RC Progress Update - Hope these tips help!

TrusttheprocessTrusttheprocess Member
in Reading Comprehension 776 karma

Hey 7sagers,

First of - hope this personal learning story of mine helps.

I still think I am in my early stages of studying. I feel like I see a huge improvement in LR and LG. However, RC is still my worst section thus far. It takes me sometimes 14 + mins to do one passage, which sucks. Reason being my reading speed was to slow. I was focussed on annotating and really trying to remember the nitty gritty details. However, I analyzed my approach, why I got questions wrong and made a few changes. Here they are:

1) Note taking: From reading a bunch of online stuff, watching webinars, etc. - note taking in my opinion is off two types: 1) to help you UNDERSTAND the passage 2) to help you find things in the passage quickly. For the second one (finding things in the passage quickly) - it requires you to have your note symbols down solid + forces you to note take A LOT. I tried this second method in great detail - but I felt it really did not help me much + wasted more time. Reason being that it forces you to go back to the passage back way to often when most RC questions in my opinion are not designed for that. From what I have read and heard dozen times from JY - RC is about big picture. Unless a question refers to specific line - then go back to it. If not, going back to the passage to analyze your notes is a MAJOR TIME SINK. Again this is based upon my learning styles, might be different for others. Now, I focus more on understanding when reading a passage. Meaning - I won't circle/underline/etc. a lot - rather after a reading few sentences, pause and make some connections in my head and move forward. I felt this cut down my overall passage time by 4 mins + gave me a strong understanding of the passage. This does not mean I do not annotate - it just forces me to be more selective with the process.

2) Reading by going at the flow of your pencil: It helps me having my pencil underneath the word and leading my reading pace, whereas just reading without doing that. I am not sure if it helps others but I feel it sort of helps me go at my "own" speed when reading.

3) Choosing Questions to Tackle: As JY has mentioned before in LG - to go about the game by choosing question types that are more restrictive and allow you to attack the game in a more efficient manner. For example, do a must be true question in LG before a could be true question. Similarly, I felt in RC, certain questions are set up in the same manner. For example, before I read the passage I take 15 seconds to number my questions in the way I will attack them. Usually I go about in this manner: 1) Main Point of the Passage 2) Primary Purpose of the author/ Primary purpose of a certain paragraph 3) Questions that refer to specific lines in the passage 4) Inference & Most Strongly supported. Usually I go about in this manner b/c the Inference/MSS questions are usually time sinks and challenge your understanding of the passage. This will allow you to continuously get the "low hanging fruit" in each passage + enable you to use more time on questions that actually need it.

4) Wrong Answers always have the same Clues - Just got to quickly find them: This can be said again for most of LR answer choices, however I feel this pattern is a lot more obvious in RC. Common tricks I see in RC is strengthening words (for example: something is the "best" - usually that's a detail in a passage I would circle and not BIG Picture understanding), comparison between two things (for example: Person A will know more than Person B), wrong viewpoint (for example: the question specifically asks about the author's viewpoint, whereas the answer choice states a critics viewpoint).

Right now my goal in RC before going to timed actual sections is to get from 10-11 minutes (which I am currently at) down to 9 mins and under. Hopefully by the time I finish all the problem sets in RC I get to that. Wish me luck and I hope this helps you all!

Cheers!

Comments

  • The NoodleyThe Noodley Alum Member
    662 karma

    thanks for sharing! sometimes I will underline "sole"; "best"; "one of most xxx" in the passage (almost guaranteed points for some questions)

  • BamboosproutBamboosprout Alum Member
    1694 karma

    This is really amazing! Thanks for sharing these tips. I really like using the pencil to guide your reading and keep a steady pace.

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