The Day I Realized SAT® Reading Is Actually a Science

(And Why This Changes Everything for Your Score)

Let me tell you about the worst day of my tutoring career.

I was working as an English tutor at an upscale learning center, helping ambitious, high-achieving students with essays, literary analysis, all the usual stuff I'd been doing for years. I was good at it. Students improved. Parents were happy. Life was smooth.

Then the SAT tutor quit.

My boss walked over to my desk and dropped a bombshell: "Dave, you're picking up his students starting Monday."

My heart sank. I liked teaching English lit, and I didn’t know the first thing about test prep. "But I've never—"

"You're already a great English tutor,” my boss said, firmly. “How hard could it be?"

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Famous Last Words: "How Hard Could It Be?"

I figured he was right. I mean, SAT Reading is still reading, right? And I'd been teaching reading for years.

So I grabbed a book full of practice tests and sat down to prep for my first SAT student.

Two harrowing hours later, I was ready to throw that book across the room.

"Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?"

Best states? What does that even mean? Does it mean there's an answer that states the purpose well, but another answer that states the purpose even better? What are the rules for how to "best" state a purpose? Are there any rules? Or is it just arbitrary?

And don't get me started on "Lines 30-35 most likely suggest..." Most likely? Suggest? What is this, a probability test? Are we calculating odds here? How do I measure the likelihood of a suggestion? Is there a "suggestion-o-meter" I'm supposed to be using?

But what really drove me crazy was that on many questions it seemed like there could be multiple correct answers, depending on how you interpreted the text. But this was multiple choice—no room to explain your reasoning, no partial credit for "well, it could be Answer A, but it could also be Answer C, if you consider ..."

How is this fair? Isn't reading fundamentally about interpretation? Don't different readers naturally arrive at different understandings?

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Down the Rabbit Hole of Prep Book Hell

Naturally, I panicked.

I bought every SAT prep book I could find. Princeton Review. Kaplan. Barron's. You name it, I bought it.

But mostly all I found were vague “tips”

• “Use process of elimination!”

• "Look for key words!"

• “Read carefully!”

• “Predict the correct answer!”

• "Trust your instincts!"

My instincts were telling me that this test was broken!

I was spiraling. In less than 48 hours, I had to teach SAT Reading to a very bright kid whose parents were paying premium rates. And I had absolutely no coherent method for consistently getting the right answers.

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The Book That Changed Everything

Then I found it. Tucked away on the bottom bookshelf: an SAT prep book by some guy named Mike Barrett.

He said something that stopped me cold:

"All the answers are set out plain as day right there in the passage."

Wait. What?

I may not have known much about SAT Reading at that point, but I at least knew that the correct answers were NOT just sitting there in the passage, staring me in the face. Or did I?

I kept reading: “The answers are in the passage. You just have to know how to look. You have to read very, very literally, objectively, logically, scientifically.”

He explained that SAT Reading isn't about interpretation or about what the text “suggests” to you, personally. It's about locating and evaluating evidence. Specific, explicit evidence. Evidence that directly supports every last part of the answer choice.

SAT Reading isn't really asking "What does the passage suggest?" It's asking "What ideas does the passage actually contain?"

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Everything Clicked

I went back to those "impossible" questions with this new lens.

Suddenly, I could see it. The wrong answers weren’t just someone else’s opinion. They were flat wrong. And they were wrong in predictable, systematic ways. They'd twist the passage's meaning ever so slightly. Or they'd use the passage's exact words but mix-up the relationships between them.

The right answers? They were always—ALWAYS—clearly supported by specific lines in the passage. Yes - even for Inference Questions.

I no longer wanted to throw my test book against the wall. I had started to see the patterns, and I was eager to learn more. I was hooked.

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What Happened Next

My first SAT student? We crushed it. By the time we were through, his Reading score jumped 100+ points.

Then came hundreds more students over the years. Many achieved elite scores by learning to decode the patterns instead of intuitively feeling their way through passages.

