Reading comp advice quickest to master by October

overthistest

Long story short I have been with a tutor since MAY trying to learn a method where you hardly read the passage (only first sentence of each and last sentence of passage) then for every question it’s basically a word search
I’m finding this method just doesn’t work. I’ve been questioning for months whether im an idiot or not but after practice testing with this method and getting 4 correct because her instructions lead me to the wrong answers I think I should change. The worst I did with powerscore method of ViewSTAMP was -9 so missing this many with this new method i’ve been paying for months is really upsetting. Sometimes her method works, for example certain passage sets I will only miss a couple but I really can’t afford to take this gamble anymore. Her method is not consistent with all passages I am finding.

Anyways, i’m testing in October and I NEED advice on how to improve by then in that section even if that means dropping this method and doing something else. What did you do for RC? It’s my worst section and I kind of suck at reading. Whatis easiest for you to understand the passage and helps the most when answering questions. Any advice you can give or tips for me to try is much appreciated

Thank you

TE CSC 2021

I'd go back to PowerScore ViewSTAMP, try to get that down as well as possible and ride that into this test. It's too late in the game to learn any big new strategies. By the way, as a fellow tutor myself, I was shocked to read about this don't read the passage RC strategy, and I am not at all surprised to learn that it is faulty. In my experience there are no shortcuts to doing well in RC. It's just a situation where you have to be willing to learn some basic ideas and then grind until you get better. Please don't feel like an idiot. We in the test prep community compete on the brilliance of our strategies, so we are prone to push hard on things that seem unique, not paying attention to how much they are idiosyncratic versus broadly applicable.

justkeepswimming

What I do include:
1) make sure I understand the first paragraph - if I don't understand the 1st paragraph, I can't move on and hope the next ones will suddenly become digestible. I have had times during which I reread the 1st paragraph twice.
2) read for structure - i always stop for a quick 5 seconds and connect paragraphs on a high level. I always ask myself where in the previous paragraph does this next paragraph try to get at.
3) highlight (only, for me) words that hint at the author's feelings/attitude towards the subject of the passage. Even if there is no question asking about the author's attitude, I have seen these highlights help me with other questions like main point or what sentence would the author agree with.
At least for me, RC is also so much about short term memory, and I come in with the mindset that I am going to focus intensely for the 3-4 (even 4.5 approaching 5 minutes) minutes that I am reading the passage. Unlike with LR, for RC, I come in trusting the passage so for those 3-4 minutes, I digest and trust everything the passage says lol - for some reason, that helps me create a mindset that I will be here to learn something new and that the passage is my friend to guide me through the questions. I hope this helps even just a little bit!