RC section - some advice

[Kristin1]

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I am taking my DAT in 3 weeks and I am worried about RC section. My scores on the bootcamp are not consistent. I have gotten 16, 17, 20, 20, 17 so far and I tried a couple of different methods but I don't know which one is the best or how to improve and be consistent. Also how representative are the bootcamp scores with the real DAT?
Thank you

 

[I-hate-alginate]

I am taking my DAT in 3 weeks and I am worried about RC section. My scores on the bootcamp are not consistent. I have gotten 16, 17, 20, 20, 17 so far and I tried a couple of different methods but I don't know which one is the best or how to improve and be consistent. Also how representative are the bootcamp scores with the real DAT?
Thank you

Bootcamp RC is really similar to the DAT. I heard that Bootcamp offers the highlighting feature now so I recommend you to use it wisely. Do worry too much about the scores you have been getting on BC. The exam at the prometric center is the only one that counts. And if you are doing the mapping, always write small or you will run out of space really fast.

 

[Kristin1]

Thank you, I have been using different methods and I tried mapping too but I felt like I ran out of time. I tried this other guy's method that is listed on bootcamp where he says read the first 2 paragraphs first then read until half fast and start answering the questions but I don't know if that's working because I do okay then the next time I do bad. I am just very worried, I hope it goes well. And I love their highlighting feature, it helps a lot.

 

[I-hate-alginate]

Do not worry at all! Looking back at my exam, being nervous is the only thing that made the exam hard. If you can control yourself and start calm, you will do miracles on the DAT. BTW don't do my mistake on the RC. I abused the highlighting feature really bad, became anything but helpful. Use it wisely and good luck on your exam.

 

[Kristin1]

Thank you so much! I appreciate it a lot! Good luck on everything to you as well.

 

[schmoob]

Moving to DAT.

 

[Medin2017]

take a RC test the day before your DAT. It will be a good chance to see any weaknesses you may have and to be mindful of them on the day of the exam. I attribute my high RC score to doing this.

 

[FeralisExtremum]

Have you tried reading the entire passage before answering the questions? It's the most time consuming method but for some people it's what works best. I'd give that a shot before extending to other strategies, most of which are geared towards saving time to answer questions.

 

[Kristin1]

Have you tried reading the entire passage before answering the questions? It's the most time consuming method but for some people it's what works best. I'd give that a shot before extending to other strategies, most of which are geared towards saving time to answer questions.

Yes, it didn't work for me because I find it very hard to remember the whole passage and would waste a lot of time searching for the answers after.
I think mapping out the passage seems to kinda help me but my problem with that is that I have over 2 minutes for the first passage and 2 minutes for the second passage and then left short with 4 minutes for the last passage and would need to guess in 5-7 of the questions for the last passage.

 

[deleted738762]

You have 3 weeks for RC. That's more than enough time, some people study for the DAT in 3 weeks lol. Just keep reading and practicing everyday. You'll do fine.

 

[Kristin1]

You have 3 weeks for RC. That's more than enough time, some people study for the DAT in 3 weeks lol. Just keep reading and practicing everyday. You'll do fine.

Thank you, it makes me feel so much better to get some support. I am usually a person that freaks out in general way ahead of time lol but I will keep practicing every day and hoping to do good on the real exam!!

 

[schmoob]

It's about strategy. It was my strongest section and bumped my score nicely.

Read the questions first. Look at the first few questions and start reading quickly. Now you know exactly what to look for. Go to the next few questions, answer the ones you know where to find because you read already, and continue reading and looking for the answers. Do this until you finish the passage. It saves you the headache of trying to memorize all the small details in the passage.

 

[ChemKitten3]

With the new exam you can highlight the passage. I found this very helpful on exam day. For me, I read half the passage quickly highlighting any key words that I felt like might become a question. Once I finished reading half, I jumped right into questions. As soon as I came across one that covered a topic I hadn't read I knew immediately it was in the second half of the passage and could better search for the answer.

This method I found to be the most helpful and best use of my time. I started out writing things down but noticed it slowed me down! Keep in mind you have 60 min for three passages. So I allowed 20 min for each. I usually took about 3min to quickly read and the rest to answer the questions. If I was stuck on one, I just marked it and moved on. I found myself finishing with time to review the marked questions.

