What I have heard is that CR (critical reading) requires skills honed over a number of years so that it is difficult to effect a large incresase over a few months' time unless the test taker were making basic errors. As for the math, there are some tricky questions in addition to the basic ones and successful avoidance of common/careless errors plus the ability to complete the sections quickly distinguish the highest scorers.
I agree with this-- and honestly, there comes a point at which it's nearly impossible for a person to move a math score much, either.
DD is in that boat with math. 96th-98th percentile is about as good as it is ever going to get for her because of her issues with careless errors (and test questions written to discriminate ON that basis and without a way to 'sense-check' answers) and her relatively slow calculation speed are her enemies. It wasn't the
mathematical concepts in question-- because what she misses is completely random. She'll miss as many 'easy' questions as hard ones.
Interesting-- DD also maintains that tutoring pre-algebra through geometry was excellent preparation. She definitely has a rock-solid grasp of the math itself. Her calculation difficulties aren't the same thing at all, in spite of what they do to her scores in math.
Test "prep" actually
hurt her ability to do critical reading, so we ditched that early on and just let her see the formatting enough times to get a feel for it. She went right back to perfect/near-perfect scores.
