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Order of Difficulty/Strategy for RC section

Quick SilverQuick Silver Alum Inactive Sage
edited September 2014 in Reading Comprehension 1049 karma
Hi-

Anyone have a sense of general order of difficulty for RC passages ---- And/Or a strategy based on that?

ie If the 3rd or 4th passage tends to be most difficult, then save to the end...
or if the Comparative passages are most difficult and have fewer questions, then save to the end...

Thoughts?
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Comments

  • dhanneetdhanneet Alum Member
    138 karma
    I'm trying to figure out a strategy myself...
  • David WayneDavid Wayne Free Trial Member
    edited September 2014 571 karma
    During test day you simply cannot devote time to an assessment of passage difficulty and subsequently make a decision about a unique order of doing them; there simply is no time. Go in order. RC is not the same as games, in the sense that you cannot literally be absolutely stuck and unable to move on. There's no rule of thumb about passage difficulty amongst passages 2, 3, and 4 that is supported by the past preptests. 1 is obviously a bit easier in almost all cases, but some of the recent exams have had very difficult second, third, or fourth passages. Nor can a cursory assessment of subject matter tell you anything about difficulty (i.e, being a science passage doesn't absolutely mean its the hardest passage in the set) Just do them in order. Its also extremely unwise to assume the comparative to be definitively more difficult.

  • MarkmarkMarkmark Alum Member
    976 karma

    There was a response / post by iPak which outlined their method.

    Minute 1 - read the first sentence(s) of all 4 passages and determine which 2 are easiest.

    Minutes 2-15 - starting with the 2 easier passages, skim the passage and answer questions, skipping a "details" or "except" question and saving 1-2 minutes to go back for these.
    The first 2 passages should take 3ish minutes to skim and 3-4 minutes to answer (in theory).

    The last 20ish minutes are for the last 2 passages.

    It is a good idea to be self aware of which topics in RC are strengths / weaknesses so you can allocate time appropriately in order to get the most number of questions right.

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