Self-paced
I am taking the August test and have been super confident in LR for a bit. -5 is basically the worst LR section im getting at all, I just cant get my RC up. RC scores will at best be -7 no matter what. Does anyone have any advice.
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5 comments
I know you came on here asking about RC... but I have your problem with LR. Any tips for closing that gap?
@spindlynoodles idk i just started out better at it to be honest. I started doing random 5 section questions at work and eventually noticed how similar most problems are to others.
I wish I had LR scores like that consistently! Your LR is my RC. I'm sure a tutor can give you some better advice, but just from a person who likes RC:
Is there a topic you strongly dislike? - for me it is anything Physical Science related. I save the Science as the last passage no matter what. I just find I can focus more on my most challenging topic if I have more time at the end. Regardless if it ends up being an easier one in difficulty level.
Similar to that- if you're 1-2 paragraphs in and you know it's going to be a really difficult passage for you, try skipping it entirely and save until the end. High scorers do that on LR all the time, but RC really isn't much different. You may have spent 30s+ already reading, but getting stuck into a time vortex on the 3rd passage is worse than moving on to one where you could have gotten more right vs getting to that one last and truly running out of time.
How are you highlighting/note taking? - I think a lot of people who struggle with RC think more note-taking/annotations will help. But too much, and you start to lose what the text is actually saying. It can make the micro-level questions easier, but then understanding the main point or tone can get lost in your head.
Any 'provable' type questions - always find the answer back in the text. Don't just rely on your memory. Also - read around those passages/statements too when you refer back. A lot of times the answer to those questions is actually not in that literal line, but is in another part of the passage (or above or below those sentences).
Try using that search bar - sometimes it's easy, you plug in the same word from a question or answer choice to then find in the text. But think of the synonyms as well to use for searching. Sometimes the answer choices take a term that can be interchangeable (and you MUST be sure it is interchangeable) to what was used in the actual text which makes it harder to find. If you search the term you know it's actually referring to, you can find the passage point quicker.
Keep track of the author's tone the entire time you're reading. I think this quickly gets lost when people start to focus on the details. But then you get the "what would the author likely agree with..." or "the author's attitude can be considered...." questions - and if you're totally lost, those questions are hard to answer without essentially re-reading or skimming a lot of the passage.
Last - (and I know this is hard), but think of it as an opportunity to learn something new and have fun with it! If you approach it how you would an article you really want to read, you'll find yourself engaging with the text a lot more than just "scanning" it for where the answers will be.
Hope that helps a little!
Hard to tell perfectly from just one pt but it seems like the 3rd and 4th passage are where you bleed points the worst. There's rules of thumb of aiming to have 20 minutes left for the 3rd and 4th for a reason. They are sometimes (oftentimes?) the harder passages/questions and you're already mentally taxed from the first two passages. This potentially points to an rc fatigue thing rather than entirely you flubbing as a whole.
Very similar to what I'm scoring, except a little worse in LR (-3, -5) and a little better in RC generally (-5, -7). I've only very recently seen an increase in my score in RC, but that was because I started to engage with the passage a little more. If you can't pinpoint your weaknesses, focusing on general things like engaging with the passage, finding the main point, creating low-res summaries, etc. will certainly help your score, but we only have a little bit of time until the August test!