RC section

[UCSD student123]

Hello,
So I took the DAT last summer and I got 17-19 in all of them beside the RC. I'm retaking the test in 20 days and I have been studying for a long time now, which helps me improve over all but not the RC.
Right now I don't know what to do with the RC section, English is not my native language and I have been practicing this section for over a month with zero improvements. I'm using Bootcamp (less than 15), and I have DAT genius too

Hellllllp me please

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[keep learning]

Have you tried to do BC test a second time to see any score improvement? My first time average score was only 16, but I could have an average of 19 when I practiced 2nd time. I think to understand what is passage talking about is very key to get a higher score.

 

[Predental4657]

Honestly, just read the passage and then do the questions. I just took my DAT today and did not practice/study reading once and got a 22. It was not as bad as bootcamp. All I do it read the passage then answer the questions and if need be look back in the passage to help me answer questions. It'll work!


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[Predental4657]

22 on the reading section that is***


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[surynguyen]

Hello,
So I took the DAT last summer and I got 17-19 in all of them beside the RC. I'm retaking the test in 20 days and I have been studying for a long time now, which helps me improve over all but not the RC.
Right now I don't know what to do with the RC section, English is not my native language and I have been practicing this section for over a month with zero improvements. I'm using Bootcamp (less than 15), and I have DAT genius too

Hellllllp me please

Hi!
I had the same problem when I first started RC in Bootcamp. I constantly got lower than 15 on my first 4 RC tests. I tried so many popular techniques that people use, but it never worked for me. It stressed me out so much to the point i thought i would never be able to pursue dental school. English is my second language so I understand where you coming from. One of the main reason I think is that because we are not native speaker, so some of the popular techniques such as search and destroy, or mapping would never work for us.
This is my main way to improve my reading score. I use Acceleread app to improve my reading speed. This app is amazing seriously. And for the test, I try to spend 20' for each passage and answering questions: read ENTIRE passage on the first screen in 10' (PLEASE use highlighter. I cant never stress how it helped me to answer the questions), and then another 10' for answering. Sometimes if i run over time for a passage or two, i would try to read faster for the next one, but remember: read ENTIRE passage fast before answering. Even if you dont understand what you read (can happen because we have to read fast), just keep moving forward. It will kinda come together after you read entire passage. My score on BC went up to 18, 19, then 20, and average at 19 for 5 tests. I took the real test yesterday, and i got 18 on BC. It is kinda bummer since i feel that i did really good on the science passage (the one people tend to think its the hardest) it was much easier than BC, and i was able to read and answer most of the questions of that passage in 20'. But my second passage talked about truth and professional code stuff which took me 25' to finish answering (it confused me so much with many psychological terms) and leave 15' for last one. Overall i woukd say RC on the real DAT is little bit easier than BC.
I stopped doing practicing RC test completely 2 weeks before the real DAT (going out of town for a friend's wedding and then realized that i need to focus more on other subjects after coming back) Dont be like me, keep doing practice RC tests, at least 1 test every 2 days so you dont forget the momentum. I'm satisfied with my 18 on RC (along with TS 22 and AA21) since RC score would make or break my test. At least it didnt break my test so I'm happy.

Besides, try to read 3 American Scientific articles daily. It would broaden your knowledge. Again, I strongly recommend using Acceleread app to practice your reading speed (its hard at first but I promise you will improve and read so much faster during 1 week even).
I'm the worst person when it came to reading In English, but it works for me. Hope it will work for you too! Good luck!

 

[FeralisExtremum]

What's your issue with RC - speed (i.e. not being able to finish reading the entire passage in time before answering questions) or just getting questions wrong because you can't track down the right answers?

As mentioned above, I think daily practice is critical - 3 Scientific American articles daily is a pretty good start. This helps improve your speed and endurance working through passages that are dense with fairly boring material. Finally, a big part of doing well on RC is just focus (and this is arguably the hardest area to improve in). You have to read every passage like every sentence is the most important thing in the world to prevent your eyes from just sliding off the page sometimes. The more you soak that information in, the better your retention will be for the questions.

 

[jya5ab]

RC is my worst section, and I've also tried all of the popular methods without success. I kept scoring 18-19 on BC. However, I tried something different this week and my scores have jumped up to 24+ and for the first time, I've had a few minutes to spare! This may not work for you if you're a slow reader, but it doesn't hurt to try if you haven't already...

1) Very quickly scan all of the questions for the passage FIRST. By "scan", I mean read the question quickly while looking for keywords/ideas and commit those keywords/ideas to your short-term memory. However, don't spend too much time doing this. If it's a tone/purpose question or if it doesn't have keywords/ideas that jump out at you right away, just move onto the next question.
2) Once you've read all of the questions, hit Review to go back to question #1 for that passage.
3) Read the passage quickly while looking for those keywords/ideas. When you run into one of those keywords/ideas, highlight it and pay special attention since you know there is a question about it. Highlight other things that sound important too, but be sure NOT to over-highlight b/c this makes it difficult to find things when you're answering questions.
4) Answer the questions! It should be easy to find the paragraph relating to each question since you highlighted most of those keywords/ideas.

This has worked for me because I know what to look for while I'm reading. Also it's helpful b/c if you're reading something in the passage that you know you did NOT see in the questions, you can kind of glance over that part (not skip, but just pay less attention), saving yourself time & energy.

 

[smilesandwaves]

I actually tried this method that you just mentioned, and its only working OK for me, but not great. do you write anything down?

 

[jya5ab]

I actually tried this method that you just mentioned, and its only working OK for me, but not great. do you write anything down?

I did at first. I would write down the keywords and mark the relevant paragraph # while I was reading, but I realized this took up too much time and was not worth it. Highlighting the keyword within the passage was sufficient. The time that it takes to find the highlighted word is much less than the time it takes to write down the word/write down the paragraph #/refer to this while answering questions.