How to Study for RC?

civnetn

I'm just wondering how I should study for RC?

Obviously Blind Review, but how much time should I spend going back and trying to figure out why my wrong answers were wrong? 99% of the time I can get the right answer. That's not difficult. It's doing it in the time constraint.

zanqvi861

I'd love to have an answer for this as well! For PT's in the 40's and early 50's I was getting max -3 wrong. For the later 50's I think the questions are getting trickier... and I've managed a -7 so far :O. How does one manage these trickier questions...

civnetn

Yeah, I wish I was -7. I just took PrepTest 54 and got -14 wrong

I hate posting stupid questions, so I was hesitant to post this, but RC is so stressful for me. I'm O.K. going -7 because my LR and LG scores are so good. But I can't go -14. That's ridiculous

I feel like studying for RC is really, really, really hard.

DallasOnFire

I found an effective way to at least get below -8 is to do every RC section from 1-38. Then cycle back to the beginning, and do every passage you got more than 3 wrong on. (note the similarity to the Foolproof LG guide). Obviously, look at the explanations between drills.

This will take a couple of weeks, but part of it is just getting a ton of questions under your belt, so finding the patterns in the questions and building up speed becomes natural.

ay_fegetaboutit

I use the memory method with Scientific American & The Economist articles. It's one way to get solid practice and not burn through PTs. Honestly, I would never use the memory method on real PTs because it slows me down and doesn't increase my accuracy. Others swear by it though, so ymmv

1danlynch

Yeah like @DallasOnFire said, just do a ton of timed PTs. It will be difficult at first, and you will want to cry, but you'll get better at them. I am still no expert at RC, but this was helpful to me. I feel like its better to adapt your own reading skills to the passages rather than learn how to read all over again. Others may disagree I'm sure, but I have definitely become more comfortable doing the passages in my style of reading. For example, throughout undergrad you're required to take notes on readings in order to achieve grades. Why not do the same for RC? For me, annotating is what really helped, since I had already spent years of school doing so. I started off RC passages taking tons of notes, and then gradually scaled it back to where I found a happy medium between time and accuracy. Annotating helps to track important information, but more importantly (IMO), forces you to understand the passage more thoroughly. Hope this helps, and good luck!!

Sprinkles

@civnetn don't ever be hesitant to ask a question please! You'd be surprised who else has a similar question lol. But don't worry, RC is really difficult to improve on so don't think you're not understanding material. It just requires lots of drills and try reading The New Yorker/Scientific/Economist on your free time you'll find yourself become more exposed to dense material similar to RC which should help in the long run! Also the worse thing you can do is over exert yourself about this. Dedicate a few weeks solely on RC and take breaks! I think that will help out tons

civnetn

@1danlynch I feel the same way, however, I don't use many forms of annotation. I've been restricting my annotations to underlining, boxing and identifying viewpoints. I feel like when I add more than that, I become too concerned with what to underline, what to box, etc. Whereas when I have just 3 types of annotation, I find it actually helps me to read the passage faster as I'm drawing my attention to what I'm reading. I probably underline way too much, but even if I underline a lot, I find it helps me cut down on information on the passage that is just filler.

But I did just bomb my last RC, so....

civnetn

Thanks for all the answers guys. Very helpful. But I think I may have misstated my question a bit.

I take a time RC section, then BR, but is BR even helpful for RC? Because my difficulty is not getting the question correct. It's getting the question correct within the time frame. Once I go back to BR my answers, I'm going to get ALL of them correct. No question there. Because of this, I don't think my issue is understanding why the right answer is right and the wrong answer wrong, it's doing it in the time frame required.

So how should I tackle this? Should I even BR? Because I feel like I'm wasting time BRing since I'm going to get them all right if I BR anyways! BR is supposed to help you understand why right answers are right and wrong answers are wrong. If I'm able to do that, but just not in the time frame....then what?

I don't know if I'm explaining myself properly here...

