, Healing and Death Paper An Analysis on Religion, Healing and Death Paper The attitudes of religion are more towards health and methods to gain health after the individual are sick. When death takes place, the question of ever gaining health is over, and in that respect, death has put an end to all religion. On the other side, when a man regains his or her health, the religious practices are recalled and it is said that they have succeeded in gaining health back for the man, and then death just has to walk away from the scene. Analysis: Let us look at the way different religions look at the essential requirements for regaining health. Starting with Judaism, we know that there are three groups among them Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. The differences among the sects depend on their strictness of adherence to ancient laws and practices. The first point is that among all Jews, there will be attention paid to a sick person and family members will ensure that someone stays with the patient. In general, Jews are very interested in diagnosis, treatment and personal care for the patient and thus health is though to be very important by them. At the same time, they observe certain restrictions and these are like not accepting surgery or medical procedures on Sabbath or holy days which begins at sunset on Fridays and ends at sunset of Saturdays; some Jews of the orthodox group will not touch money, will not sit down to write, make use of electrical appliances like hospital bed controls, elevators, call buttons, automatic door openers, cars, light switches, etc; most also fast on Yom Kippur, bit it can be explained that fasting is not required on Yom Kippur for sick people; and shaving of facial hair is also not done by the orthodox group. (Multicultural Health Generalizations) Thus it is clear that along with regaining their health, a Jew would still like to observe certain religious matters. However all this observance will naturally end when death would arrive. If on the other hand, with health, all this will be felt to have contributed to the recovery from sickness, and thus healing will convince that death is not essential. Looking at Buddhists, they think of good health as a balanced interaction between the mind and body as also life and environment. When the balance is lost, according to Buddhists, sickness comes, and the efforts of their theory and practice are to restore the balance. When there is a treatment of any illness, Buddhism does not avoid the available modern medicines along with its array of diagnostic and therapeutic methods. Their explanation is that these can be best used for treatment of all illness, while at the same time; there is a requirement for a deeper understanding of the inner and subjective procedures in life. Thus one can say that the central attitude is a stress on spiritual strength along with a feeling of the requirement of a sense of purpose in life and this is best achieved through compassion for others. The science of medicine does not accept that these have anything to do with recovery from sickness, but according to the religion, these help individuals to recover from difficulties that one faces due to sickness and also provides a chance for developing personal qualities during the period of sickness. (Multicultural Health Generalizations) We know that this is also an old religion; the effects here stress more on the mind than on physical actions. It is also known that about half of our diseases occur from the mind, so in certain cases, these attitudes can help. On the next item is the attitudes of believers in Islam, and one of the oldest practitioners of that religion are the Arabs. Their attitude is a lack of patience and even on the first visit a patient may expect to receive medication and immediate relief of pain. If they are not given medication or asked for laboratory tests, they may need an explanation. When the patients are suffering from mental distress they would not describe the matter fully but give only vague explanations. Often they would like somatic treatment as leaving a patient in a hospital is viewed as abandonment. The sense of their privacy is high and they do not like to provide any detailed information about themselves, and this is worse with women who do not like to talk about their private lives, but are easier when they talk with female doctors. (Multicultural Health Generalizations) It is clear here that the attitude to sickness comes from the area of origin rather than any specific religious taboo. This is clearer when we see the attitude of Hindus and they are ready to accept sickness without any feeling of guilt, and the entire family is ready to assist and they relieve the individual of responsibilities for that period. At the same time, they have strong family relationships and this stops them from using long term facilities. Since the religion involves a lot of stoicism, the exhibition of pain is low and it is also felt that pain is due to the wrath of God. This gives them the concept that pain has to be endured with endurance, and thus to really understand the real amount of pain, the treatment has to be carried out based on direct examination. There is also a high practice of self medication and these cover up the symptoms of the disease till health conditions deteriorate and make treatment more difficult. The providers of healthcare are viewed as elders in the family and though the general attitude is fatalistic, the details are