what is the best RC strategy for the real dat? I have been practicing, but dont know if I will have enough time to read the whole passage. Some people have suggested that certain passages such as the ethics one are very long. For people who have taken and done really well on the dat, what is a good strategy that works the best (kaplan strategy, search and destroy or reading the passage)? Also, what is the size comparison of a dat passage to that of one from topscore or acheiver.
DAT RC strategy for real dat (anyone who did well on RC)
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I didn't use topscore or achiever, so I can't comment on that... The only thing I did to prepare was to take the Kaplan book practice test, and that was a waste of time, since I couldn't actually scroll through the passage. Something to do with the programming of the CD...
Honestly, I don't think a person can really fake "reading comprehension." You have to be able to understand what you read. You should approach reading the passage in whatever way helps you retain the most information. Personally, I can't just read a passage once and remember everything, so I skim and re-read paragraphs as needed.
I first skimmed the passage (I had the piano) and looked at some of the questions. Then, I worked through question by question, paragraph by paragraph, only reading in-depth when it pertained to the question. This meant that I read some sentences three times and others 1/2 times! On my passage, the answer wasn't necessarily given, verbatim, in the text, so I couldn't just "search and destroy"; it involved a lot of interpretation. As I read, I paid attention to words that might seem like keywords and tried to understand those by themselves as parts, and tried to allow my understanding of the parts build into an understanding of the whole. I didn't necessarily answer questions in order. I also had to use my best guess about which answer choice seemed most accurate, since several of them seemed like good choices sometimes. This is what made it challenging for me. I got a 21 and had time to spare.
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My RC strategy for the DAT:
1. Read the first 3-5 questions for the passage before reading anything. Don't spend too much time reading the questions, the important thing is to remember key words.
2. Start reading the passage and highlight any terms, lists, figures, etc.. Anything that you feel is important. You may come across the answer to one of the first 3-5 questions immediately and if you do, go answer it immediately. If you do not see an answer right away, that is okay, it probably just means that this passage doesn't really have the questions in perfect order and most won't. If you have read the first couple of paragraphs or about 1/3 of the passage and haven't found any answers it's time to start search and destroy. Keep in mind that you are still looking for the answers to the first 3-5 questions. Start looking through the passage quickly to find the same key words that you read in the questions. Find them and answer them if you can. If you can't find an answer fairly quickly, skip it and move on, you can come back later, you'll have time.
3. After you have found some of the answers to those first few questions, move on with the rest of the questions using search and destroy. Remember that when you are skimming through the passage to find answers, you should be highlighting or marking in some way key words and phrases. You can skip over questions that have an implied answer until you have searched and destroyed most of the passage. For example, "What is the authors attitude about lung transplantation?" It may be tough to answer this question until you have looked at the whole passage.
4. Do not move to the next passage until all of the questions have been answered, even if you have to guess at some hard ones. Don't get caught up trying to answer the difficult questions, you'll be better off answering the easy questions and guessing a little on the hard ones. If you have time when you have answered all 50 questions, go back and try to dig out the answers for the hard questions.
5. Pay some attention to the time you have remaining and make sure that you are roughly on pace to finish. If you notice you are falling behind, take less time answering questions that look difficult and focus on the easy ones.
PRACTICE: I would say that you should try at least 2-3 practice passages using this technique and timing yourself. If you can answer about 80% of the questions in the required time, you should be fine. I practiced on about 5-6 passages (Kaplan,Cliffs,Barron's) and tried to finish with 5 mins left over at the end, which I used to go back and check those difficult questions.
Actual DAT: Bring something technical to read during the break before your RC section, this will help your brain make the transition from the previous section to the reading section.
Results: Using this method I finished the RC section on the DAT with 10 mins left over, I went back and corrected a few questions. I scored a 26 on RC!
I hope this helps.
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Hey,
I have your read post and I want to try to use that method. I want to know, for the search and destroy, how fast do you skim? Do you just look for key words or do you actually read the passage, but at a faster rate? Thanks!
For the search and destroy method you want to read enough that you have some idea of what the contents of the paragraph are. Remember that while searching and destroying, you are supposed to be highlighting/marking important words, phrases, etc.. To be able to do that, you have to read for some content. This will save you time in the long run because when you get to a question that refers to that highlighted text, you will be able to find it quickly. Don't spend too much time marking words and phrases, do it quickly and don't second guess whether it's important or not. If you mark it and don't end up using it, there is really no harm done. If you were to look at my RC section on the DAT, you would see plenty of marked words and phrases and I didn't necessarily use all of them. Having said all that, you will still need to work rather quickly...this is where practice comes in.
Hope this helps.
