Reading Comprehension -- I need tips!!!!

victoriabraatennvictoriabraatenn Core Member
in Reading Comprehension 15 karma

I am aggressively bad at the reading comprehension. Sometimes I get like a 9/27 on the reading (I know, that's terrible) even when I feel confident. Does anyone have any tips that helped them score better on reading comprehension?

Comments

  • jmarmaduke96jmarmaduke96 Member Sage ⭐
    2891 karma

    Hi there!

    At the outset, it would help me to know how your BR scores are. Getting 9/27 timed with 23/27 BR is much different than 9/27 on both timed and BR.

    Regardless, first and foremost, I would tell you to not be afraid of spending more time reading the passage. I know that in my experience, I used to try to read the passage fairly quickly. I generally tried to read the passage in about 3 minutes. That wasn't working for me. I missed tons of questions under timed conditions that I could answer in BR.

    I think that it helps to look at RC a lot like LG in this respect. In Logic Games, we know to put in the time up front to diagram the rules and split game boards. The time upfront in an investment that makes the questions go by extremely quickly. Much the same applies in RC. My score improved a lot once I allowed myself to take as much time as I needed to read and understand the passage. On a complicated passage, that can often be more than 4 minutes just on reading the passage.

    However, because I invested that time up front, I have a very clear understanding of the main point with both low resolution and high resolution summaries, an idea of the tone, the organization, the structure, and more. That understanding allows me to move through the questions quickly enough to make up for the time I spent on reading the passage, and, more importantly, to answer the questions much more accurately.

    Obviously your time on a section is limited, so spending more time up front with the passage will mean less time for questions, but I don't think that is a problem. If you are doing good work with the passage and solidly understanding the broad structure, that will be enough to quickly take you through probably 20ish questions out of the section. The last 6 or 7 questions will typically be much more detail oriented. However, once again, having spent the time up front to get comfortable with the low res, the high res, the tone, the viewpoints, the organization, etc, you will be in a good position with a road map to know exactly where to come back to in the passage in order to get clear on the details that you need for those specific questions.

    Feel free to give me some more details about how your currently approach RC, what your BR scores are, and where you feel your understand ends up being insufficient. I can give you some more targeted advice that way!

    I hope that helps, let me know if I can clarify anything!

  • victoriabraatennvictoriabraatenn Core Member
    15 karma

    Right now I am taking about 3 minutes to read passages but I stop at the end of each paragraph briefly to write on a piece of paper a summary of the passage.

  • Brahim MBrahim M Core Member
    66 karma

    I am not the best but have improved recently. Best advice I have is engage with the passage. Like if the author says "but the observations in X dont do Y" ask yourself, "okay, how so?" or "elaborate please". As if you're having a conversation with the author. With time you will gain speed, just takes time.

  • hopefullinghopefulling Member
    905 karma

    I've improved A LOT recently by doing a mental recap of each paragraph (not writing it down). And then to do this again for each paragraph, but then tie each to their previous paragraph. And then, at the end, doing a little 'verbal' summary under my breath (don't want to get in trouble for the real test and all ;p). I've seen such amazing improvement in the last 3 PTs. The one passage where I was totally confused by the topic, I missed a lot of questions. I just couldn't form that mental outline of what was going on and it cost me and I learned a lot from seeing that happen.

    I've also noticed, that the more I do, PT-wise, the more familiar I am getting with the language and ability to mentally remember the structure/summaries. I was at the point a few tests ago, considering skipping the lowest-question passage to have more time on the other 3 in the hopes of getting more points. Hopefully, I can forget about having to do that from now on if this isn't just a random fluke.

  • Brian12693Brian12693 Core Member
    88 karma

    This is more geared towards timing but I do the passages in this order: 2, 3, 4, 1

    I leave the easiest passage for the last just in case I only have 5-6 minutes to do it. Helps to not miss easy points in my worst section.

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