how technical is RC passages?
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MUSCDMD
Passages get quite technical. It's like reading a peer reviewed journal article. Some passages are quite simple. I would expect at least two dense passages, however. But I thought the questions were fairly simple. Just read it quickly, answer the questions, mark and come back to the ones you don't know. None of that search and destroy nonsense.
It's going to be technical and tough. The test makers are not going to do us favors by making it a walk in the park.
Otherwise we could practice by reading SI or People mag.
Otherwise we could practice by reading SI or People mag.
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They are semi-technical, in my opinion. I'm not sure what classes you have taken or any of that, but these aren't like real scientific research articles. These are more of.... I don't want to say dumbed down.... but more like an overview of research. They never get terribly specific with information, and they aren't that hard to comprehend. I always thought they make it difficult by wording the questions in a weird way, or having debatable answers. I had one asking me if the a statement was true or false, but the question boiled down to how literally you interpreted the meaning of one word in the question. The weirdest passage on mine had questions involving concepts that were introduced in the paper, and expected you to apply them to general situations.
And I don't really understand why people keep claiming Search and Destroy doesn't work in such a broad sense. I'd say for mine, which I took a month ago, I could still safely use it for over half of my RC. There were about 5 questions that I wasn't sure about when I finished (I apparently missed them all, ha). I'm sure it's different test to test, but even the tone/inference questions don't honestly require you to read the whole thing. You can usually pick them up from reading the paragraph of interest.
If you want to read something extremely dense, and then feel a bit better when you see these passages, go to the journal of cell biology, or pubmed and read some of those articles and try to understand what is happening. It will be overwhelming, and you may have to take it a few sentences at a time, but it is very good to MAKE you break down what is being written. It's very easy to have a tendency to just skim papers and whatnot just because you never have to analyze anything in day to day reading. I had to do that for a few undergrad classes this past year, and while it was very frustrating and boring at the time, I felt like it was good for me. This may or may not help, but either way, you'll feel better when you go back to DAT passages, haha.
Oh, and in regards to it being similar to topscore: I felt like the passages themselves were extremely similar, but the questions were a bit more difficult. Topscore didn't use any tone/inference questions, but the DAT most certainly does. As far as difficulty of reading and whatnot though, I'd say Topscore was accurate. Just expect one article that isn't science related.
And I don't really understand why people keep claiming Search and Destroy doesn't work in such a broad sense. I'd say for mine, which I took a month ago, I could still safely use it for over half of my RC. There were about 5 questions that I wasn't sure about when I finished (I apparently missed them all, ha). I'm sure it's different test to test, but even the tone/inference questions don't honestly require you to read the whole thing. You can usually pick them up from reading the paragraph of interest.
If you want to read something extremely dense, and then feel a bit better when you see these passages, go to the journal of cell biology, or pubmed and read some of those articles and try to understand what is happening. It will be overwhelming, and you may have to take it a few sentences at a time, but it is very good to MAKE you break down what is being written. It's very easy to have a tendency to just skim papers and whatnot just because you never have to analyze anything in day to day reading. I had to do that for a few undergrad classes this past year, and while it was very frustrating and boring at the time, I felt like it was good for me. This may or may not help, but either way, you'll feel better when you go back to DAT passages, haha.
Oh, and in regards to it being similar to topscore: I felt like the passages themselves were extremely similar, but the questions were a bit more difficult. Topscore didn't use any tone/inference questions, but the DAT most certainly does. As far as difficulty of reading and whatnot though, I'd say Topscore was accurate. Just expect one article that isn't science related.
thanks for putting time and effort for the reply. I really appreciate it!
the reason why i asked was that I was doing well on crack dat rc till I encountered the passages from topscore. I freaked out and did poorly. (it was very dense and had a lot of big words)
After doing topsocre, I felt that crack dat RC passages are WAYYYY too easy to read (feel likes articles from popular magazines).
Personally, read/skim fast a passage and writing down keywords for each paragraph and then S & D works the best for me. (my new method after yesterday) When I freak out, I cant process what I just read or remember. Plus, writing down def helps my brain to retain a little bit longer!
My exam is on next Monday, but I'm gonna give myself a plenty of articles and practice! Wish me luck!!! 😉
