struggling with RC on OAT!

Hey,
I sent you a reply for the science sections.
For the RC, unfortunately you just have to practice. I am a really slow reader so I didn't do that great. Do like 2 passages in the morning and 2 at night. And see which questions you are getting wrong: main idea, or specific detail or w/e. It can only go up.

As a person that got a 390 on the reading comprehension I can give you some advice. Read a lot of scientific articles from like google scholar or pubmed or other scientific sources and make sure you understand them. I do this in my free time. Also, when you take that section on the OAT, read the first sentence and skim the rest of the first paragraph to get a sense of what the passage is about and then go straight to the questions and read them over really fast. That way in your medium term memory you stored those questions. Then when you read the actual passage, lightbulbs will come up when you recognize something that was asked in the questions. Then you just flip to said question and answer it. I went back and forth A LOT.

What I did was give each paragraph a number and then skimmed each paragraph. While I was skimming each paragraph, I wrote down keywords. When I got to the questions, I would refer back to the keywords and see which paragraph it was related to. Then I would read that paragraph more carefully and most of the time the answer would be there. I got a 400 on the RC with no prior studying and this method.

Shnurek said:

As a person that got a 390 on the reading comprehension I can give you some advice. Read a lot of scientific articles from like google scholar or pubmed or other scientific sources and make sure you understand them. I do this in my free time. Also, when you take that section on the OAT, read the first sentence and skim the rest of the first paragraph to get a sense of what the passage is about and then go straight to the questions and read them over really fast. That way in your medium term memory you stored those questions. Then when you read the actual passage, lightbulbs will come up when you recognize something that was asked in the questions. Then you just flip to said question and answer it. I went back and forth A LOT.

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I can wholeheartedly second this advice: Read, read, read, read, read. Then read some more-- everything you can get your hands on that's written at a college level or higher. I barely had to study for RC because I went through a very rigorous science program in college that involved reading lots of primary literature and I continued to read lots after graduation (Cell and Molecular Bio, not Nature or Science, but if you're unfamiliar with science reading, you may want to start with Nature). I found that the strategy posted here worked well for me, and if you take the Kaplan course, I believe this is the way they instruct you to read. Good luck!

I agree. At my university we read a lot of primary literature and I don't really enjoy it, it but it definitely helped me do well on the RC section.

fly10 said:

my school is ivy league so i did alot of reading in undergrad too. I don't know if it was the anxiety that really got to me or maybe the time.

I have 2 months till my OAT again and on top of that I have 5 classes which end dec 20th, i've been trying to study for it along with my school but haven't been very successful. I need to improve my bio and physics score as well. at this point i just don't even know what to focus on. I know the schools look at the main science scores more then RC. But i definitely don't want to end up with another 260 on the RC.

It's going to January when i retake and most of the classes will already be filled.
I just feel so discouraged at this point and on top of that my gpa of only a 3.1 does not help at all.

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Have you always had trouble reading?

hiddenf said:

What I did was give each paragraph a number and then skimmed each paragraph. While I was skimming each paragraph, I wrote down keywords. When I got to the questions, I would refer back to the keywords and see which paragraph it was related to. Then I would read that paragraph more carefully and most of the time the answer would be there. I got a 400 on the RC with no prior studying and this method.

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That's exactly what I did too and it worked out great for me. It also saves you a lot of time.

If you want extra practice, I suggest getting some DAT books. Their RC is identical to the ones on the OAT. Good luck!

fly10 said:

I've tried reading the passages and then doing the questions and vice-versa, but each time i barely get a 50%....

i just wrote the OAT last month and got a 260 in that section..i dont know why im struggling with it so much since English is my first language.

someone help me out cause before i retake it i need to figure out a way to improve.

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I think I may be able to help. I was a typical guy who did well on QR and never well with RC throughout my life (SATs, scores sub-600 for RC and almost perfect 800 for QR). I took the recommendation from Kaplan and it has helped me tremendously. My RC score was 400. I would write the number of the paragraph on the blank sheet given to you and read the paragraph. Next to the paragraph number on the 1st line, I would write the subject of the paragraph (eg. history, location, setting, description of ____). Under that in the second line, I would write down ONLY words that stood out, numbers, names, important keywords, words you dont see normally. I'd do this for every paragraph. When answering questions, they usually refer to specific words that you have written on your sheet. Refer to the sheet, look for the keyword, find the paragraph and find the answer.

Hope this helps!

thericeman said:

I think I may be able to help. I was a typical guy who did well on QR and never well with RC throughout my life (SATs, scores sub-600 for RC and almost perfect 800 for QR). I took the recommendation from Kaplan and it has helped me tremendously. My RC score was 400. I would write the number of the paragraph on the blank sheet given to you and read the paragraph. Next to the paragraph number on the 1st line, I would write the subject of the paragraph (eg. history, location, setting, description of ____). Under that in the second line, I would write down ONLY words that stood out, numbers, names, important keywords, words you dont see normally. I'd do this for every paragraph. When answering questions, they usually refer to specific words that you have written on your sheet. Refer to the sheet, look for the keyword, find the paragraph and find the answer.

Hope this helps!

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I used the Kaplan method as well and I got a 390 without having to read everything in sight. just practice the method above until you get the hang of it. I actually finished that section with time to spare when I took the OAT.

Good luck!

robinchm said:

I used the Kaplan method as well and I got a 390 without having to read everything in sight. just practice the method above until you get the hang of it. I actually finished that section with time to spare when I took the OAT.

Good luck!

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I'm going to make another plug for the Kaplan method as well! (the one about numbering paragraphs and just writing down key words). It definitely takes practice though, because I had a tendency to write down too many words at first and that slowed me down. On the actual test, I only needed it for 2 of the passages because the 3rd one was super easy.

Also, try to find ways to practice on the computer, because I had much higher scores when I did paper practice tests than computer tests, so that was something I needed to get used to.

Overall, I don't think you need to practice the method THAT much between now and then - maybe a couple passages per week, or a set of three all together and timed once every couple weeks.

I do think that it will help to focus mostly on your science sections - not only to raise those scores, but that content is what really helped me understand the content in the RC section later. Plus on my actual OAT, I had one reading passage about fireworks...so I don't take the position that lots of scientific reading is the only way to do it (yes I had those passages too - but really studying what I studied in my classes was plenty).

I ended up with a 390, but trust me I started around the 50% correct pre-Kaplan method! Good luck and don't freak out You'll do great!