Help! RC Tips For Timing?

dhill2020

Hi everyone, I noticed as I am drilling RC that I get 4 or more questions wrong during timed sections, but I get every question correct during BR. I know timing is an issue here because during BR, I am able to take my time reading the passage and have the freedom to go back to reference the text when needed. Does anyone have any tips on performing better during timed sections? Thanks in advance!!

lexxx745

For me reading faster helps me understand. obviously theres a limit to how fast one can read but i actually find myself doing better and my mind working better when im reading faster

jmarmaduke96

Hi there!

I could give you some more targeted advice if I know exactly how you approach a section, but I can give you some general advice here.

First and foremost, I would tell you to not be afraid of spending more time reading the passage. I know that in my experience, I tried to read the passage fairly quickly. I generally tried to read the passage in about 3 minutes. That wasn't working for me. I missed tons of questions under timed conditions that I could answer in BR.

I think that it helps to look at RC a lot like LG in this respect. In Logic Games, we know to put in the time up front to diagram the rules and split game boards. The time upfront in an investment that makes the questions go by extremely quickly. Much the same applies in RC. My score improved a lot once I allowed myself to take as much time as I needed to read and understand the passage. On a complicated passage, that can often be more than 4 minutes just on reading the passage.

However, because I invested that time up front, I have a very clear understanding of the main point with both low resolution and high resolution summaries, an idea of the tone, the organization, the structure, and more. That understanding allows me to move through the questions quickly enough to make up for the time I spent on reading the passage, and, more importantly, to answer the questions much more accurately.

Another point to go hand in hand with this is the idea of trusting your understanding of the passage. Spending all of that time up front with the passage means that you understanding ought to be good enough to answer the majority of the questions. That means that you cannot be returning to the passage a lot to verify your work. On average, you will probably need to be moving through the questions in about 40ish seconds a piece, there wont be time to double-check too many of them. Simply trusting your understanding of the passage can be very difficult, but it is worthwhile. To this end, forcing yourself to start doing the uncomfortable work with retakes can be a good way to ease yourself into this process. Once you get a feel for the process I would suggest moving into some new material to test your ability.

You are correct that if you are answering all the questions correctly in BR then your understanding of the concept and the objective in RC is good. You just need to adjust some strategies to maximize your return on investment for time spent during the section. I think that the above strategies will be beneficial, they certainly were for me. If you want to tell me more specifically about how you move through an RC section I can probably give some better advice, but either way I hope this helps!