In order to raise your score on the PSAT reading test, there are three main skills you will want to master before your PSAT Test Day.

As reading passages on the PSAT span different genres, your approach will vary from subject to subject. Let’s take a look at how to approach U.S. and World Literature passages on the PSAT.

The History/Social Studies portion of the PSAT reading test will consist of either one or two History/Social Studies passages and one History/Social Studies paired-passage set.

The PSAT reading test will contain either one or two single Science passages and one set of paired Science passages.

If you pay attention to the big picture—the author’s central idea and purpose— while reading PSAT Reading Test passages, you will be able to answer Global questions with little to no rereading of the passage, increasing your efficiency.

Kaplan’s Strategy for Command of Evidence questions involves retracing your steps; that is, you must return to the previous question to ensure you answer the Command of Evidence question correctly.

Let’s look at the following example of a test-like passage and question set.

Try 8 minutes of practice with a full PSAT passage and four questions to test your skills.

Connections questions ask about how two events, characters, or ideas are related. The three most common connections types are cause-and-effect, compare-and-contrast, and sequential connections.

Vocab-in-Context questions require you to deduce the meaning of a word or phrase by using the context in which the word or phrase appears. You can recognize Vocal-In-Context questions because the wording of the question stem.