Maybe try this method out, it worked wonders for me. I received a 22 on my reading section. Just eventually pick a method and keep practicing to improve your timing and accuracy.

Best of luck!

 

[Kristin1]

It's about strategy. It was my strongest section and bumped my score nicely.

Read the questions first. Look at the first few questions and start reading quickly. Now you know exactly what to look for. Go to the next few questions, answer the ones you know where to find because you read already, and continue reading and looking for the answers. Do this until you finish the passage. It saves you the headache of trying to memorize all the small details in the passage.

Thank you!
I tried it today and it didn't work for me. I got a 17. I will try something different tomorrow and the problem is I need to stick to a strategy and keep improving on it and getting comfortable but I am not being able to choose the right one.

 

[Kingfish23]

Search and destroy worked great for me.

Started off in Bootcamp RC with a 17 because of attempting to read the passage first. I used search and destroy for the next test and scored a 19, third test was a 24, fourth was a 23.

Actual DAT RC score was a 26. Every passage can be conquered with search and destroy, but it will depend on your ability to read fast and accurately.

 

[Kristin1]

Search and destroy worked great for me.

Started off in Bootcamp RC with a 17 because of attempting to read the passage first. I used search and destroy for the next test and scored a 19, third test was a 24, fourth was a 23.

Actual DAT RC score was a 26. Every passage can be conquered with search and destroy, but it will depend on your ability to read fast and accurately.

Wow that's amazing!
How did you do it? Like did u start reading the questions and looking for the answers? Or did you skimmed through the passage and then read questions and try to find the answers?

 

[Kingfish23]

Wow that's amazing!
How did you do it? Like did u start reading the questions and looking for the answers? Or did you skimmed through the passage and then read questions and try to find the answers?

Just read the title of the passage and went straight to the questions. I wouldn't even read the answer choices. I would just try to locate what the hell they were even talking about lol typically DAT passages are broken down into paragraphs with individual topics inside of them. Just find the paragraph about whatever the question is asking and then determine what the answer is. The hardest questions are statement/reason questions, and I only had 2 of them on my actual DAT that were pretty straight forward. I got very lucky on the actual DAT with my passages, as all 3 of them were on science topics that I had previous knowledge about.

However on Bootcamp RC I was able to utilize this strategy on passages with questions that were not in order of the paragraphs and achieve good scores.

 

[jya5ab]

With the new exam you can highlight the passage. I found this very helpful on exam day. For me, I read half the passage quickly highlighting any key words that I felt like might become a question. Once I finished reading half, I jumped right into questions. As soon as I came across one that covered a topic I hadn't read I knew immediately it was in the second half of the passage and could better search for the answer.

This method I found to be the most helpful and best use of my time. I started out writing things down but noticed it slowed me down! Keep in mind you have 60 min for three passages. So I allowed 20 min for each. I usually took about 3min to quickly read and the rest to answer the questions. If I was stuck on one, I just marked it and moved on. I found myself finishing with time to review the marked questions.

Maybe try this method out, it worked wonders for me. I received a 22 on my reading section. Just eventually pick a method and keep practicing to improve your timing and accuracy.

Best of luck!

@ChemKitten3 I'm thinking about using this method for the real exam, but have a question about the highlighting feature. I've read that only the highlighting that you've done on the very first page of the passage (before the questions) are carried over to the questions for that passage. If that's the case, using your method, how would you highlight the 2nd half of the passage so that it carries over to the rest of the questions? Would you have to go back to the first page of the passage, highlight, then go back to the question you were on? Sorry if my wording is confusing.

 

[ChemKitten3]

@ChemKitten3 I'm thinking about using this method for the real exam, but have a question about the highlighting feature. I've read that only the highlighting that you've done on the very first page of the passage (before the questions) are carried over to the questions for that passage. If that's the case, using your method, how would you highlight the 2nd half of the passage so that it carries over to the rest of the questions? Would you have to go back to the first page of the passage, highlight, then go back to the question you were on? Sorry if my wording is confusing.

Hi! Don't worry I know what you're talking about haha. So you are correct, whatever you highlight on the first page WILL carry over to the passage throughout all of the questions. If you highlight while on a specific question, let's say number 5, that highlighting will ONLY show on that question. It will not carry over to the remaining questions.

Therefore; if you want to highlight and have it viewable on any question, you must do it on the first page that contains just the entire passage.