Approach for January?

Comments

• 1 Like

  Ohnoeshalpme Alum Member ⭐

  December 2018 2531 karma

  That -9 on November's test is unfortunate because I think it was a very easy RC section for a modern test. I don't say this to dishearten you, but to give you a realistic idea of what modern RC is like and as a valid metric for your tests moving forward. We have to use the real test data as the most true diagnostic of our ability as it is the only thing that can truly replicate the future test day experience. My advice to you for RC is to schedule a session with one of the 7sage approved tutors and work through a RC passage with them. They will likely be able to gauge your ability for RC and where you need to work. Anything that I can give you here is only going to be general advice, which I think can often lead students in the wrong direction when it comes to preparing for this exam.

  The general advice that I will give you, if you aren't interested in investing in a tutoring session, is to practice RC passages un-timed. I am assuming that at a -10 or more RC, you aren't finishing the final passage or even starting it. This generally means that you aren't getting enough value out of your read time and you aren't well attuned enough with the RC questions to take advantage of a longer reading time. If you do un-timed drilling and focus on your low resolution summaries, write out higher resolution summaries and THEN move to the questions, you will start to see the common patterns and the methodology for answering the various question types. Once you get to the point where you can finish reading the passages in around 4 minutes and still be able to discuss generally the purpose of the passage, the viewpoints and the crucial details, you can move on to timed drilling.

  The first thing you need to know when moving on to timed drilling is what your read time should be. If you are a fast reader, you can probably finish the passage in under 3.5 minutes, if you are a slow reader you will probably finish reading around 4 minutes. Play around with read times by restricting yourself to a certain amount of time for the read. Start by reading the passage for 3 minutes and moving to questions, without referencing back to the passages. See what your accuracy is for 3 minutes, then repeat this process for 3.5 minutes, 4 minutes and 5 minutes. As you recycle this process for a number of passages, you'll start to get a sense of where your diminishing returns point is, and you'll be able to cut your eventual time down from there. For example, you might absorb 90% of what you need for a passage after 3 minutes - so spending the extra 2 minutes to get to 100% probably isn't going to be worth it. However, if you're only retaining 50% of what you need at 3 minutes, then the extra 2 minutes to get to 100% is absolutely crucial. Play around with read times until you can maintain your desired level of accuracy for the passage. Once you hit this level of accuracy, it's all about repetition. The more practice you do at your ideal read length, the faster you'll become at answering questions. I guarantee if you follow this process you will improve significantly in RC over the next month.
• ExcludedMiddle Alum Member

  December 2018 edited December 2018 737 karma

  @Ohnoeshalpme Unfortunately I will not be able to pay for a tutor. As far as RC goes, one factor is that in previous preps my focus has mostly been LR and LG. The overall amount of time devoted total to RC was pretty minimal compared to LG especially. So I think I definitely need to put more time into RC, and I agree that November's RC was easy. It was frustrating for me on test day and for the week after because a couple of the topics were especially familiar for me (which, to be fair, can probably be a bad thing sometimes). I didn't even finish the section. I left four questions blank. I think that not having slept well the night before the test really caused fatigue in RC in particular. I couldn't even bring myself to do a practice passage before leaving for the test center because my brain just felt tired. I loaded up on caffeine before and during the test and just tried my best.

  Interesting suggestion as far as untimed passages goes. I will definitely give that a try with some of the problem sets in the core curriculum. I may just work my way back through the whole CC for RC and then do several practice sections once I finish it. I am also looking to shave off a couple of points in LR per section if possible. I've had -3 and -4, but not a whole lot of -2 or -1 sections. I noticed before November's test that my LR timing seemed to be getting better and better, so I hope I can pick up where I left off.