Struggling with two parts of RC

umich101

Hello! I'm in the home stretch of studying and looking on how I perform on RC sections, the only questions I continue to get wrong are the Main Point q's and analogy questions. Does anyone have any general tips for these two, specifically?

For example on the analogy questions, I often get down to 2 AC's but there is some nuance I miss that leads me to narrow it down but often choose the wrong one. Same for the MP questions.

Sorry if this is vague or often-answered, just been seeing a pattern and I can't seem to shake it

Jerry

For main point (and also main purpose) questions, I find that there will typically be a trap answer that talks about the last paragraph. For instance, the passage as a whole will talk about strengths and weaknesses, but the last paragraph will mention a recommendation, or a call to action. Or maybe the passage will advocate for one author's argument, but in the last paragraph, they'll talk about a dissenting point of view.

Basically, the answer is to NOT go for what's strictly written in the last paragraph. I used to have this notion that the passages were leading up to this grand sort of finale, and that the conclusion was the most important part. But I've discovered that this is hardly (or maybe never) the case. For me, I've now gone in the habit of interpreting "main point" to mean "most frequently recurring theme or idea." Whatever is talked about most tends to be the right answer.

For analogy questions, I think they basically the LR structure. Once I got more familiar with analogies on LR, my scores naturally improved for RC. However, I don't find analogy RC questions to be very common in the first place, so it's not an area I would put too much focus on. One thing that I like to keep in mind is the "spirit" of the analogy. Some analogies aren't perfect, but I find it's more important to pick the answer that best encapsulates the essence (Nature? Attitude? Personality?) of the original analogy. And, of course, you can specifically practice analogy LR questions as a problem set to gain more exposure, which never hurts.

BlindReviewer

Great comment above!

For MP questions, I think in your BR it helps to think about what is descriptively true or false. The easy answers to knock out are the ones that are just patently wrong, which leaves you with one that is descriptively accurate and gets the right emphasis, and one that does describe the passage accurately but just isn't the "main" point. I think it also helps to really focus on the thrust of the argument as a whole when reading/doing your low resolution summary. You should already have the answer to this question pre-phrased before going into the answer choices.

For analogy questions, these ones I generally sacrificed if I didn't get it because they're kind of time-sinks if you don't have a super clear grasp of the passage. You have to really understand the part they're asking you about and then think about what is analogous to what in the answer choice. Obviously if you didn't understand that part of the passage and you're running out of time, it's probably in your best interest to eliminate a few and just guess.