Sprinkles

@civnetn then it's clear you understand the content and it's just the timing that's throwing you off. Quick resolve to keep calm and drill on.

civnetn

I'm also finding that process of elimination is a much lengthier process to use for RC. Even in questions that don't ask using most/least strongly supported terminology, there will be answer choices that seem like they could go both ways until you rule out EVERY OTHER answer choice.

I mean normally in LR I think I use a combination of elimination and inductive reasoning. I'll eliminate 2 to 3 answer choices via process of elimination and then between the remaining answer choices, 1 will stand out.

Nanchito-1-1

Have you read The Trainer? It really helped me read for structure instead of annotating people places and things so much. I try to find out main point of each paragraph, and the whole passage. I also try to be sensitive to the author's view/tone and opposing viewpoints, or any scope shifts. I stopped using annotations like blocking, circles, underlining, and brackets. Although it kept me engaged, it was time consuming and usually went out of the window during timed drills if I panicked lol.
I also noticed I was getting some questions wrong because of the slightest word difference in the answer choices, like maybe the one I picked was wrong because it was too strong, this happened in br. I'm still drilling, so i'm no expert, but I've improved by understanding my good and bad habits when I take a timed section.

PS, don't feel bad about posting questions, we have to help each other.

MrSamIam

While drilling:
Time yourself. You should allow yourself 8:45 tops. However, do not use a countdown timer, use a stop watch so that you can see how much time you're spending per passage. Once you've got a good grip on RC, start using a countdown timer and watch so that you force yourself not to spend too much time on any one question/the passage.
It's worth noting that you'll likely spend less time on passages that discuss topics that you're comfortable with (for me, those often include hard science and psychology). Try to give yourself less time on these passages - maybe 8:00 or less.
Do NOT give yourself more time on passages that are more difficult for you.

Post-PT:
BR like you would LR. Read the question that you circled, and spend more time using the passage to answer the question.

In general:
Just drill the heck out of RC passages. Make sure to expose yourself to as many passages as your brain can handle.

Sprinkles

@nanchito said:
The Trainer

I found the trainer to be at its best during the RC portion(s)!

twssmith

When I BR RC - I tend to spend most of the time on the passage itself.
What is the Argument Structure of the passage?
Does it follow a similar template that I have seen before and should start to more quickly recognize? i.e. Is a phenomenon presented, followed by a hypothesis - then what is the Author's stance on the hypothesis... Almost all of the passages can be broken down in a similar way that we approach LG - i.e. (and not literally) sequencing game ~ phenomenon/hypothesis argument structure.
Other points I try to address: How could I have been more effective during the initial reading of the passage? Too mired in details, allowing myself to fall into time sucks on highly convoluted language instead of getting a general grasp of the concept and then know where to return if a detailed/local question is asked?

I agree with @MrSamIam on using a stopwatch to time during drilling. I have definitely found that spending a little more time upfront reading the passage has made an impact on how many more questions I can answer without having to refer back to the passage. For local questions, I will POE the obvious wrong answer choices and then refer back to passage to confirm answer. For the harder curve type questions, I will definitely spend more time reviewing those during BR.
It has been extremely helpful for me to drill the early RC's just to recognize patterns. I have done about half of them. After I finish another round of LG, then I will return to the rest of the early RC's and then retake the RC's from my previous PT's hopefully allowing a little extra time between exposure of the original take.
Hope this helps:)

Cant Get Right

@civnetn said:
Once I go back to BR my answers, I'm going to get ALL of them correct. No question there. Because of this, I don't think my issue is understanding why the right answer is right and the wrong answer wrong, it's doing it in the time frame required.

This is a common misconception that understanding and speed have no correlation. In fact, they are directly correlated. Speed comes primarily from mastery. Mastery isn’t just the ability to hammer out a correct answer eventually, it’s recognizing the right answer quickly. When you BR, it is important to not only identify the right and wrong answers, but to also determine why you failed to do so confidently under time. Don’t mistake a good BR performance for an ineffective one.