SOS: Final stretch: RC timing not quite there

2ndTimestheCharm

Hi! I'm wondering if any high scorers have any tips for me during this final stretch of studying to sit on June 3. I've always felt fairly comfortable with RC in general (not that it's easy, but it doesn't freak me out), and I've gotten to (-1) or (-2) on each passage. The problem is when the 5-minute warning comes, I've only just begun the final passage. I never feel like I'm getting bogged down or struggling during the first three. I feel like I'm doing fine, kicking butt, but clearly I'm NOT because in order to finish the final passage I'd have to give myself 5 extra minutes, which of course, will never be an option during the real test. I know the wisdom claims that timing is never the real issue - that it's just a function of not being at the right level of understanding. OK, fine. So what should I do over these next few weeks? Take a ton of timed RC sections and BR them? Take some timed RC sections where I only complete 3 passages and strive for (-0)? Take some untimed RC sections? Please advise!! Thanks in advance

drbrown2

@2ndTimestheCharm
Do timed RC sections and try to keep to a pace that will allow you to finish, but make sure to skip difficult questions. Not worth spending 2 minutes debating the answer to a difficult question when you could use those 2 minutes to answer 4 or 5 additional questions on the last passage. I think review will help you improve your speed during the actual sections because you can train yourself to look for certain structural elements that are commonly tested in the questions. During review, do the low resolution and high resolution paragraph summaries, and write out the main point, the purpose of the passage, the tone, the viewpoints, and the structure (paying attention to how each paragraph relates to the main point). Just do this for every passage you review and during the actual timed section you should be able to move through the questions slightly faster and more accurately. You're close! Just drill every day and review each passage and you'll pick up the last few minutes you need to finish every passage.

2ndTimestheCharm

Thank you SO much. Needed that. I feel like I am close, it's just so frustrating to hear that "5 minutes" and wishing I had 5 more. Hope I can get there!

TheDeterminedC

I have about the same level of accuracy as you, but my current timing on RC is helping me get more questions right. In other words, I would be doing a lot worse without having my timing strategies and I'd assume that you can improve very quickly by working on them!

RC is one of the toughest sections in regards to time. Even strong RC test-takers will have less than 4 or 5 minutes to spare. So don't expect, as I did, to have the same amount of leftover time that you might have on LR or LG. I think I average about 1:45 seconds left at the end, which allows me to typically look over 2/3 questions. But I'm in the process or trying to increase this though.

First and foremost, find out where the time is being spent. Record yourself and see where time is being used. It seems that you are averaging 30 minutes for 3 passages, or 10 minutes per passage, on average.

Find out exactly where you can lower the time spent on these passages by reviewing your recordings. Are you spending too much time reading the passages? Or are you spending too much time on the questions? Maybe a mixture of the two? Are you looking back at the passage too often as a result of a distrust in your understanding of your initial read? How is the time distributed between passage types? Are science passages taking you longer to read and or answer, regardless of difficulty? Drill those passage themes that are harder for you then. Are certain question types taking a long time to answer? How can you tweak your first reading of the passage to combat this?

Although it's important to be quick and confident, spending extra time on the passage or a question doesn't necessarily mean it's time wasted. The point of going over our recordings is to figure out exactly where we can improve our accuracy under time. Accuracy can be improved by spending more time in some places and less time in others. Some of the questions we are answering will use time inefficiently. In other areas of the passage, that were hard to understand, we ought to have more time spent up front in order to improve the speed and accuracy at which the questions can be answered on the back end. For instance, I found a trend where I was spending so much extra time on questions involving tone. Either I'd go back to the passage to find the answer or I'd get stuck delineating between answer choices. This time was considerably lessoned when I started drilling old RC passages for tone, thus distilling in myself a habit of automatically recognizing it. Little fixes like this will add up not only by increasing the amount of time left over for review at the end, but it also helps improve accuracy too. Problems like this become very apparent after reviewing my recordings.

So find out what areas are eating up your time. Usually, the places where time is being overspent correlates with problems in either understanding or reasoning. If there is a trend of doing this for specific problems or passages, then fixing the problem will result in more time and a higher score!! There are lots of opportunities to improve in these areas.

Needless to say, timing on RC is really an art. It takes a ton of practice, humility, and discipline. But in the end this is what really makes the difference!

2ndTimestheCharm

Bless you! Thanks so much!

BlindReviewer

@TheDeterminedC pretty much covers everything one might need to know. The only thing I would add is that when you decide on a pace, or at least a set of things you're going to do per passage (i.e. low res summary, eliminate wrong answers, go back to the passage to decide between remaining answers) then you have to move on regardless of how confident you are about whether or not you got it right. You simply don't have that luxury. If you've applied all of your mechanical steps, and still don't see it, then it's very unlikely you're going to see it in time for it to be worth it. If anything, skip it and then make a final guess after doing the other questions in the passage because those might help tune you into what you were missing.

I was/am really struggling with time on RC as well, and I think this really lifted some of the burden, because I used to get really frustrated that I couldn't achieve a high enough level of certainty on some questions and just felt like the entire passage set was a mess. But if it is a mess because you don't understand a huge chunk of it, you really don't have the luxury to figure it out thoroughly, answer the questions to the degree of satisfaction you want, and finish the rest of the section.

One last thing is I do the two-sweep method that JY does for comparative passages (read one passage, do the questions, and come back and do the second passage) -- I found myself losing a TON of time doing that so now I just do a really quick sweep and pick out what I can but if it's taking too much consideration (often for the disagree/agree questions) then I just skip it and move faster so I can get to the second passage.

2ndTimestheCharm

Thank you! This is so helpful. Trying to turn my frustration into determination.