Reading Comp?? How to improve score??

[DawgOD]

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Hello Everyone!!

I am taking the OAT on August 11...

I have been studying my butt off w/ different material (ie OAT Destroyer, Organic Chem I As a Second Language, Nova MCAT Physics Book), and I want to make sure I do well...

Well the one portion I do want to do well on, is reading comprehension. I need some study tips on how to prepare for it. Any tips? Suggestions?

I would really hate to do well in the other sections, and bomb something that seems so easy as reading comprehension.. Don't wanna have to answer that question as to why I think that happened at an interview. lol.

 

[jymezg]

The method for RC is up to you: Read the questions first, Read the article first, blah, blah, do whatever you feel most comfortable with...to each is own.

My tip for doing well in the RC is to read tough technical articles. Start out with some Science, Nature, JAMA, AJS, ect. This will naturally get your vocab up and you can learn to decipher through and get main ideas, relevant details, and all that good stuff.

It helps if you use really lame articles you don't find the least bit interesting, this will more accurately simulate the test. 😎

 

[mathcod]

Yea, RC made me really anxious, and was my perceived worst subject (actually it was). I used the kaplan 09-10 test book and stunk at its RC, scoring in the 310s and not even finishing the last passage. The passages okay reads that made logical sense, but the questions were very hard, looking at one-liners more than the overall picture.

I thought the real OAT passages were so much easier (written at what seemed like a popular press article for a highschool audience). I first did the read the whole passage and then answer the questions but I didn't like it (spent half my time on the first passage, was afraid i was going to run out of time, I finished in the last 5 seconds), and later adopted the read question first then hunt for it approach (much better imo).

To practice, I wouldn't read overly technical papers like research publications. I don't even think you can really practice. The passages felt on par with a highschool exit exam, except it is science-oriented and can be a little tougher if you don't know what the terms used are (in which case you can easily employ context clues and get back on track).

 

[TJohn7]

The way I prepared for this part of this exam was to come up with a specific strategy, which got me a 390. The way I did it was to read the whole passage first, before looking at the questions. While doing this I used my piece of paper to write down what each paragraph was about (main idea, key names, years). Each paragraph is numbered on the exam, so I also numbered my sheet. This really made the process of finding answers to questions a breeze. I should mention that I didn't completely read each paragraph or try to memorize, just got the main idea and wrote down what caught my eye. This way it only took me 4-6 minutes to read each passage, leaving 10-12 minutes to answer the 13-14 questions per passage.

 

[DawgOD]

So i guess its more so strategy than anything with Reading Comprehension..

 

[mathcod]

I'm sure as college kids, we know how to read and comprehend what we read (assuming we aren't ESL students), however we all read at different rates, and this test wants us to be fast about it.

It is pretty much strategy in my opinion. Reading comprehension isn't something that you can easily practice. Like building a vocabulary or learning a language, it takes time and lots of encounters to get better.