seek and destroy??!!! Help Plzzz

you read the question, pick up a keyword then go to the passage below it and look through to find it, I took the test yesterday, I got 20's on topscore practice tests, and did not do well on the real thing, I even had 2 science based passages and one semi scientific one, one thing I can tell you is TRUST ME, there is no point reading the article, the type of questions they ask has nothing to do with comprehending ANYTHING, some do, like the tone questions, they measure what you took from the article, but even those, based on the answer choices, are left up to interpretation, but, there are several questions like in topscore that list a bunch of stuff and say "everything EXCEPT....", and theres no way you can read a 15 paragragh passage and remember which ONE of a list of 5 things is not included, you end up having to go back and skimming through anyway, and "knowing" where it is doesnt make you that much faster, I don't know why or how I did bad, I was shocked when I saw my score, I almost want to call up the test center and demand to see what answers I did wrong but I think they'll just laugh..... I think a lot of people on this forum put wayyyy to much weight on RC, I say that partly since I'm bummed about it, but mostly because its true, people who got rejected and the people at the school gave them some kind of "excuse" not to feel bad so they say, "RC is very important" retake and raise it, but then....why did you get an interview?? so its not important, doing well will make you look good, but the section itself is pointless, you have to be able to comprehend a LOT of science material to do well on bio ochem and gen chem, and I blew those out of the water, PAT is important too, which I did ok in, but as far as reading goes, the school are not stupid, they know you can't really study for it, and that most of the test takers use a strategy instead of whats intended, which is to read then answer.... searching and finding keywords has a lot to do with being lucky, in finding the answer, and in getting a passage that allows you to do that.

kov82 said:

you read the question, pick up a keyword then go to the passage below it and look through to find it, I took the test yesterday, I got 20's on topscore practice tests, and did not do well on the real thing, I even had 2 science based passages and one semi scientific one, one thing I can tell you is TRUST ME, there is no point reading the article, the type of questions they ask has nothing to do with comprehending ANYTHING, some do, like the tone questions, they measure what you took from the article, but even those, based on the answer choices, are left up to interpretation, but, there are several questions like in topscore that list a bunch of stuff and say "everything EXCEPT....", and theres no way you can read a 15 paragragh passage and remember which ONE of a list of 5 things is not included, you end up having to go back and skimming through anyway, and "knowing" where it is doesnt make you that much faster, I don't know why or how I did bad, I was shocked when I saw my score, I almost want to call up the test center and demand to see what answers I did wrong but I think they'll just laugh..... I think a lot of people on this forum put wayyyy to much weight on RC, I say that partly since I'm bummed about it, but mostly because its true, people who got rejected and the people at the school gave them some kind of "excuse" not to feel bad so they say, "RC is very important" retake and raise it, but then....why did you get an interview?? so its not important, doing well will make you look good, but the section itself is pointless, you have to be able to comprehend a LOT of science material to do well on bio ochem and gen chem, and I blew those out of the water, PAT is important too, which I did ok in, but as far as reading goes, the school are not stupid, they know you can't really study for it, and that most of the test takers use a strategy instead of whats intended, which is to read then answer.... searching and finding keywords has a lot to do with being lucky, in finding the answer, and in getting a passage that allows you to do that.

Click to expand...

OK! Let me begin by saying that no one here is trying nor should they feel the need to justify anything for anyone! If people say RC is very important, it's not because they want to justify their rejections, it's because they're trying to give you some feedback, so you won't repeat the same mistakes. Right now, I think the only person looking for an "excuse" not to feel bad is you and that's quite alright, because we all do that when we mess something up! It's simply human nature.
RC score alone doesn't determine whether or not you're going to get in, but it's a very important factor, because every school wants to know that the person they're giving admission to is capable of reading a passage in a short amount of time and obtain a good understanding of it. This makes sense, because when you get into dental school, you'll end up having 6-7 (if not more) exams per week, which means if you spend too much time on any one subject you WILL fall behind in other classes, and you'll end up dropping out, which of course means you've wasted a seat at that school. To prevent this from happening, most schools really scrutinize your RC score.

About the "seek and destroy" method, here's how it works:

1)Read the question and quickly scan the answer choices, remembering some of the key words and number:
-If it's a question about the tone of the passage, choose an answer (any answer) so you won't leave it blank, then mark the question and move on. Tone questions require you to read the entire passage and obtain a general understanding of it, so it's best you answer them at the end.

2)Start from the first paragraph, read along until you find the answer to the question. Most of the times, the answer to the first question is somewhere in the 1st paragraph, the answer to the 2nd question is in the 2nd paragraph, and so on. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, you need to read 4-5 paragraphs, before you find the answer to the first question. The key to success is to remain calm and continue reading at a steady paste. Sometimes, it takes you 3-4 minutes before you find the answer to the first question, but remember you're not wasting time, because you're reading the paragraphs that may provide you with the answer to the next 3 or 4 questions. NOTE: You need to find the correct paste, because if you read too fast you'll end up missing many of the important stuff; if you read too slow, you'll run out of time. So, reading at the correct paste is crucial, and you can only achieve that by lots and lots of practice.

