How to not freak out about timing?

[JCLewis90]

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So last time I took the DAT, I freaked a little during the RC section because I had ridiculously hard passages and I was worried about time. So all I could think about was my time instead of the passages. How do I improve with this? Is taking practice tests the best way? I know it will help obviously.. But does anyone have any advice? Anything to help with RC?

 

[SicEm]

So last time I took the DAT, I freaked a little during the RC section because I had ridiculously hard passages and I was worried about time. So all I could think about was my time instead of the passages. How do I improve with this? Is taking practice tests the best way? I know it will help obviously.. But does anyone have any advice? Anything to help with RC?

Yes timed practice tests help, and reading scientific articles. I freaked out a little on the time too but just take deep breaths. Also, what I would do was I would check the time AFTER I read each passage and decided how much time I would spend on each question. So you have mini freak outs with each passage instead of one huge freak out at the end. Another technique that seemed to work is skimming each paragraph and writing down the key words for each one. You might not know all the information in that paragraph but then you have an outline to reference when you need to go back and look for an answer. Hope that helps, good luck!

 

[JCLewis90]

Yes timed practice tests help, and reading scientific articles. I freaked out a little on the time too but just take deep breaths. Also, what I would do was I would check the time AFTER I read each passage and decided how much time I would spend on each question. So you have mini freak outs with each passage instead of one huge freak out at the end. Another technique that seemed to work is skimming each paragraph and writing down the key words for each one. You might not know all the information in that paragraph but then you have an outline to reference when you need to go back and look for an answer. Hope that helps, good luck!

Hey thanks for the comment. When I got to the RC section, I just couldn't figure out what way was going to be best to answer the questions. I felt like I needed to actually read the passages, but they were so ridiculously difficult to read because they were like crazy scientific journal articles. I couldn't understand a thing I was reading. Probably mainly due to the fact that I was just freaking out.

 

[SicEm]

Hey thanks for the comment. When I got to the RC section, I just couldn't figure out what way was going to be best to answer the questions. I felt like I needed to actually read the passages, but they were so ridiculously difficult to read because they were like crazy scientific journal articles. I couldn't understand a thing I was reading. Probably mainly due to the fact that I was just freaking out.

Yeah being nervous can really cloud your thinking. Even if you don't understand what the paragraph is talking about, you can write down a few key words next to that paragraph number on your whiteboard. A lot of times the questions seem to take sentences from the text verbatim so if you can find the location of those key word the question asks about, you can search around for whatever the question is referencing and often times you can get it right without even really knowing what the heck they're talking about. This might not work for the more complicated/inference questions but it will definitely gain you some points and time.

 

[JCLewis90]

Yeah being nervous can really cloud your thinking. Even if you don't understand what the paragraph is talking about, you can write down a few key words next to that paragraph number on your whiteboard. A lot of times the questions seem to take sentences from the text verbatim so if you can find the location of those key word the question asks about, you can search around for whatever the question is referencing and often times you can get it right without even really knowing what the heck they're talking about. This might not work for the more complicated/inference questions but it will definitely gain you some points and time.

I'll give it a try in some practice tests. Thanks for your responses!