RC is usually my weakness but I received a -3 on a practice section yesterday and then a -1 today. Sharing this it makes me feel happy and confident going into this week's exam and I love this supportive community!!!
For others struggling on RC, I've found that what has improved my score is not taking notes of the passages because it's a time guzzler (again, at least for me) and to spend more time reading them and the questions. I also have found that correct RC answer choices won't include information that's not in the passage, so allotting enough time to check the passage for what it states is key.
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That is awesome! Was this timed or untimed?
@adzballroom Thank you, and timed! I've never done an untimed one because I don't want to tempt myself hahaha. But as I just mentioned to someone else in the comments, I just got a -8 on a RC section I took today and ran out of time and had to guess, so this progress is not consistent and linear
I would love to hear how you accomplished this!
Do you reserve more time for certain sections with more questions or passages that are typically harder for you?
Do you spend about six minutes or so reading the passage then two or three minutes for questions (or less or more?)
Do you use the search bar to find evidence for every single question? Or use process of elimination with your prediction of the answer?
Do you look for tone, purpose, and map out the structure in your low res summary?
These are all things I’ve been told to do and have been attempting and I’d love to know which have been useful for you. Main point and authors opinion I struggle with the most. Also, just timing in general.
@sufam001 Happy to share! See answers in order (sorry if they're not super helpful):
I don't reserve more or less time for certain passages - personally, I feel like if I took the time to glance at them and try to figure out which are harder it would waste time (which is super precious for me on RC) and I would psych myself out on the "hard" ones thinking they're hard.
I haven't timed exactly how much I spend on the passages versus the questions, but I definitely spend more time on passages. I always aim to leave myself 20 minutes for the last two passages, though. When I first did LC, I was screwing myself and not leaving enough time for the last passage.
I don't use the search bar for every question - I use it here and there and it has been helpful. I absolutely use process of elimination, but I don't try to predict any answers. For me, I think that would waste more time and psych me out. I always make sure to choose an answer that doesn't have false information, even if it's a tiny detail.
I actually don't create a low res summary. For me, it was taking up too much time (I am very detail-oriented so a low res summary was still not low enough). I do have a mental note of what the purpose of the passage is (not the tone or structure, though) when I'm done reading. I've found my score has improved when I allot more time to reading the passage and reviewing it when needed during questions. For example, during my first read, I usually don't pick up on things like tone so looking back for adjectives/adverbs helps.
I would encourage you to try a RC section without developing low res summaries and giving yourself more time to look back at the passage during questions when you're unsure. Let me know if that works for you. I'm happy to discuss further if I continue to do well on RC.
@nr that helps so much thank you!! I will try it and report back! I appreciate your detailed response and I’m really inspired by your progress!
@sufam001 thank you, and of course! also, I just took a practice RC section and legit only had 5 minutes left for the last section and had to guess hard. my raw score was -8 (159) then -4 (167) when I redid the last section. I just wanted to let you know to share that progress isn't always linear and consistent :)
@nr that’s such a relief to hear. I test this week and again in October and I am crossing my fingers we both do our best on test day! I want my best to trend like yours! 🤞🏼
@sufam001 I test this week too! I'll be thinking of you - we will do our best and whatever this is is okay! :))
@sufam001 I wanted to follow up to let you know that I proceeded to get -9 as a raw score for two more RC sections today, so maybe take everything I said with a grain of salt lmfao. But I truly just wanted to share because I think it's important on this platform to also show people (like myself) aren't always scoring consistently as high as they post. Anyway, I am not doing any studying tomorrow and just letting it rip on Thursday!
@nr and to THAT I’d say take a break because we know your potential!