132/528 CARS Approach?

[greygoose0103]

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Hello! Would barely skimming the passage (without retaining much info) then answering the questions as I go along be a good idea that anyone who has scored a near perfect score has used? By the end, I have a good idea of what it is talking about for the more author tone questions. Almost everything I've read has said to thoroughly read and digest then answer questions and refer back to passage as needed. I know anything above a 520+ is VERY much luck but anyway. Thanks!!

 

[stew_md]

I got a 520 with a 131 in CARS, not perfect, but not too shabby either. For CARS I would read the whole passage and try to deeply understand the main argument, themes, and content of the passage before going to the questions. I would always try to keep the main message of the passage in mind when answering the questions and I spent about 5-6 minutes reading the passage.

For all other sections I always read the question first, figured out quickly if it was a passage based question or a pseudo-discrete and then read the passage to look for the appropriate information. Sometimes passage questions are "pseudo-discrete," meaning they don't require any passage information to answer; if you have memorized the appropriate content, it's a freebie. Other questions might require you to find interpret a graph, find a specific sentence that tells you the name of an enzyme, etc., within the passage. Thus I always thought it was more efficient to read the questions first and work backwards.

All this being said, you have to experiment a bit and figure out what strategy you are most comfortable with and what works best for you. There are many ways to skin a cat.

 

[VasuRulez]

I got a 520 with a 131 in CARS, not perfect, but not too shabby either. For CARS I would read the whole passage and try to deeply understand the main argument, themes, and content of the passage before going to the questions. I would always try to keep the main message of the passage in mind when answering the questions and I spent about 5-6 minutes reading the passage.

For all other sections I always read the question first, figured out quickly if it was a passage based question or a pseudo-discrete and then read the passage to look for the appropriate information. Sometimes passage questions are "pseudo-discrete," meaning they don't require any passage information to answer; if you have memorized the appropriate content, it's a freebie. Other questions might require you to find interpret a graph, find a specific sentence that tells you the name of an enzyme, etc., within the passage. Thus I always thought it was more efficient to read the questions first and work backwards.

All this being said, you have to experiment a bit and figure out what strategy you are most comfortable with and what works best for you. There are many ways to skin a cat.

How long did it take you to read the passage? And did you ever reread it?

 

[stew_md]

How long did it take you to read the passage? And did you ever reread it?

About 5-6 minutes for CARS, sometimes I would look back to the passage to answer questions if I felt it was necessary. Some questions may require you to recall some portion of the text, so in those cases, it might require you to go back and skim. I would always highlight one sentence from each paragraph that encapsulated the main point or content from that paragraph to make going back easier.

Like I said for non-CARS passages I generally would not read the whole passage. I would read the questions first and find the content from the passage to answer it.