Reading Comprehension - Detail Questions

ahnendc-1

Hey Everyone!

Curious about how everyone approaches those SUPER detail oriented questions in RC? I'm talking about the questions that ask something like, "Each of the following is mentioned as an attribute of the opponents theory EXCEPT" so every incorrect AC is more or less explicitly stated in the passage and you just need to figure the detail that wasn't discussed.

I'm happy with my accuracy on these questions (typically get them correct) but they tend to be more of a time sink that other questions in RC (~1.5-2 minutes). For background, I tend to spend a lot more time upfront in the passage highlighting and then even writing a super quick outline of the passage on my scrap paper (3.5-5.5 minutes).

Curious if anyone has any suggestions for me. Do you think that since I spend so much time upfront I ought to answer these questions without looking back at the passage for the most part and I need to work on holding more of the details in my short-term memory? Should I just resign myself to the fact that these questions simply reward the ability to discriminate between what is explicitly stated vs. what is not and accept that these questions do in fact take longer than others?

Lana Kane

I think the goal of highlighting should be to give yourself markers to refer back to. For example, if the passage gives a list, I will highlight the words indicating 1st 2nd 3rd, etc. You can't remember every detail of the passage but its an absolute must to remember where everything IS in the passage. For these type questions I eliminate the ones I know are outright wrong, and then go back to the part of the passage where I know the information is and double check the rest. Usually takes about a minute.

I would also consider picking between highlighting and lo-res and see if you can keep your accuracy only doing one. If you plan on completing all 4 passages, 5 mins is a lot of time to spend up front unless you're absolutely flying through the questions. I use the +2 method for timing, (# of questions plus 2 mins) and this would mean for a passage with 6 questions you'd only have about 3-4 mins to answer all the questions, which seems like your accuracy would suffer.

Just play around with it and see what works. It took me a lot of trial and error to figure out what worked for me for RC!

danielbrowning208

I think you are absolutely fine to be spending that much time up front. However, if you are looking for ways to speed up, try ditching the highlighting. Highlighting is finnicky, and I don't think it really helps that much (I used to do a bunch of highlighting).

With respect to those Except questions, if you cannot answer the question quickly with memory, I would suggest skipping that question either until the end of the section or the end of the passage. It is only worth one point, so it is not worth sacrificing 2-3 questions to answer one.