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So there seems to be a lot of people who don't have a solid strategy for RC.
I'll post here again after I take my DAT tomorrow but with a recent 20 and 21 on achiever RC, I feel like I can confidently say that my method is pretty solid.
To sum it up, it's called multitasking.
You have around 17 questions per passage. You want to knock out all of them in under 20 minutes.
Right at the first passage, look at the first 2 questions, nothing more, -unless- either question is a tone/inference question. Look at the 3rd question, and regardless of what it is, remember a keyword about each of the 3 or 2 questions.
Then proceed to read. Usually, you'd want to start mapping out the passage in your mind, like for example, oh the first 2 paragraphs are thesis-oriented, then it goes into 5 supporting paragraphs, 2 counterexample paragraphs etc.
By the time you get around 1/3 of the way done (about 5 paragraphs at the most), you should have keywords that make you think of the first 2 questions. Go to the question or questions. Look at where the keyword is, and figure out what the answer is.
Then look at the next 2-3 questions again. This time, you might have found questions containing -other- keywords you recognize from reading the first 1/3 of the passage. Look at where the passage contains the keywords, answer the corresponding questions.
Keep looking/answering questions until you get 2-3 in total that you don't know. Like say, from question 1-6, I answered all but #2 and #5. That's enough, stop looking for new questions, keep reading.
Once you get another 1/3 done, look at the new questions as well as the old to see which ones you can answer. You should get to around question 10. Answer stuff.
Finish the passage, because at this time you kind of know what the passage is talking about and don't need to look ahead at new questions to S&D them. Answer all the questions.
The overall effect is this. Most of us do not have a photographic memory and even with a good recollection of where certain keywords are in the passage, 12-16 paragraphs is too long and the density per paragraph is too....dense. So then, we tend to go to the 2 extremes....either pure S&D without understanding what the passage is talking about, or pure reading which makes you risk a lot of time as well as the fact that you cannot memorize everything after reading 1 time.
However, with this method, you're basically telling yourself, okay I'm knocking out around 2 questions for every 1/3 passage that I'm reading, and chances are that there won't be anymore questions related to the same exact thing that those 2 questions covered. So you end up realizing that you're reading and answering at the same time, which will last until question 8 or so when you're done reading and have filtered out all the easy questions. Yes you spent maybe 2 minutes more than the pure reader, but the thing is you're 8 questions ahead and you probably have a better memory of the passage than the pure reader does, which will help you on the last 9 questions too.
This gives you confidence because it's a safer investment than pure S&D or pure reading. Practice this on some achiever or CDR readings (topscore and qvault are too easy) and with each try, you should gain more confidence about your reading speed and how you split your questions/passage amount (e.g. read 2 questions for every 3 paragraphs etc).
I'll be trying this on my DAT tomorrow, let you guys know how it goes. Questions?
I'll post here again after I take my DAT tomorrow but with a recent 20 and 21 on achiever RC, I feel like I can confidently say that my method is pretty solid.
To sum it up, it's called multitasking.
You have around 17 questions per passage. You want to knock out all of them in under 20 minutes.
Right at the first passage, look at the first 2 questions, nothing more, -unless- either question is a tone/inference question. Look at the 3rd question, and regardless of what it is, remember a keyword about each of the 3 or 2 questions.
Then proceed to read. Usually, you'd want to start mapping out the passage in your mind, like for example, oh the first 2 paragraphs are thesis-oriented, then it goes into 5 supporting paragraphs, 2 counterexample paragraphs etc.
By the time you get around 1/3 of the way done (about 5 paragraphs at the most), you should have keywords that make you think of the first 2 questions. Go to the question or questions. Look at where the keyword is, and figure out what the answer is.
Then look at the next 2-3 questions again. This time, you might have found questions containing -other- keywords you recognize from reading the first 1/3 of the passage. Look at where the passage contains the keywords, answer the corresponding questions.
Keep looking/answering questions until you get 2-3 in total that you don't know. Like say, from question 1-6, I answered all but #2 and #5. That's enough, stop looking for new questions, keep reading.
Once you get another 1/3 done, look at the new questions as well as the old to see which ones you can answer. You should get to around question 10. Answer stuff.
Finish the passage, because at this time you kind of know what the passage is talking about and don't need to look ahead at new questions to S&D them. Answer all the questions.
The overall effect is this. Most of us do not have a photographic memory and even with a good recollection of where certain keywords are in the passage, 12-16 paragraphs is too long and the density per paragraph is too....dense. So then, we tend to go to the 2 extremes....either pure S&D without understanding what the passage is talking about, or pure reading which makes you risk a lot of time as well as the fact that you cannot memorize everything after reading 1 time.
However, with this method, you're basically telling yourself, okay I'm knocking out around 2 questions for every 1/3 passage that I'm reading, and chances are that there won't be anymore questions related to the same exact thing that those 2 questions covered. So you end up realizing that you're reading and answering at the same time, which will last until question 8 or so when you're done reading and have filtered out all the easy questions. Yes you spent maybe 2 minutes more than the pure reader, but the thing is you're 8 questions ahead and you probably have a better memory of the passage than the pure reader does, which will help you on the last 9 questions too.
This gives you confidence because it's a safer investment than pure S&D or pure reading. Practice this on some achiever or CDR readings (topscore and qvault are too easy) and with each try, you should gain more confidence about your reading speed and how you split your questions/passage amount (e.g. read 2 questions for every 3 paragraphs etc).
I'll be trying this on my DAT tomorrow, let you guys know how it goes. Questions?