generally stated. (Multicultural Health Generalizations) Here again there is a certain amount of acceptance of death being an inevitable conclusion, yet when the person regains health, there is a feeling of happiness. In a way, regaining of health puts death a couple of notches down. Getting back to Western beliefs, death is not faced up to. There is a general tendency to hide the fact of death from ourselves and children. No one likes to tell children how items like fried chicken, hamburgers and bacon are made. When the family has an old dog, it is put to sleep, and not put to death. This makes death a very difficult experience, though it will come to everybody. We try to have the funeral homes turn the occasion into one of reunion of family and its friends. The event is not given any religious colors, and this concept is also passed on to children. There are many religious stories where even virtuous people are called home with the meaning that they die. (Aging and Death in Folklore) To a certain extent this is different from the attitudes of the Chinese who feel that healthcare providers are authority. It is their duty to decide on the methods and types of treatment, it is the duty of the family to ensure that it is carried out. Even when they do not agree with the doctors decision, they generally do not argue, but just do not follow the instructions. The main reason for this is that they feel when the medical provider is contradicted, the person will lose face. In general when Western practices are carried out, they do not like the pain of treatment and direct invasive nature. (Multicultural Health Generalizations) Yet, they also come for treatment with the expectation of regaining health, and when death loses out, it loses face. Some sections among Christians like Jehovahs Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions and always ask for alternative forms of treatment. They carry with them a durable power of attorney for heath care document that clearly states their choice and wishes. Regarding even auto-transfusion techniques like hemo-dilution and cell salvage are decided by individuals. (Multicultural Health Generalizations) Their attitude towards accepting blood is difficult and often causes a lot of difficulties in their treatment. On the other hand they believe a lot on prayer, and some say that it helps in healing. In spite of all the claims, there have been no cases where this has reached a level of confidence to show that a real effect is being seen. Many of such studies have been affected due to defects in their organization and the results have been stated to be due to the bias of the researcher or the subject. Independent studies have only shown that prayer neither helps nor hurts healing. (Effectiveness of personal prayers: Used in addition to medical treatment) This shows to an extent that religion probably does not have a role to play in the process, yet when healing takes place, it is an occasion of joy. At the same time, in many instances, it has been seen that the religions of the world have caused a lot of violence, and are causing it even today. At the same time, individuals feel very secure within the realms of their religion, and when any threats are seen to it, they take up the matter as an affront to the group. (A Look at the Future) These cause more deaths and resultant unhappiness. Death is the ultimate form of lack of health and such wars stop us from putting death in its place using the weapon of health. Conclusion: While death is inevitable for all of us, and one of the promises of religion is that the particular religion will lead us to a place of everlasting happiness if we follow the religion, it should not be the cause of death, as that will harm our existence in this world which requires health. Bibliography : Ashliman, D. L.  Aging and Death in Folklore. Retrieved from pitt. edu/~dash/aging. html Accessed 9 December, 2005 Effectiveness of personal prayers: Used in addition to medical treatment. Retrieved from religioustolerance. org/medical4. htm Accessed 9 December, 2005 Keating, Thomas. A Look at the Future. Retrieved from centeringprayer. com/better/better07. htm Accessed 9 December, 2005 Multicultural Health Generalizations. Retrieved from med. umich. edu/multicultural/ccp/bmhg. htm Accessed 9 December, 2005a

How to Improve Your SAT Reading Score 8 Strategies

How to Improve Your SAT Reading Score 8 Strategies SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with an SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW) score between 300 and 500? You're not alone- hundreds of thousands of students are scoring in this range. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and get a 600 or higher. Here, we'll discuss how to improve your SAT Reading score specifically and why it's so important to do so. Unlike other fluffy articles out there, we'll be focusing on actionable strategies.Put these eight strategies to work and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your SAT Reading score. Brief note:this article is suited for students scoring below 600 on EBRW. If you're already above this range, my perfect SAT Reading score article is more appropriate for you. Also, the current SAT (as opposed to the old SAT)has a single 800 Reading and Writing score, which combines your individual Reading and Writing test scores. So technically, when I talk about a 600 Reading test score, I'm referring to a30/40 Reading test score,which combines with your Writing test score to get you 600. In this guide, I'll use 600 and 30 interchangeably to mean the same thing. We won't talk about Writing here, but if you want to improve your Writing score, too, check out my guide on how to raise your low SAT Writing score. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, address what it takes to score a 600, and then go into specific SAT Reading tips andstrategies. Stick with me- this is like building a house. First, you need to lay a good foundation before putting up the walls and pretty windows. In the same vein, we need to understand why you're doing what you're doing before we dive into our top tips and strategies for SAT Reading. Note that I will talk mainly about getting to 600, but if your goal is 500 or lower, these concepts still equally apply. Before we begin, here is the table of contents for this article in case you want to come back to this later or jump around: Raising Your SAT Reading Score: Understand the Stakes Know That You Can Get a 600 SAT Reading Score What It Takes to Get a 600 (or 30) in SAT Reading Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality SAT Reading Sources Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know Raising Your SAT Reading Score: Understand the Stakes At this SAT score range, improving your low SAT EBRW score to a score in at least the 600 range will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. Let's use Penn State University as an example. The average SAT score for admitted applicants to Penn State is 1270. Its 25th percentile score is 80, and its 75th percentile score is 1370. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 51%. In other words, a little more than half of all applicants are admitted. But the lower your SAT scores are, the worse your chances of getting in will be. In our analysis, if you score around 1000, your chance of admission drops to just 27%. But if you raise your score to 1200, your chance of admission goes up to 60%- that's a really good chance of admission! So improving your score by just 200 points makes a huge difference in your chances of getting into your target colleges. For the SAT Reading section, this is especially true if you want to apply to humanities majors and programs, such as English or communications. These programs expect your Reading score to be strong. If you score low, they'll doubt your ability to do college-level humanities work. Even if you're a math superstar and are applying to a science major, colleges still want to know that you can process difficult texts at a college level. A low Reading score will cast huge doubt on you. It's really worth your time to improve your SAT Reading score. Hour for hour,it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college. Curious what chances you have with a 1200 SAT score? Check out ourexpert college admissions guide for an 1200 SAT score. Know That You Can Get a 600 SAT Reading Score This isn't just supposed to be a vague, happy-go-lucky message you see on a juice carton. I mean, literally, you and every other student can do this. In my job here at PrepScholar, I've worked with thousands of students scoring in the lower ranges of 300-500 on EBRW. Time after time, I've seen students beat themselves up over their low scores; they think improving them is impossible and say things such as the following: "I know I'm not smart." "I just can't read passages quickly, and I don't know how to improve my SAT Reading score." "I was never good at English, and my English teachers never told me I did a good job." This breaks my heart. Because I know that more than anything else, your SAT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. Not your IQ and not your school grades. Not how Mr. Anderson in 10th grade gave you a C on your essay. The truth is that SAT Reading is designed to trick you- and you need to learn how. Here's why: the SAT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the questions are nothing like what you've seen in high school? I bet you've had this problem: with SAT Reading passages, you often miss questions because of an "unlucky guess." You try to eliminate a few answer choices, but the ones left all sound equally good to you. So you throw up your hands and take a random guess. The SAT is purposely designed this way to confuse you.Literally millions of other students have the exact same problem you do. And the SAT knows this. Normally, in your high school English class, your teacher tells you that all interpretations of a text are valid. You can write an essay about anything you want, and English teachers aren't allowed to tell you your opinion is wrong. This is because they can get in trouble for telling you what to think. But the SAT has an entirely different problem. It's a national test, which means it needs to create a level playing field for all students around the country. It needs to fairly compare students with each other. As a result,every question must have a single, unambiguously, 100% correct answer. There's only ever one correct answer. Find a way to eliminate the three incorrect answer choices. Imagine if this weren't the case. Imagine each Reading answer had two answer choices that might each be plausibly correct. When SAT scores came out, every single student who got the question wrong would more than likely complain to the College Board that the test is flawed.The College Board would then have to invalidate that question, ultimately weakening the power of the SAT. The College Board wants to avoid this