I have your read post and I want to try to use that method. I want to know, for the search and destroy, how fast do you skim? Do you just look for key words or do you actually read the passage, but at a faster rate? Thanks!
For the search and destroy method you want to read enough that you have some idea of what the contents of the paragraph are. Remember that while searching and destroying, you are supposed to be highlighting/marking important words, phrases, etc.. To be able to do that, you have to read for some content. This will save you time in the long run because when you get to a question that refers to that highlighted text, you will be able to find it quickly. Don't spend too much time marking words and phrases, do it quickly and don't second guess whether it's important or not. If you mark it and don't end up using it, there is really no harm done. If you were to look at my RC section on the DAT, you would see plenty of marked words and phrases and I didn't necessarily use all of them. Having said all that, you will still need to work rather quickly...this is where practice comes in.
Hope this helps.
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I really think that you raise some good points! I totally know what you mean when you say you couldn't just search and destroy every question. The RC section is tough to teach people because it comes down to learning from the practice. I think if people use the information we have provided, they will be starting in a great spot. I also think that once they have practiced, they will develop a style that is probably slightly different because each person should try to modify the technique to suit their own strenghths/weaknesses. Great score!
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This is very similar to the method I used to do really well on the DAT, the only difference is that my method is a tad riskier, but it can really pay off if you feel comfortable with it. In your part two you talk about how it's very possible that none of the first five questions won't be answered in the beginning of the passage, and after doing a method more or less identical to yours, and getting very frustrated with almost all of the first questions being answered in the second half of the passage, I modified my method a bit. Before I looked at the passage I would look at ALL of the questions in that passage, and then put the key words in the back of my head as you suggest, and then I started to browse through the passage. ANY time I came across ANY key term that looked vaguely familiar I would quickly reread the sentence before and the sentence after and then go through EVERY question again, and find the corresponding question, if I can't find it in a question, I moved on, refreshing my memory of key terms in the process of looking. I would do this for a somewhat quick first time through the passage.
Other than that, same general idea for the finish up. But again, I want to caution that this is riskier, and requires very fast reading and a good memory, and it's not for everyone, find the RC method that works best for you. I would HIGHLY recommend using my method or JAMA's if you're comfortable with it, they're really the same general type of SnD that I think is the best way to approach the RC section.
Good luck!
Edit: I didn't do much note writing, because I kept getting distracted by trying to decide what to write and rereading my list, but some people do really well with notes.
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what do you mean by highlighting in point 2 and 3?...
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See how well you do by just reading the passage then answering the questions on a few practise tests. This is what I did and scored a 23 on RC.
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I use highlighting as a general term to refer to somehow making a note of that word or phrase. The reason I use this term is because some people are writing the Canadian DAT which is on paper. On paper you would circle, underline, asterix, etc.. On the computer you might make a note on your scrap paper.
Vicviper and Jama, those are some great strategies. I was thinking about the strategy similar to yours vicviper. I usually read the questions before the passage and write some general terms for the questions. Then I read the passage until I find the information related to the terms for the question and handle each question like that. I know what you mean when you say that it is a risky strategy. Did you have enough time or did you feel tight on time when using this strategy on the real dat? Also, how well did this work on the real dat for you? Thanks
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Yes, the risky part is that it can take a significant amount of time if you get some really bad luck, I'm sure it works better on some passages with more prominent key terms and that kind of thing. On my first two passages I went about 2 minutes over each, and then I picked up the pace for the third one. On my second passage I had this type of question I'd never seen before on ANY of my practice tests, and it really tripped me up time wise. It was like, "Fact Fact Fact Fact, reason reason reason reason" and the choices were like, the fact is true and the reason is true, the fact is wrong but the reason is true, the fact is true but the reason is wrong - just a TOTALLY weird question and I had like two of those. And I think it did pretty well on the DAT, I got a 30 RC 🙂
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You can't highlight any words on the American DAT, I think JAVA was saying that the Canadian DAT was on paper so you could make marks. What you can do on the American one is take notes on your scratch paper, that's about it =(
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I should try this method tomorrow..but I have one question.. After finding answers for the fist 5 questions.. you said that use Search and Destroy for the rest.. right? So do I have to at least skim through the whole passage before using search and destory?(after answering 5 questions...)
Thanks!
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I got a 22 (87% I think) I tried skipping and reading the ?s and all that in practices but it was hard for me to stay on track.. I am also a fairly slow reader (dont know why, I think I say the words in my head to myself rather than absorbing them, oh well). I just read the whole passage and then took on the questions, fairly straightforward. I have a fairy visual memory as well, so on ?s I didn't know or wasn't sure on I would go back to the passage and find it. The paragraphs are numbered so if you can try and remember what parts correspond with what number it will also help no matter what strategy you use.
