Science Stims in LR

TheCochranFirm

Hey everyone,

Like many others, I do not come from a science background and therefore I find that I really struggle with Science passages/questions. I have been able to improve this in the RC section by practicing the memory method and focusing on becoming a more active reader. What I really struggle with is the detailed science questions that frequently appear in the LR section. I often find myself losing focus and then having to re-read or spending far too much time trying to figure out what exactly the argument is trying to say. I have tried to apply the same methods that have helped me in RC, but to no avail. I know skipping is a recommended strategy, but at some point I need to take on my fear, don't I? My goal score is 170+ and I am continuously losing points on these types of questions.

Has anybody else come across this problem; someone that has recommendation for me on how I can improve upon my embarrassingly inadequate science cred.

Thanks!

danielznelson

Not sure if you read the question itself first before diving into the stimulus, but doing this helps a lot, as it encourages you to focus on what you should be looking for. If the question is an SA one, for example, you're looking for the gap - the new idea unjustifiably supporting the conclusion. MC questions only care that you pinpoint the main conclusion, making your job much easier than trying to actually understand what's going on in the stimulus.

I am embarrassingly bad at understanding science as well, so definitely "hear" me out when I state that my success with science-y stimuli grew according to my fundamental understanding of respective questions and what I was supposed to look for in each question. In this way, you care much more about structure - as you should in RC - and what you do not understand topically is not as big of a deal.

MrSamIam

They probably do that on purpose. Throw in a science stimulus, use a bunch of "big words" and hope that the test taker pays so much attention to said words that they lose focus on the bigger picture - answering the question.
Don't focus so much on the details, instead, focus on the argument structure. If they ask you what the main point is, then figure out what the author is trying to convince you of (for example - even if you don't know what stem cell research is, you can still determine that the author is promoting the use of such research).

One thing that I started doing with those pesky art passages is replacing words that I don't understand with a letter. For instance, a word may end up being replaced with the letter "X." If they never brother to explain what "X" is, I assume that it isn't important. If they do explain it, than I remember that said word is now "X" and X is now "-insert definition here-." That sometimes helps me stay focused on the passage or stimulus, and not worry about the author's word usage.

Cant Get Right

@ZelusLaw said:
I know skipping is a recommended strategy, but at some point I need to take on my fear, don't I? My goal score is 170+

Yeah to get to 170+ you really can’t have any weaknesses so you do need to take this on. For me, science is basically the same as everything else only with made up words scattered in. A history passage would be hard too if we had to know terms like guanine, norepinephrine, borophyll, or borborgymi. Uh what?? I think this is really all that makes these passages hard. Structurally, they are often quite easy. You just got to get past the wonky words. It doesn’t matter what it says, the word just represents the thing. If they get real gratuitous with this, I’ll just reassign the words with variables. I’ll turn crassifolius into X, and every time I see it I’ll just read it as X. I may even mark over it with my variable letter to make it more visual. It’s kind of a crude method, but under time pressure we just can’t always take the time to do it properly.