Self-study
Hi! I'm wondering if anyone has any advice for being more consistently in the -0 to -2 range on RC sections. I find myself still getting -3 to -5 sometimes and this is something I really want to fix before my next exam, especially since I think hard RC passages won against me in previous times.
Thank you guys so much!!!
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7 comments
How about tips to get -10/-13 down to -5? /: nothing seems to work.
@Zanderantochow Hey! I feel the frustration as RC was and always has been an area where the q's can slip by me, and the majority of resources concentrate mostly on LR. You will get there!!! Some things that helped on my end:
Spending the majority of my time in the passage, reading line by line. I used to feel the urge to read quickly (sometimes still do) and that would lead to foggy brain when hitting the questions. Spend the time you need to understand the passage, and then the questions will come faster/easier.
Sometimes slowing it down further and asking yourself what the line you just read means. I used to have moments thinking, "Uhhh...okay?" while reading -- stop yourself when that happens! Don't let yourself keep reading without understanding what you've just read, as that feeling of confusion will compound, and then the anxiety will take over when you get to the questions too, and it will lead to a whole kerfuffle of stress.
At least on my end, nerves play a big part in my performance, so making sure I'm level-headed as if I'm about to read a novel I chose myself and have a big mug of tea and a blanket, as opposed to going in with intensity. Stillness has helped me pay better attention to minutiae that they might ask about.
The 7Sage RC curriculum was really helpful, as question type strategy is boiled down very simply for what you need each q type's correct answer to do. It took me way longer than it should have to go through the curriculum.
Earlier on in my studying I found the program RC Hero to be helpful as well. 7Sage's curriculum is a lot simpler/more straightforward to memorize, though.
Changing the passage order can help. Maybe doing the ones that interest you the most first or you find the subject matter easier to parse to try to get more questions correct; maybe doing the longer ones first to knock them out of the park and then when you're crunched for time you luckily only have the shorter ones left.
I hope any of this was helpful, or if there are particular questions or problem areas I can give advice for, I will do my best! Good luck!!!
@businessgoose Very helpful thanks my friend. Can I ask, I find myself already being way over time in the passage like 5 minutes per passage when I read intentionally. Did your speed just naturally progress as you read more passages and took your time? Also how did you review wrong answers? I find that with my wrong answers I just genuinely didnt have the correct understanding. I think to myself if this is the case, then how am I realistically supposed to take anything away from it as my understanding will have to be different for every passages content, its unlike LR questions where you can pick up on patterns - well so far to me anyway. Thanks again.
@Zanderantochow I also sometimes still find myself taking too much time, so that's super relatable. Reading "LSAT-style" articles on The Economist and dense literature helped me speed up a bit, as well as doing RC drills completely untimed. "Go slow to go fast," as they say. For reviewing the wrong answers, something that has helped is the 7Sage podcast and others saying that the right answer is always in the passage, so for the ones I get wrong, I try to find the "proof" that was used to consider that one the correct AC. The 7sage curriculum should also help with some more generalizable skills (like what each question type generally needs in the answer choice for it to be correct).
You got this!
@businessgoose Thanks again my friend.
I can't say that this is a true "correlation", but its defintely something you could try. I started getting consistent -1s, -2s in the RC sections after a couple months of only drilling hard RC questions, and sometimes only specifically drilling my high-priority RC questions (hard level as well). Now, I find myself breezing through the first 10-14 RCs on a section, giving me more time to answer the last 10 or so. I think having more time for the difficult questions towards the end can really be the difference between a -4/-5 and -1/-2. Good luck, you got this!!
@nid07 Thank you, you too!! I appreciate your response!