nightmare scenario. Therefore, every single Reading passage question has only one correct answer. But the SAT disguises this fact by asking questions with the following cryptic phrases: The author would most likely agree with which of the following statements? The first paragraph primarily serves to: In line 20, "dark"most nearly means: Notice a pattern here? The SAT always disguises the fact that there's just one unambiguous answer. It tries to make you waver between two or three answer choices that all sound plausible. And then you guess randomly. And then you get the question wrong. You can bet students fall for this. Millions of times every year. Students who don't prepare for the SAT in the right way don't appreciate this. But if you prepare for the SAT in the right way, you'll learn the tricks the SAT plays on you.And you'll raise your score. The SAT Reading section is full of patterns like these. To improve your score, you just need to do the following: Learn the types of questions the SAT tests, such as the ones above Learn strategies to solve these questions, using skills you already know Practicewith a lot of high-quality questions so you can learn from your mistakes The point is that you can learn these skills, even if you don't consider yourself a good reader or a great English student.I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this later. But first, let's see how many questions you need to get right in order to get a 600 on SAT Reading. What It Takes to Get a 600 (or 30) in SAT Reading If you have a target score in mind, it helps to understand how many question you'll need to get right, which is known as your raw score, in order to hit your target scaled score (out of 600). Since SAT Reading combines with Writing to give you a single EBRW score out of 600, we're going to be looking at Reading test scores instead. In this case, we're aiming for a Reading test score of 30,out of 40 total points. Here's a rough raw-score-to-SAT-Reading-test-score conversion table - the exact conversions will depend on the test, but this chart will give you a close approximation of how many questions you can miss and still get a 30. (If you could use a refresher on how the SAT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this guide.) Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled 52 40 38 31 24 24 10 17 51 39 37 30 23 24 9 16 50 39 36 30 22 23 8 16 49 38 35 29 21 23 7 15 48 37 34 29 20 23 6 14 47 36 33 28 19 22 5 13 46 35 32 28 18 22 4 12 45 35 31 28 17 21 3 44 34 30 27 16 21 2 10 43 33 29 27 15 20 1 10 42 33 28 26 14 20 0 10 41 32 27 26 13 19 40 32 26 25 12 18 39 31 25 25 18 Source: SAT Official Practice Test #4 Notice that if you're aiming for 600 overall and 30/40 on Reading, you'll need a raw score of about 36/52. This is a 70% score. This fact has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to answer about 2/3 of all Reading questions right.We'll go into more detail below about what this means for your testing strategy. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to 30. For example, if you're scoring 23, you'll need to answer about 15 more questions right on Reading to get to 30. Once again, even if your goal is something like 500 (i.e., 25/40), the same analysis applies. OK, so we've covered why scoring a higher SAT Reading score is important, why you are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you'll need to get in order to hit your target score. I hope a lot of this was useful and changed how you think about SAT Reading prep. Now, we'll look at actionable strategies you should use in your own SAT prep to maximize your Reading score improvement. 8 Strategies to Improve Your Low SAT Reading Score In this section, we give you our top eight SAT Reading strategies guaranteed to improve your low Reading score. Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Based on my experience working with thousands of students, by far the most common problem test takers have with SAT Reading passages is this:they keep running out of time before they can get through all the questions. This is a problem because unlike SAT Math, passage questions aren't arranged by level of difficulty. Therefore, by not completing all the questions in time, you might miss some easy questions at the end that you would have gotten right, if only you'd had enough time. What's the cause of this? The most common one I see is that students are reading the passages far more closely than they actually need to be.Once again, this is a result of homework and what you learn in English class. In English, you've probably gotten (stupid) tests that quiz you about what Baron Meistoff said in a particular scene, or what color Tom's T-shirt was. So of course you've learned to pay attention to every single detail in a text. The SAT is different, though.For a passage that's 80 lines long, there might only be 10 questions. Many of these don't even refer to specific lines- instead, they'll talk about the point of the passage as a whole or the tone of the author. The number of questions that focus on small, line-by-line details is low. Therefore, it's a waste of time to read a passage line by line, afraid you'll miss a detail that a question might ask you about. The best way to read a passage? Skimming it on the first read-through. This is why I recommend thatall students use this SAT Reading passage strategy: Skim the passage on the first read-through. Don't try to understand every single lineor write notes predicting what the questions might ask. Just get a general understanding of the passage. You'll want to try to finish reading the passage within three minutes, if possible. Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a certain line number, go back to that line number and work on understanding the text around it. If you can't answer a question within 30 seconds, skip it. (More on this strategy later.) This strategy is important because the questions will ask about far fewer lines than the passage actually contains. For example, lines 5-20 of a reading passage might not be relevant to any question that follows. Therefore, if you spend time trying to deeply understand lines 5-20, you’ll just waste time. Some students take this strategy to the extreme: they read the questions first before the passage. If a question refers to any specific lines, they then mark those in the passage, which they can later use as a guide to know what to focus on when they read the passage. Different strategies work for different students. You need to try out a lot to see which strategy leads to the best results for you. But by and large, I'm confident that you're spending way too much time reading the passage. Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers I spent some time above talking about how there is always one unambiguously correct answer. This has a huge implication for the strategy you should use to find the right SAT Reading answer. Here's the other way to see it: out of the four answer choices, three of them have something that is totally wrong about them.Only one answer is 100% correct, which means that the other three are 100% wrong. You know how you try to eliminate answer choices and then end up with a few at the end that all seem equally likely to be correct? Well, you're not doing a good enough job of eliminating answer choices. Remember, every single wrong choice can be crossed out for its own reasons. You have to learn how to eliminate three answer choices for every single Reading question. "Great, Allen. But this doesn't tell me anything about how to eliminate answer choices." Thanks for asking. There are a few classic wrong answer choices the SAT loves to use. Let's look at an example. Imagine you just read a passage that focuses on how human evolution shaped the environment. It gives a few examples. First, it talks about how the transition from earlier species likeHomo habilus to neanderthals led to more tool usage like fire, resulting in wildfires and shaping the ecology. It then discussesHomo sapiens 40,000 years ago and their overhunting of species, such as woolly mammoths, to extinction. After, we run into a question asking, "Which of the following best describes the main subject of the passage?" Here are our possible answer choices: A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals B: The study of evolution C: How the environment shaped human evolution D: The plausibility of evolution E: The influence of human development on ecology Note that we're using five answer choices for illustration purposesonly- in reality, the SAT only has four answer choices per Reading question. As you're reading these answers, a few of them probably started to sound really plausible to you. Surprise! Each of the answers from A to D has something seriously wrong with it. Each one is a classic example of a wrong answer type given by the SAT. Let's look at just what these are. Wrong Answer 1 (A): Too Specific A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals This type of wrong answer focuses on a smaller detail in the passage. It’s meant to trick you and make you think to yourself, "Well, I saw this mentioned in the passage, so it’s a plausible answer choice." Wrong! Ask yourself: can this answer choice really describe the entire passage? Can it basically function as the title of this passage? In the end, you’ll find that it’s just way too specific to convey the point of the overall passage. Wrong Answer 2 (B): Too Broad B: The study of evolution This type of wrong answer has the opposite problem as the one above in that it’s way too broad. While theoretically the passage concerns the study of evolution, it focuses on just one aspect of it, especially as it relates to the impact of evolution on the environment. To give another ludicrous example, say you talked to your friend about your cell phone and he said your main point was the universe. Yes, you were talking about the universe in that you both live in the universe, but this was clearly only a tiny fraction of your conversation. In short, answer choice B is simply far too generalto be a good answer to this question. Wrong Answer 3 (C): Reversed Relationship C: How the environment shaped human evolution This wrong answer choice can be tricky because it mentions all the right words. But of course the relationship between these words needs to be correct as well. Here, the relationship is flipped: the passage focuses on how human evolution shaped the environment, not the other way around. Students who read too quickly often make careless mistakes like these! Wrong Answer 4 (D): Unrelated Concept D: The plausibility of evolution Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on students' tendency to overthink questions. If you’re passionate about arguing about evolution, for example, this answer might be a trigger answer for you since any discussion concerning evolution becomes a chance to argue about its plausibility. Of course, even though this concept appears nowhere in the passage, some students just aren't able to resist choosing this answer choice. Do you see the point? On the surface, each answer choice sounds as though it could possibly be correct. But possibly isn't good enough. The right answer must be 100%, totally right. Wrong answers might be off by even just one word, so you need to know how to eliminate these. Carry this thought into every SAT Reading passage question you do. Next strategy: find your weak links and fix them. Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Reading passage questions might look similar, but they actually test very different skills. Here at PrepScholar, we believe the major skills tested in SAT passages are as follows: Big Picture/Main Point Little Picture/Detail Inference Vocabulary in Context Function Author Technique Evidence Support Data Interpretation Analyzing Multiple Texts Whew, that's a lot of skills! More than is obvious when you're reading passages on SAT Reading. Each of these question types uses different skills in how you read and analyze a passage.They each require a different method of prep and focused practice. If you're like most students, you're probably better at some areas in Reading than you are at others.For instance, you might be good at getting the big picture of a passage but not so good at getting inferences. Or you might be really strong at pinpointing the author's tone but struggle with interpreting data correctly. If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of homework, possibly sports and other extracurriculars, and friends to hang out with. This means that for every hour you study for the SAT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible. In more concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the "dumb" way. They just buy a book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're shocked. But I'm not. Studying effectively for the SAT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover all your bases with a very thin layer of understanding. What these students did wrong was that they wasted time on subjects they already knew, and they didn't spend enough time on honing their weaknesses. Studying effectively for the SAT is like plugging up the holes in a leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole and fill it. Then, you need to find the next biggest hole and fill that, too. You'll soon find that your boat isn't sinking anymore. How does this relate to SAT Reading? You need to find the sub-skills you're weakest in and then drill those until you're no longer weak in them. Fixing up the biggest holes. Within Reading, you must figure out whether there are patterns to your mistakes. Is it that you're running out of time with reading passages? Or that you don't get Inference questions? Or that you're really weak at interpreting details? For every question you miss, identify what type of question it is. When you notice patterns to the questions you miss, you must then devote extra practice to those sub-skills. Say you miss a lot of Inference questions (this is typically the hardest type of question for students to get on SAT Reading). You need to somehow get focused practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our SAT prep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty SAT skills - in Critical Reading, Math, and Writing. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality SAT Reading Sources SAT Reading passages are very specific in how they work. And SAT Reading questions are very specifically phrased and constructed to have bait answers. If you want to improve your Reading score, you have to use realistic SAT Reading sources.If you don't, you'll develop bad habits and accidentally train the wrong skills. Think about it like this: say you're trying out for the baseball team. Instead of practicing with real baseballs, you decide to practice with Wiffle balls.It's alot cheaper and easier, and hitting the ball makes you feel good about your skills. So you train and train and train with a Wiffle ball. You understand how the Wiffle ball curves when it's thrown, how to hit it, and how to throw it. Eventually, you try out for the baseball team. A pitch comes, but it's way faster than you've ever practiced with. It doesn't curve like a Wiffle ball does. Swing, and a miss. You've trained with the wrong thing, and now you're totally unprepared for baseball. This is not real baseball. SAT Reading works the exact same way. Train with poorly written tests, and you'll develop bad habits and unhelpful strategies. Far and away, the best sources for SAT Reading passages areofficial SAT practice tests.This is why we include these official practice testsin our SAT prep program- so that we can accurately gauge your progress and provide you with quality training. The problem is that there aren't that many official SAT practice tests available. Because you want to use these to train your endurance for the full-length test, it's best to try to conserve them. This means that to get enough SAT Reading practice, you'll need to use other materials, too. Our first suggestion is to use prep resources specifically geared toward the SAT.Be careful, though, sincemany test-prep companies tend to release poor-quality passages and questions (most books you see on SAT Reading are pretty terrible, too). Check out our picks for the best SAT prep books here. This is especially harmful for SAT Reading because the style of its passages and questions are quite complex, as opposed to SAT Math