how to approach RC

[NavyDDS1990]

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Ok. So it seems I'm going pretty solid with other sections except RC.

I'm a slow reader.

Any suggestions regarding how to approach RC section?

Studying material I have for RC section is just the Kaplan Blue.

I'm really not confident when it comes to reading.... 🙁

 

[kingenamel]

RC is tough to prepare for. My advice is stick with one approach (search and destroy, mapping out the text, etc) and start practicing that approach with science articles. I wasn't really that great at RC and I also had a difficult time preparing for it. For me I practiced search and destroy with my practice tests and the articles that I ended up getting on the DAT allowed me to use that strategy really well.

 

[melmu001]

What does search and destroy mean?

 

[customx]

What does search and destroy mean?

Read the question, search quickly for the answer, repeat.

If you're a slow reader, this may be a better strategy than reading the entire passage and then answering the questions.

 

[sjv]

Another vote for search and destroy.

 

[NavyDDS1990]

Read the question, search quickly for the answer, repeat.

If you're a slow reader, this may be a better strategy than reading the entire passage and then answering the questions.

so for search and destroy, you would go STRAIGHT to the question without even skimming the passage? and just look for the answer and repeat that for every other questions?

 

[customx]

so for search and destroy, you would go STRAIGHT to the question without even skimming the passage? and just look for the answer and repeat that for every other questions?

Yep. Not the strategy that I used, but a lot of people on here use it and apparently it works. I read the passage, took notes and got a 24. To each their own

 

[UMDMD]

I'm not a fan of S&D. When I took the DAT (Canadian), many were "all the following statements are true EXCEPT..." type question. Luckily I didn't use S&D and ended up with a 23. The guy beside me who was skipping straight to the questions, on the other hand, looked like he was freaking out at the end of our 50 minutes (Canadian RC has 50 minutes instead of 60 minutes). In the end, though, I think it all depends on the kind of passages and most importantly, I think, on the type of questions they ask. Some questions, I have to admit, can be answered very quickly with S&D. But if I had relied ONLY on S&D strategy I know I would've done horribly!

 

[sylviej]

I quickly go over all the questions then read the passage so I know what to look for.

 

[Soleus715]

I've said this before, but I am very very against s&d. I don't want you guys to do bad on your RC because of bad luck on your passage. On my RC (taken dec 2013), only few questions out of all of them were answerable by S&D. I got a 24 and I'm a horrible reader so I don't think any special method should be used.

I quickly go over all the questions then read the passage so I know what to look for.

^I think this is a great way to know if S&D would work or not. If you see a lot of crit. thinking/analyzing questions, you should use another method instead.

 

[customx]

^I think this is a great way to know if S&D would work or not. If you see a lot of crit. thinking/analyzing questions, you should use another method instead.

That's great in practice, but you obviously never know what type of questions you'll get on the DAT. I'm all for trying different methods on practice exams, but if you're reliant on S&D but get a lot of tone and inference questions on the DAT, I would think that you would be screwed. It's not easy to suddenly switch tactics during the test.

 

[melmu001]

In the CDR does it have critical thinking and analysis questions?

 

[Ari Rezaei]

There are a lot of different strategies to beating the RC section, and the best method is the one that makes you feel most comfortable. Try them all out and see what you like. Personally, I didn't like search and destroy because I felt too much pressure and it made me perform worse.

 

[sylviej]

^I think this is a great way to know if S&D would work or not. If you see a lot of crit. thinking/analyzing questions, you should use another method instead.

I agree

 

[youngy]

Yep. Not the strategy that I used, but a lot of people on here use it and apparently it works. I read the passage, took notes and got a 24. To each their own

I did the same thing. For me, it felt like the risk was too big just to search for answers without truly understanding what the passages were talking about.
If it's a heavily sciece related questions, you might be able to easily search and destroy, but if it has something that's not easily found just by skimming, then you are fudged.


I am a slow reader too and I tried to make flow charts, random keyword notes (things that I deemed could be important) on the cardboard sheet. Doing this, you will not have time left over to go over every question at the end, but at least you know you didn't miss any vital information, assuming that you didn't fall asleep while reading.

I finished with about 1~2 minutes left on the clock and I feel lucky that I got 23.