3)When you find the answer to the first question, mark it and move on to the next question. Repeat step#2. Usually, by the time you're searching for the 5th or 6th question, you've read 80% of the text and you have a clear understanding of how the text is structured. By that, I mean you know where different topics are discussed in the body of the text, so if you see a question regarding that topic you can quickly scroll up/down to that paragraph and figure out the answer.

4)Try to make a short summary of each paragraph in your head, when you're done reading it. This way, by the time you're finished reading the text, you have a brief summary of each paragraph in your head, which means you have a general idea of what the text is talking about. Knowing this, you can go back to your tone questions and try to answer them.

Hope this helped!

hey nze82, you don't need to tell me about human nature, I know human nature so well, that in anticipation of someone like you saying what you did, in my reply, I put "I think a lot of people on this forum put wayyyy to much weight on RC, I say that partly since I'm bummed about it" meaning that I am trying to feel better about it, but I guess your subconscious CHOSE to ignore that part, I spent more time explaining everything else because that was the point of my reply, to explain my main opinion, I even put "doing well will make you look good", my overall point is one I even made a couple months ago on a post here, mentioning how pointless RC is, whats really pointless is this discussion, with my first reply I was venting about the test, I'm not going to convince ADA to pull RC out of the exam, BUT to simply give my opinion, the RC as well as QR are FILLER sections on the exam, do you know how much COMPREHENDING you have to do, in order to do well on the science sections? so the idea of reading about a piano and answering a bunch of questions is not REALLY telling the school anything, and the fact that so many people devise a strategy instead of actually doing what was intended even with the science passages, I'm sorry, ESPECIALLY with the science passages since they are the easiest to use search and destroy with, shows how pointless the section is, people even bother to come on the forum and complain, that the questions (tone) FORCED them to read the passage......HELLLLLOOOOO!!!!, thats the point of the section!!!!! but would I be saying this if I had gotten a 22 on rc?......no 😀 it would still be my opinion, I just wouldn't have bothered to say anything about it, I would have no reason to complain...getting a bad score on any of the sections, even qr, is an EXCUSE for the school to not take you over someone else, do you really want to give them that excuse? but if you get an interview, then the school is really considering you...and if they mention that you should retake the test and raise your RC (for instance), its a polite way of saying "I don't like you"

kov82 said:

hey nze82, you don't need to tell me about human nature, I know human nature so well, that in anticipation of someone like you saying what you did, in my reply, I put "I think a lot of people on this forum put wayyyy to much weight on RC, I say that partly since I'm bummed about it" meaning that I am trying to feel better about it, but I guess your subconscious CHOSE to ignore that part, I spent more time explaining everything else because that was the point of my reply, to explain my main opinion, I even put "doing well will make you look good", my overall point is one I even made a couple months ago on a post here, mentioning how pointless RC is, whats really pointless is this discussion, with my first reply I was venting about the test, I'm not going to convince ADA to pull RC out of the exam, BUT to simply give my opinion, the RC as well as QR are FILLER sections on the exam, do you know how much COMPREHENDING you have to do, in order to do well on the science sections? so the idea of reading about a piano and answering a bunch of questions is not REALLY telling the school anything, and the fact that so many people devise a strategy instead of actually doing what was intended even with the science passages, I'm sorry, ESPECIALLY with the science passages since they are the easiest to use search and destroy with, shows how pointless the section is, people even bother to come on the forum and complain, that the questions (tone) FORCED them to read the passage......HELLLLLOOOOO!!!!, thats the point of the section!!!!! but would I be saying this if I had gotten a 22 on rc?......no 😀 it would still be my opinion, I just wouldn't have bothered to say anything about it, I would have no reason to complain...getting a bad score on any of the sections, even qr, is an EXCUSE for the school to not take you over someone else, do you really want to give them that excuse? but if you get an interview, then the school is really considering you...and if they mention that you should retake the test and raise your RC (for instance), its a polite way of saying "I don't like you"

Click to expand...

I understand your frustration, and trust me I hate the RC section of the exam as much as you do, if not more! But there's not much we can do about it. It's not like they're gonna eliminate this section just because we don't like it. So, all I'm saying is that we should all help each other out and share our experiences, so we can do better on this section. I'm not saying RC is a measure of how smart you are, and surely it doesn't define you as an individual. I don't even think the DAT is a measure of one's academic performance. I also understand that you're pissed off about the RC section of your test and you need to vent, but the fact of the matter is that schools care about this score, and regardless of our opinion about it they will look for a decent score in this section. As for rejections, I don't think schools need to come up with an "Excuse" to reject any of us; they can simply do so and no one can hold them responsible for providing us with any kind of explanation. Try to relax a little! 😉