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RC struggles

jennybbbbbjennybbbbb Alum Member
in Reading Comprehension 630 karma

With only days before the December test... I am struggling to improve RC.

I have tried every possible strategy to improve my timing on this section and it ranges from -11 to -15 and sometimes -9.

What can I do at this point to increase my RC score? The struggle is real guys... I would like to score min. 18 on this section by test day.

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Comments

  • BillGreenpointBillGreenpoint Alum Member
    edited November 2017 318 karma

    Hi, Jenny. So, this may sound basic and like it won't help. But, two things helped me. The first helped me immediately. And I figure if it can help someone else, then cool.

    The first and most important thing I did was I stopped marking the passage. I only circle or underline a couple of things and I rely on JY's memory method. It turns out that, for me, marking the passage added between 30 seconds and one minute (or more!) to the actual reading of the passage. And it slowed my reading down so that I wasn't able to get into the flow or comprehend what the passage was trying to say. Additionally, I never even referred to the markings! Now I complete all the passages. And my comprehension is better.

    Second, for about 15 minutes a day, I practice reading using a speed reading app. Not to speed read. Just to increase my rate of reading. I won't say which app. You can Google it and choose your own. But, I can input my own text and adjust the reading rate. I usually choose the most complicated New York Times articles I can find, perhaps from the science section or foreign policy articles. The Economist is good, too. But, for non-subscribers, the Economist's article selection is limited. Anyway, this has helped, too. After maybe two days, my reading rate increased enough so that it made a difference for me.

    It was such a relief to realize that it wasn't some mental deficiency on my part that caused me to score at my worst, RC-11. Now, a couple of PT's ago, I got - 0.

    I want to emphasize that the increase seemed almost overnight. Perhaps all the practice set me up for this breakthrough. In any case, I attribute my increase to those two tweaks in technique.

    It wouldn't take too much time or effort to see if it works for you. Just try it out on one or two RC sections to see if it works. If so, great! If not, you will not have lost too much prep time.

    Hope this helps. Good luck on December 2nd!

  • Leah M BLeah M B Alum Member ⭐
    8392 karma

    Stopped in just to see if there were any helpful tips, it's definitely my weakest section too. Great ideas, @BillGreenpoint ! I'm going to try that out. I've been wondering recently if I have been marking too much as well. I feel like I actually did better at RC months ago when I was starting, and maybe it's because I leaned more toward my natural reading style, which is of course not underlining every other sentence haha. Speed reading app, wouldn't have thought of it! Great tip.

  • BillGreenpointBillGreenpoint Alum Member
    318 karma

    Thanks Leah. I'm actually pretty stoked about it because RC was by FAR my worst section. In my diagnostic PT, I was only able to complete two passages. But, now, RC has somehow become maybe my best section. Ha.

  • Paul CaintPaul Caint Alum Member ⭐
    3521 karma

    Completely agree with @BillGreenpoint - marking up RC was actually really hurting both my retention and my timing. Once I stopped marking up the passages, I did much much better.

    Additionally, I actually recommend slowing down when reading. Read every word deliberately, and slowly, like a kindergartner if you need to. It may feel like you're wasting time, but the deliberate reading will help your retention and make the questions so much easier. AKA - the extra time you spend in the passage, the less time you'll waste in the questions.

  • jennybbbbbjennybbbbb Alum Member
    630 karma

    @BillGreenpoint said:
    Hi, Jenny. So, this may sound basic and like it won't help. But, two things helped me. The first helped me immediately. And I figure if it can help someone else, then cool.

    The first and most important thing I did was I stopped marking the passage. I only circle or underline a couple of things and I rely on JY's memory method. It turns out that, for me, marking the passage added between 30 seconds and one minute (or more!) to the actual reading of the passage. And it slowed my reading down so that I wasn't able to get into the flow or comprehend what the passage was trying to say. Additionally, I never even referred to the markings! Now I complete all the passages. And my comprehension is better.

    Second, for about 15 minutes a day, I practice reading using a speed reading app. Not to speed read. Just to increase my rate of reading. I won't say which app. You can Google it and choose your own. But, I can input my own text and adjust the reading rate. I usually choose the most complicated New York Times articles I can find, perhaps from the science section or foreign policy articles. The Economist is good, too. But, for non-subscribers, the Economist's article selection is limited. Anyway, this has helped, too. After maybe two days, my reading rate increased enough so that it made a difference for me.

    It was such a relief to realize that it wasn't some mental deficiency on my part that caused me to score at my worst, RC-11. Now, a couple of PT's ago, I got - 0.

    I want to emphasize that the increase seemed almost overnight. Perhaps all the practice set me up for this breakthrough. In any case, I attribute my increase to those two tweaks in technique.

    It wouldn't take too much time or effort to see if it works for you. Just try it out on one or two RC sections to see if it works. If so, great! If not, you will not have lost too much prep time.

