How to study for RC

[autumn0408]

Hello, I'm planning to take the DAT this April and wondering what are some of your strategies to study for the RC section. I will use DAT Bootcamp but I'm not so sure how to utilize RC Academy and practice tests (and the same goes for other subjects). I would appreciate if you can share how you studied.

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[IcyFox]

Don't rely on the RC and PAT Academy videos on bootcamp, they are garbage. If you want to prepare in advance, try reading as much as you can before April. You can even use free resources available at your local library if they carry a free kaplan or princeton review DAT book.

 

[deleted767916]

As someone who did well on the reading section; I really think to improve on the reading section is to read a lot of difficult texts e.g. research papers, some difficult novels. I personally believe the best way to improve on the reading section is to improve your reading skills/ become comfortable reading difficult to grasp texts as the topics on the reading sections vary and the way the passage is written varies often.

You could implement reading strategies like search-and-destroy but the reading section questions are now incorporating questions where you need to understand the passage as a whole and incorporate different sections in the passage. The strategy where you write a summary of each section of the text is better in my opinion.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me!

 

[RyuXkoken]

As someone who did well on the reading section; I really think to improve on the reading section is to read a lot of difficult texts e.g. research papers, some difficult novels. I personally believe the best way to improve on the reading section is to improve your reading skills/ become comfortable reading difficult to grasp texts as the topics on the reading sections vary and the way the passage is written varies often.

You could implement reading strategies like search-and-destroy but the reading section questions are now incorporating questions where you need to understand the passage as a whole and incorporate different sections in the passage. The strategy where you write a summary of each section of the text is better in my opinion.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me!

What would you recommend reading?

 

[ASPEN'S NIGHTMARE]

Hello, I'm planning to take the DAT this April and wondering what are some of your strategies to study for the RC section. I will use DAT Bootcamp but I'm not so sure how to utilize RC Academy and practice tests (and the same goes for other subjects). I would appreciate if you can share how you studied.

I saw some guys video on YouTube and basically he told everyone to make numbers going down (on the grid paper) for each paragraph there is for the passage. So like if there’s 9 paragraphs, he would list 1-9 going down his paper with space in-between. Then, he would go and read through half the passage and jot down key words he found in each paragraph next to that corresponding paragraphs number on his sheet. Once he read half of the paragraphs he would go try to answer as many questions as he could using his paper as a “map” to search and destroy. Once he hit questions on things he hadn’t read about yet he would rinse n repeat for the second half of the passage. TBH it worked well for me. I went from scoring 19 on Bootcamp to 21. Worked well on real DAT for me too except on my real DAT, they saved the biggest and longest passage for the end and I didn’t have enough time so I guessed on a few. I think this method with some practice on time management will help you tons. Try it out


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[DAT Destroyer]

From my years of experience working with students taking the DAT, many where English is a 2nd language and some a 3rd language, I stress the importance of just old fashion reading. You can read books, new papers, etc, anything you like. I feel it's best to go back to old school style reading with an actual book, etc. All students have experience reading from a computer screen. The goal is to increase reading speed and comprehension. With sharp skills in these 2 areas, you should be able to tackle any passage you will see on the DAT. IMO, taking tests and only reading a few articles will not help you improve.

Things have changed a lot over the years with cell phones, etc and students do not read as much in general compared to past generations. This is what I suggest, get any reading material you prefer(on a college level) and put it by your bed. Put away the cell phone, computer and read at least 30 minutes each night, it is very relaxing and you will be improving your skills at the same time.

A recent student I advised where English was his third language scored 22 in reading.

If you use this technique it will feel less overwhelming and you can do a little each day.

Just my 2 cents

Nancy

 

[deleted767916]

What would you recommend reading?

Read whatever would interest you! For me, I like reading books about philosophy and business. As a psychology major I also prefer reading psychology research papers over biology papers as they're much more drier; but reading biology papers would also help greatly as well!

If you have no idea where to start, I would suggest my favorite book of all-time: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

 

[baszilion]

I personally recommend using a 'mapping' strategy over any of the others. Read the entire passage and summarized each paragraph as you go along. Basically, just write a couple key words to summarize what that paragraph is about. By reading the whole passage, you should have a good enough understanding to answer big picture questions right away, and then with your map you can track down details as needed! With about 20 minutes per passage, you wanna spend about 6-8 minutes reading/mapping, and the rest of the time answering questions. That's not a ton of time and you need to be quite fast at reading, but I honestly believe staying calm during RC is very important. If you read too fast without understanding, you're just wasting more time than benefiting imo. I think the most efficient way to improve is to just do a lot of RC tests and keep on practicing. If the 10 from bootcamp aren't enough, DatQVault is a good source for extra tests. Reading anything in your spare time will obviously help too.

 

[Iroh]

I'd say just get used to reading passages on a computer. I walked into RC without preparing but I have a history of reading a lot of stuff (could be anything really) on pc monitors so it just kind of flowed for me.

 

[thisismyacct]

Read whatever would interest you! For me, I like reading books about philosophy and business. As a psychology major I also prefer reading psychology research papers over biology papers as they're much more drier; but reading biology papers would also help greatly as well!

If you have no idea where to start, I would suggest my favorite book of all-time: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Currently reading that now. it's good at keeping the reader hooked lol.

 

[zToothinator]

I'd recommend reading science articles, either from journals or ScienceDaily, to get used to reading science material. When doing the RC practice tests, try different techniques until you find what works best for you. For me, that was reading the passage all the way through and then doing search and destroy.

 

[Futuremeindentistry]

Are there any dat english books you recommend us to buy? I need to improve my RC score.

 

[ChemistryDentist]

Are there any dat english books you recommend us to buy? I need to improve my RC score.

I've heard Kaplan is pretty good for reading if you really need to have practice questions. Otherwise, read science articles (like from ScienceDaily) every day to improve your speed and comprehension. After you finish reading the article, see if you can summarize the main points you just read. That should really help a lot. Dr. Romano posts daily reading, mostly from ScienceDaily, in the Destroyer Facebook group--that's where I got mine from.