 

[Futuredentguy2015]

take it from me, I did S&D for the first DAT and made a 21.. retook it and didn't practice it at all, and made a 15 in reading because NOTHING was S&D!!
I have to retake bc of reading, and now I'm just going to take like 15 reading tests and read first

 

[NavyDDS1990]

take it from me, I did S&D for the first DAT and made a 21.. retook it and didn't practice it at all, and made a 15 in reading because NOTHING was S&D!!
I have to retake bc of reading, and now I'm just going to take like 15 reading tests and read first

wow S&D seems really risky tho..
so I see that people do well on it when they get lucky with easy passages?

 

[Futuredentguy2015]

yep my first go around i had extremely easy and interesting topics.. about respect and other things. this last time i had crazy hard ones prions, fiber optics etc hard to pay attention and no S&D

 

[NavyDDS1990]

So if I were to read the passage first while writing down a little notes on each paragraphs, would the notes be keywords? or what each paragraph is really about.
This passage I just had on bootcamp seemed very bad with S&D.

 

[kingenamel]

Keywords are what is recommended if you can get away with it. Writing full on summaries per paragraph could be a major time killer

 

[NavyDDS1990]

Keywords are what is recommended if you can get away with it. Writing full on summaries per paragraph could be a major time killer

But what i realized is that some words do overlap between paragraphs and that happen do confuse myself by writing 2 same keywords in multiple paragraphs.

 

[melmu001]

take it from me, I did S&D for the first DAT and made a 21.. retook it and didn't practice it at all, and made a 15 in reading because NOTHING was S&D!!
I have to retake bc of reading, and now I'm just going to take like 15 reading tests and read first

What kind of questions did you receive in the rct? Assumption questions and challenges an assertion

 

[omgroll]

I'm not a fan of S&D either. It can really s**** you over. What I did for mine was read it really quickly once and scribble a word or two that represents each paragraph. Go to the questions, and then kind of do S&D. This way, you can answer inference questions/ tone questions and not be tricked by questions that ask you about similar terms/ terms that appear in multiple sections. I ended up with 28 in RC (or 27 can't remember) but that had more to do with luck. I never got under 20 using this method tho. I think it's better to make sure you get all the questions right for the first 2 passages and kind of rush the 3rd one rather than rushing all 3 passages. I always ran out of time at the end but I actually did much better than people who claimed to have finished in time/had time left.

 

[LeeMilligan123]

I do realized is that some words do overlap between paragraphs and that happen do confuse myself

 

[melmu001]

If you read passages like everyday about 40 times in 2 months will that make you achieve scores like high 20s? If you get used to the passages and know the question types of the passages, will that make you a really good reader?

 

[SmileDesignersDDS]

Yes what are the best materials to use for reading? Taking the DAT summer 2014

 

[Doctorman45342]

Ok, I have an idea. What if you read all of the questions and answer choices first, then read the WHOLE passage?

 

[SmileDesignersDDS]

That wastes tons of time lol.

 

[pilotdentist]

Is the computer format the same as bootcamp/achiever, i.e. 1 question viewable and the text above the 1 question? With this format it would take way too long to be cycling between answers 1 by 1...

I am going to keep practicing, but for slow readers (myself), I like reading all the topic sentences to get a feel for the overall structure, then doing search and destroy 1 by 1 down the answer list. I tried reading it all then answering all the questions, but I was too slow with this as I had to return to the passages to get the very detailed questions about things I coudn't retain in one reading.

 

[clutchfans]

Is the computer format the same as bootcamp/achiever, i.e. 1 question viewable and the text above the 1 question? With this format it would take way too long to be cycling between answers 1 by 1...

I am going to keep practicing, but for slow readers (myself), I like reading all the topic sentences to get a feel for the overall structure, then doing search and destroy 1 by 1 down the answer list. I tried reading it all then answering all the questions, but I was too slow with this as I had to return to the passages to get the very detailed questions about things I coudn't retain in one reading.

You are correct. I took the DAT last month and it is one question per page with the question on top and the passage underneath the question.

 

[SmileDesignersDDS]

Can someone please explain search and destroy?

 

[clutchfans]

Search and destroy is where you go straight to the questions and look for the answers in the passage without reading the passage first.