    Hope this helps. Good luck on December 2nd!

    @"Paul Caint" said:
    Completely agree with @BillGreenpoint - marking up RC was actually really hurting both my retention and my timing. Once I stopped marking up the passages, I did much much better.

    Additionally, I actually recommend slowing down when reading. Read every word deliberately, and slowly, like a kindergartner if you need to. It may feel like you're wasting time, but the deliberate reading will help your retention and make the questions so much easier. AKA - the extra time you spend in the passage, the less time you'll waste in the questions.

    Omg thank you! I am going to try this out. I know I do make notes and underline/circle things a lot but it might be taking a lot of my time and takes away from truly understanding the passage's main point.

    Again thank you! I appreciate it and will definitely try this out.

  • btate87btate87 Alum Member
    788 karma

    Something that has been helping me recently (in addition to some of the excellent advice above), is going back to older sections I'd already done as a full timed section and redoing each passage individually. I mark the time it takes to read, and then time it takes after I answer (and fill in on a bubble sheet). It may only give you minimal gains compared to something like adjusting your notation method, but I think it's a big psychological boon. I feel like with games I always pretty well know how my timing is going, and I've seen first hand how easy it is to recover from a rough 10+ minute game if you stay calm and trust your process. However, with RC I would get a little antsy in passages if I felt like I'd taken too long. This practice strategy has given me a chance to really see how my time is divided up over four passages and stay calm throughout a full section like I do during games. Getting anxious can tank your comprehension.

    As a bonus, revisiting old passages can be helpful practice for RC in general (there were some great posts on the forum 3-4 weeks ago about fool proofing RC that may be worth looking up).

  • dennisgerrarddennisgerrard Member
    1644 karma

    I would focus on LG due to limit time:) hope this is your first take.

  • jennybbbbbjennybbbbb Alum Member
    630 karma

    @btate87 said:
    Something that has been helping me recently (in addition to some of the excellent advice above), is going back to older sections I'd already done as a full timed section and redoing each passage individually. I mark the time it takes to read, and then time it takes after I answer (and fill in on a bubble sheet). It may only give you minimal gains compared to something like adjusting your notation method, but I think it's a big psychological boon. I feel like with games I always pretty well know how my timing is going, and I've seen first hand how easy it is to recover from a rough 10+ minute game if you stay calm and trust your process. However, with RC I would get a little antsy in passages if I felt like I'd taken too long. This practice strategy has given me a chance to really see how my time is divided up over four passages and stay calm throughout a full section like I do during games. Getting anxious can tank your comprehension.

    As a bonus, revisiting old passages can be helpful practice for RC in general (there were some great posts on the forum 3-4 weeks ago about fool proofing RC that may be worth looking up).

    @dennisgerrard said:

    I would focus on LG due to limit time:) hope this is your first take.

    I have been focusing on LG as well and usually average -3 max. but I struggle with timing for LR so I am trying to gather as many points as I can from other sections. Has anyone tried to just read over the passage quickly and write down the MP. Then move on to the questions so I have enough time to refer back to the passage for the questions. I find myself referring to the passage a lot for the newer tests whereas for the older PTs I was doing much better. Could it be because the newer PT's have a lot of MSS and inference based questions?

    I haven't tried this strategy yet as I know I would be rushing through the passage but I usually lose points on these types of questions. Has anyone else noticed this trend? Or tried something similar on RC passages? I am hoping to get -10 max. on the RC section...

  • jennybbbbbjennybbbbb Alum Member
    630 karma

    @btate87 said:
    Something that has been helping me recently (in addition to some of the excellent advice above), is going back to older sections I'd already done as a full timed section and redoing each passage individually. I mark the time it takes to read, and then time it takes after I answer (and fill in on a bubble sheet). It may only give you minimal gains compared to something like adjusting your notation method, but I think it's a big psychological boon. I feel like with games I always pretty well know how my timing is going, and I've seen first hand how easy it is to recover from a rough 10+ minute game if you stay calm and trust your process. However, with RC I would get a little antsy in passages if I felt like I'd taken too long. This practice strategy has given me a chance to really see how my time is divided up over four passages and stay calm throughout a full section like I do during games. Getting anxious can tank your comprehension.

    As a bonus, revisiting old passages can be helpful practice for RC in general (there were some great posts on the forum 3-4 weeks ago about fool proofing RC that may be worth looking up).

    I just don't have enough time to dedicate towards fool proofing RC... I wish I did. I am writing the February test but I really need a min. 160 on December test day so anything at this point will help.

  • akistotleakistotle Member ⭐ 🍌🍌
    9382 karma

    During BR, how many minutes do you have to spend to get every answer? I usually don't recommend skipping a passage because every passage has some easy questions, but if getting -10 is your goal, I'm thinking maybe you can skip one passage entirely and focus on three passages and spend 11-12 minutes on each passage. Have you tried doing this?

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