Over the years, I’ve noticed the universality of a particular rule of thumb: the stronger the reader, the more notes that reader takes. No passage on the SAT – or on any other critical reading test, for that matter – should be left unmarked. Making annotations is key if you want to keep your focus.
So what kind of annotations should you make when you are reading a passage during a test like the SAT? Well, the first thing you should remember is not to get bogged down in the details. The SAT does not require you to understand everything you read; reading for the SAT is not like reading a text for a class. Your goal is to suss out the main idea. That’s it. When the subseqent questions ask you about the details, you can search for those details then.
While you are reading a passage for the SAT (or a similar test), you should write short notes in the margin that keep track of the main ideas of each paragraph. You can also underline what you feel to be the key phrases or sentences. To identify the main idea, ask yourself what the author is trying to accomplish with each paragraph.
Be careful, though, not to get carried away with your notetaking or underlining; again, finding the main idea is your ultimate goal.
To see an example of an effectively annotated passage, click here. As you can see, the annotater has numbered the paragraphs, underlined a few key sentences, written her understanding of the main idea of each paragraph in the margin, and has also written a one-sentence summary of the entire passage on the bottom. This is the format your annotations should take.
