Reading Comp Strategy

tsamvelyan

Hi,

Reading Comp is my weakest link. I have a lot of room for improvement and I was wondering if you guys could share your strategies (of course successful ones). I try to usually follow the VIEWSTAMP method (views, structure, author's view, and main point), but that seems to get me 65-70%.

jeje9999

7sage's RC lessons helped me a TON. I took kaplan before, and they had me mark up the passage (i.e. circling key words, making small summaries to the side, underlining) and it just distracted me from the content at hand. 7sage taught me to mark very little if anything at all, and to read for things like you mentioned. I had to really SLOW DOWN my reading and to digest the passage before I went to attack the questions. It took a lot of practice. In the beginning I really struggled with timing but you will get it with practice. Read a little slower, and when you get a hang of it, you will get faster and faster. While I read the passage, I am constantly asking and thinking to myself, "what is the author's view? how does this sentence function within the paragraph I'm reading and what is the function of that paragraph in relation to the whole of the passage? Where is the conclusion and how do the paragraphs support that conclusion?" I even pause for a few seconds after each paragraph to really digest it. The more you UNDERSTAND the passage, the easier the questions will be and the easier to locate the details.