Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

-1 in RC for the first time ever (PT 88)

UCLApleaseUCLAplease Member
edited October 2020 in Reading Comprehension 281 karma

I honestly couldn't believe it. A few things I learned from that one RC section alone:

  • I flagged ten questions. I tend to overflag, which makes me anxious during the test. Any flagging shows that you didn't fully understand the question/passage. Ever single question that I flagged, I chose the right answer the first time, but I went back to those questions multiple times, changing my right answer to wrong then back to right for a few of the questions. Going with your gut instinct is important--I wasted time going back to each of those flagged right answers and mulling them over for too long. (The one question I got wrong was one that I didn't flag...)

  • I didn't write anything down during the test, but I did highlight the structure words of each passage (the words that give you directions, such as "but" and "however"). I struggle with the structure questions, and this helped tremendously. I also highlighted the main point words of each passage (no more than three words per line so that I can quickly glance them over after I've read the passage to memorize the gist of each paragraph). Highlighting ridiculous words like "recently" (especially when it comes to describing data/research) is actually important because MP questions tend to focus on descriptive words like that, and you can eliminate ACs that don't align with such a timeframe (e.g., an answer choice that talks about "traditional" studies when the passage is actually talking about "recent" studies instead). I've noticed that such descriptions largely show up once (usually in the first paragraph), and the word doesn't show up at all, so I tend to forget the passage is about recent research by the time I get to the first question.

  • I tend to underperform on RC during the real test. I'm hoping this -1 gives me a boost of confidence, especially when I overflag a section.

Comments

Sign In or Register to comment.