Over time, my collection of patterns grew into systems, and I developed what I now call The Cross-Examiner's Toolbox™—a comprehensive framework that gives students not just the "what" of SAT strategy, but the specific "how": the exact tactics to systematically identify evidence, decode question patterns, and eliminate wrong answers with scientific precision.

Because here's what I discovered: SAT Reading isn't literature class. It's detective work with a very specific rulebook.

Here’s how my recent student Kanan put it:

"Within my own experience of learning, taking, and hearing advice from COUNTLESS tutors regarding the SAT, there is no one I know who can match the expertise and objectivity that Dave brings to analytically solving the SAT English Section.

"When you take classes with Dave, it's not a matter of luck or mindless practice that will achieve outstanding scores—it's his focus on removing all subjectivity associated with SAT English and treating it as a factual science. There is an undoubtedly clear explanation for every right answer and a blatantly obvious reason for every wrong answer.

"Dave achieves this approach by breaking down the English portion into various sections with an exact way to solve each answer. He will provide the resources and tools to understand the method and solve seemingly 'subjective' questions analytically. In my scenario, I was looking for a tutor who could help me reach close to perfection in the English Section, and Dave did exactly that.

"I went from scoring 730 to 770 in the English Section, bringing my SAT to a 1570. Whether you are looking for major improvements or slight refining, Dave is the go-to guy and will provide intuitive analysis skills that will persist beyond standardized tests."

~ Kanan (achieved 99th percentile score after working with me and learning The Cross-Examiner's Toolbox™ method)

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In my SAT® Reading & Writing Mastery LIVE course, I teach students this exact systematic approach using The Cross-Examiner's Toolbox™—the same objective, scientific methods that transformed me from a panicked first-time SAT tutor into someone whose students consistently hit 95th to 99th percentile scores.

Because the biggest secret about SAT Reading? There's no mystery. It’s a code that anyone can learn to crack.

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Mondays are practice question days, and today I'm sharing a Cross-Text Connections mock question that perfectly illustrates this scientific approach. Free subscribers can tackle this question below, while paid subscribers receive additional questions with complete strategy walk-throughs and detailed answer explanations.

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Practice Question 1

Text 1

Dr. Joe and his team observed bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in a marine sanctuary. When one dolphin became entangled in floating debris, other dolphins in the pod repeatedly nudged and pushed the entangled member until it broke free. The researchers documented similar instances across multiple pods and indicate this behavior demonstrates dolphins' capacity for empathetic assistance, with dolphins risking their own safety to help others in distress.

Text 2

When observing dolphin interactions in unusual situations such as when a member of a pod becomes entangled, it's tempting to attribute human-like motivations to their actions. However, it can't be ruled out that dolphins are simply responding to novelty in their environment. Dolphins are naturally curious and investigative animals that often approach and manipulate unfamiliar objects in their territory, sometimes with considerable persistence.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the researchers' interpretation of dolphin behavior in Text 1?

A. That the behavior likely reflects territorial instincts rather than the empathetic tendencies described in the research.

B. That the behavior suggests dolphins in marine sanctuaries may react to debris differently than those in natural habitats.

C. That the behavior demonstrates dolphins were likely seeking to benefit themselves by removing the entangled member from their territory.

D. That the behavior might be explained by natural curiosity about unusual objects rather than by empathetic concern for other dolphins.

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SAT® is a registered trademark of the College Board, which is not affiliated with Walker Prep and was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product or website.

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Quick Tip 💡

Approach SAT Reading with scientific precision, not impressionistic intuition. Focus on what's literally and clearly stated in the passage—the right answer is always supported by specific textual evidence you can point to. Train yourself to find that evidence systematically using The Cross-Examiner's Toolbox™ in my SAT® Reading & Writing Mastery LIVE course. Don’t delay - the $150 early bird discount expires on 5/31.

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Additional Practice Questions with Strategy Walk-Throughs and Answer Explanations