whose questions are more straightforward. To write realistic questions, you need to understand the SAT inside and out. That's why we've created what I believe are the highest quality Reading questions available anywhere. Here's what we've done: We've deconstructed every official SAT practice test- question by question, answer by answer. We've statistically studied every question type on the test and understand exactly how questions are phrased and how wrong answer choices are constructed. As head of product, I'm responsible for content quality. I hire only the most qualified content writers to craft our test content. This means people who got perfect SAT scores, who have hundreds of hours of SAT teaching experience, and who graduated from Ivy League schools. All of this results in the most realistic, highest quality SAT Reading questions. Even if you don't use PrepScholar, make sure that whatever resource you do use undergoes the same scrutiny we exercise.If you're not sure how helpful something is or notice lots of negative reviews, it's best to avoid it. Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Vocab gets way too much attention from students. It feels good to study vocab flashcards because it seems like you're making progress. "I studied 1,000 vocab words- this must mean I improved my Reading score!" This is why other test-prep programs love teaching you vocab- you feel as though you're learning something and it's worth your money. But the truth is that learning vocab isn't really helping you. Fortunately, vocab doesn't play a big role in your SAT Reading score anymore. This is especially true for the current version of the SAT, which no longer hasSentence Completion questions. (On the old, pre-2016 SAT, these were the questions that required you to fill in blanks with vocab words.) The reasoning behind this decision was that the College Board received a lot of criticism for forcing students to memorize advanced vocab that wasn't that useful in college or for future careers. (And students rejoiced everywhere!) That said, there are still some SAT Reading questions that ask about vocab, such as this one (taken from an official SAT practice test): As used in line 68, "hold" most nearly meansA) maintainB) gripC) restrainD) withstand Wait- "hold"? They're asking a question about the simple word "hold"? Yes, it's a common word- but the key to this question lies in understanding how a word is used in context.Hold can mean all the things listed in the answer choices, but only one of them is correct. Here are examples of words you'll need to understand in context for the SAT: ambivalent convey lament postulate These are somewhat advanced words, but they're nowhere near the level of the words you used to have to know, such as "apportionment" and "expropriated." If you have a pretty typical vocabulary of an American teen, there will be at most two to three SAT Reading questions that'll really stretch your vocabulary. But like I mentioned above, you can miss 16 out of 52 questions and still get a 30 on the Reading section. Don't go crazy studying vocab- most likely, it's not the best use of your time. That time is far better spent learning how to deal with Reading passages better.There are so many more questions about passages that it's a better use of your time to learn passage strategy and how to answer reading questions than it is to memorize vocab words. Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Here's an easy strategy most students don't do enough. Remember what I said above about raw score? To score a 30 (600) on SAT Reading, you only need a raw score of 36- that's just 36 correct answers out of 52 questions. But what does this mean for your strategy exactly?You can completely guess on 20 questions, get five of them right by chance, and still score a 600 on Reading. Once again, you can completely guess on 40% of all questions and still hit your goal! Skip questions carefree, like this woman does. Why is this such a powerful strategy? It gives you way more time on easy and medium difficulty questions- the questions you have a good chance of getting right. If you're usually pressed for time on SAT Reading, this will be a huge help. Here's an example: on the Reading section, you get 65 minutes to answer 52 questions. This is usually pretty hard for most students to get through, as it's just 75 seconds per question. The average student will try to push through all the questions. "I've got to get through them all since I've got a shot at getting each question right," they think. Along the way, they rush and make careless mistakes on questions they should have gotten right. And then they spend five minutes on really hard questions, causing them to make no progress and waste time. Wrong approach. Here's what I suggest instead.Try each question, but skip it after 30 seconds if you're still not getting anywhere.Unlike math, Reading questions aren't ordered by difficulty, so you can't tell right away which questions are harder or easier. This is why you should try out each one but move on if it's costing you too much time. By doing this, you can raise your time per easy/medium question to 100 seconds per question or more. This is huge! It's a 30% boost to the time you get per question.As a result, this raises your overall chances of getting easy/medium questions right. And the questions you skipped? They're so hard you're honestly better off not even trying them. These questions are meant for 700-800 scorers. If you get to 600, you have the right to try them out- but not before you get to 600. How do you tell which questions are going to take you the most time?This varies from person to person, but here are two question types that commonly take more time than others: Questions without line numbers that make you hunt for details: You can spend a lot of time rereading the passage looking for where Virginia Woolf mentioned a staircase. Questions that ask you to compare two passages: If you really struggle to understand passages, paired passages will be twice the trouble. Do your SAT Reading prep with all of this in mind. If you get stuck on a question, think about what type of question it is, and figure out whether there's a pattern to the questions that consistently trip you up. Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason.If you don't understand exactly why you missed a question, you'll make the same mistake over and over again. Too many students scoring at the 400-600 level on SAT Reading refuse to study their mistakes. It's harsh. I get it. It sucks to stare your mistakes in the face. It's draining to learn difficult concepts you don't readily understand. So the average student will skip reviewing their mistakes and instead focus on the areas they're already comfortable with. It's like a warm blanket. Their thinking goes like this: "So I'm good at Big Picture questions? I should do more Big Picture problems! They make me feel good about myself." The result? No score improvement. You don't want to be like these students. So here'swhat you need to do instead: On every practice test or question set you take, mark every question you're even just 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every question you marked and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid making that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (e.g., Big Picture, Inference, Vocab, etc.). It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on a question. For Reading questions, you must find a way to eliminate every single incorrect answer. If you were stuck between two answer choices, review your work to figure out why you couldn't eliminate the wrong answer choice. If you don't do this, I guarantee you will not make any progress. But if you do take this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed as well as your reflections on why you made the mistakes you did. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know You might already know this one, but if you don't, you're about to earn some serious points. TheSAT does not have a wrong answer penalty. On the old SAT, each wrong answer deducted 0.25 points from your raw score. This required you to have a smart guessing strategy. But no longer! Now, there is no penalty for getting a wrong answer. This means there's no reason to leave any question blank. So before you finish the Reading section,make sure every blank question has an answer filled in. You don't want to look at your answer sheet and see any blank questions. For every question you're unsure about, make sure you guess as best you can.If you can eliminate even just one answer choice, you'll have a much better shot at getting it right. If you have no idea, just go ahead and guess! You have a 25% chance of getting it right anyway. Most people know this strategy already, so if you don't do this, you're at a serious disadvantage. Overview: Tips for Raising Your Low SAT Reading Score Those are the main strategies you should use to improve your SAT Reading score. If you're scoring around 350, you can use these to get to 500. If you're scoring around 470, boost your score to 600. I guarantee it- as long as you put in the right amount of work and study as I suggest above, you're bound to hit your goal score on test day. The main point, though, is this: you need to understand where you're falling short and drill those weaknesses continuously. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored. This is really important for your future. Make sure you give SAT prep the attention it deserves- before it's too late and you get a rejection letter you didn't want. Finally, if you want to go back and review any of the above strategies, here's a quick listing: Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality SAT Reading Sources Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know What's Next? We've got a lot of useful guides you can use to raise your SAT section scores. For Math, read my detailed guide to improving your SAT Math score. You can also learn how to raise your SAT Writing scoreoryour SAT Essay score. What's a good SAT score for you personally?Useour step-by-step guide to figure out your SAT target scoretoday. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? Check out our best-in-class online SAT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your SAT score by 160 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by SAT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today: Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Allen Cheng About the Author As co-founder and head of product design at PrepScholar, Allen has guided thousands of students to success in SAT/ACT prep and college admissions. He's committed to providing the highest quality resources to help you succeed. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and earned two perfect scores on the SAT (1600 in 2004, and 2400 in 2014) and a perfect score on the ACT. 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