Skipping strategy for RC similar to 10 in 10 and 15 in 15?

Forever Addicted to Coffee

Hi guys,

For RC, I'm just wondering whether any 170+ scorers employ a skipping strategy commonly seen in LR, where you do 10 questions in 10 minutes and15 questions in 15 minutes to have 10 minutes left over to do a second pass on 3-5 questions that were skipped on purpose?

I find that this technique really helps me prioritize my time in LR sections and think it may also benefit me in RC. I realize that because of the reading time can vary for each passage on RC, that this technique may have to be a bit different than LR. But I do notice that when I get to the last passage with ~ 10 minutes left, I tend to freak out a bit and it becomes difficult to finish on time.

Thanks!

drbrown2

I think momentum is key in RC. Instead of a skipping strategy and trying to accomplish timing goals, keep up the momentum and catch yourself when you have to return to the passage to answer a question. If you film yourself on RC you can use timestamps to mark how long it takes you to read the passage initially, and how long you spend on each question. The ones where you spend 45+ seconds you may notice yourself stalling. Circle and move on. Keep up the momentum.

danielbrowning208

@drbrown2 is definitely right about momentum in RC, but be careful to note that he is not saying you should not be skipping questions in RC. You definitely should. But timing in RC is more passage-based and thus, in my opinion, more similar to LG with respect to timing. In both, I shoot for having at least 20 minutes left at the start of my third passage/game. But this is a general heuristic and should certainly be adjusted based on difficulty and how many questions you have.

drbrown2

@danielbrowning208 said:
But timing in RC is more passage-based and thus, in my opinion, more similar to LG with respect to timing.

100%

You never know how long a passage should take and you want to spend enough time on the passages that require more time without sacrificing time on the shorter passages (rushing). It's sort of like doing the work up front in LG so the questions go really quick. If you run into a tough LG/RC question and cannot get to the answer quickly after doing the work up front, definitely skip and keep up the momentum. You can't really say that you need to be finished with 2 games or 2 RC passages in the first 15 minutes because you never know which order the difficult games/passages will be in, and a lot of that time is spent setting up the game or reading the passage.