DAT next week, am i screwed for RC?

[dent4]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hey SDN,
I just recently bought crack dat RC and i made a huge mistake to wait and take them to find a good strategy for test day. I've been so focused on the sciences and QR that I've kinda been slacking on the RC portion. So far my scores for RC on crack dat have been 15, 16, 16 for the first 3 tests. I feel that every strategy I've been doing doesn't seem to work. As of now, the strategy that I like best is to just read as much as I can in 10 minutes and go right to the questions. I feel that with S/D strategy I find myself panicking too much and waste a BUNCH of time.
Any suggestions? I really need help
Thanks guys.

 

[xJtrandx]

I took the DAT on 7/30 and I was in the same boat as you. On CDR, I got 20/19/19/17/16 so I actually got worse over time - and I was using the s/d method initially then switched to reading the passage first. On the real thing, I read the passage, but noticed it didn't really help too much and so I switched to search and destroy for the last 2 passages (since I wasted so much time on the first passage), and it worked. If I had known sooner I would have just done search and destroy, even though some people say it's best just to read it

 

[capitan2011]

Using crackdat reading, I constantly scored 15,16,14,17. During my real DAT I scored a 19. The RC questions on the real DAT are not as difficult. It is more looking for details and searching for asnswers within the passage rather than making inferences.

 

[dent4]

Glad someone did well on the real thing and had similar scores, much more motivating now. I was losing all hope for RC.
So you would recommend that I practice the S/D strategy more, since the questions were more detailed on the real DAT. Also, about how long were the passages on the real DAT? Similar to CDR (8-10) or achiever (12-14)

 

[marnferr]

The first time I took the DAT I got a 20 on RC, the second time around I got a 30. What really worked for me the second time was kaplan's method of mapping the passage using key words.. I'd skim the passage and jot down key words for each paragraph. With this method even if they ask about tone or a general true/false question by the time those questions arise you've gone back and ended up getting the gist of the passage anyway. Good luck! Also don't worry too much about the practice test scores.. they'll stress you out

Good luck, you'll do great! 👍

 

[ktran17]

After every paragraph I read , i would annotate key things like:

statistics, famous people, location, etc

Then hit the questions afterwards.

I'm a pretty fast reader so I always read the passage before answering the questions.

 

[dent4]

Thanks guys, really appreciate your input.
everyone is so motivational, i love it

 

[Heller123]

What helped me is writing down keywords from the questions and answering them as i go through the passage. I think I just have terrible memory so doing S&D didn't bode well for me. On CDP my scores were 18/19 and I got a 21 on the real thing

 

[macari11]

Skim fast but not to the point where you say "What did I just read?". To me the biggest part about RC was remembering where in the passage everything was. If you can instantly find where to go you'll save 10-15 seconds of searching. Time is key.

Another helpful method that I've tried is reading the first couple of questions and then read the passage so that while reading it over a light bulb goes off each time you see something that was mentioned in the question. It's like you have an insight on what's coming. Try whatever works best and stick with it.

 

[dent4]

Just wanted to say thanks Heller123 for that strategy you told me, I've been consistently scoring 18-19 now from 15-16, THANK YOU!