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RC- Doing Passages With Most Questions First Vs. Easiest Passages

dhanneetdhanneet Alum Member
in General 138 karma
Hi all!

I was wondering what your thoughts are on RC passage selection. I'm averaging 1-2 (more often 2) wrong per passage under timed conditions and as a result am going to aim for getting 3.5 passages done.

I've been told to attack the easiest passage (depending on the topic that speaks to you) first and to avoid doing the passages with the most questions because they tend to be more difficult. That way, you're picking up all of the easier points and then coming back to the harder passage and hoping scratching out a couple of marks. The only problem with this is that I hate leaving two 8 question games until the end. I will be okay with a score of 17-18 in RC...it has slowly become the bane of my existence.

Any one else have a similar strategy or method they'd like to share?
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Comments

  • ddakjikingddakjiking Inactive ⭐
    2116 karma
    Actually I've heard the opposite in terms of tackling the most/least Q's passages first. Seen a lot of people suggest tackling the longer 8 Q passages first because you'll have the most energy. Say you only have 5-6 minutes left and you have one final passage left, wouldn't you rather have a 5 Q passage than a 8 Q one?

    As for your other concern, I feel like trying to dig through each passage and see which one interests you and seems hard appears to waste more time (at least IMO). I typically just go in order 1-2-3-4....but then again I'm not that great at RC. lol
  • dhanneetdhanneet Alum Member
    138 karma
    +ddakjiking

    haha I hear ya! I've just found that the passages with the most questions tend to be the more difficult ones that I'm going to have issues with regardless so I'd rather do a 5 question and 6 passage one to get the easy marks in and then get to the harder ones.

    Who knows!!! lol
  • ddakjikingddakjiking Inactive ⭐
    2116 karma
    For me it really just depends on the subject matter. Typically I do much better on the hard science any sort of history/economics type of passages but absolutely suck at the humanity ones.
  • emli1000emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐
    3462 karma
    I've also heard the opposite. & by looking at each passage to determine which one has the least questions/which passage will interest you will actually become a time sink. Therefore, many people do not recommend this technique.
  • jdawg113jdawg113 Alum Inactive ⭐
    2654 karma
    A lot of the talk about more questions first is all about timing. If you are fine getting them all in then do what you want. Most people do more questions first so that if they are running out of time, there's less questions to try and skim for answers/guess since a typical 5 question passage vs a 8 question dont have a huge time difference in completing
  • joegotbored-1joegotbored-1 Alum Member
    802 karma
    I'm with @jdawg and @ddakjiking - game theory would suggest leaving the shortest passages (judged by # of questions) for last and tackling the longer passages (by # of questions) up front.

    My personal strategy was to go in order for the first two passages, and then do the longer (by # of questions) of the remaining two passages third. It worked out for me and I usually had a minute or two to go back over tougher questions.

    With all this said, if you plan to take the test Saturday, I don't think you should change your methods now. It might do more harm than good.
  • jdawg113jdawg113 Alum Inactive ⭐
    2654 karma
    "My personal strategy was to go in order for the first two passages, and then do the longer (by # of questions) of the remaining two passages third. It worked out for me and I usually had a minute or two to go back over tougher questions." I like this lol
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