Reading comprehension strategies

[kiiimmm]

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I am taking PCAT after 2 weeks, and I just started studying for Bio and Gen Chem.
I'm not going to study for reading comprehension because I know I won't improve on it in such a short period of time.
I am very very slow at reading, so I'm still really worried...
I did horribly on SAT reading comprehension section too 4 years ago......
I want to hear about some strategies for solving RC problems.
Should I read the entire passage and then solve the problems, or should I look at the problems and then read the passages?
Please share your strategies and what score you got/get on RC with those strategies.
Thank you very much! 🙂

 

[Dradzz]

RC was definitely the hardest section for me, but to prepare for it I read a few novels in the months before my test (some read journal articles or the newspaper).

The biggest thing is finishing on time. Some of the passages are extremely boring and hard to get through. I recommend skipping those that you do not quite understand and move on to the ones that are easier to decipher. I did that, and had enough time to get through the majority of the passages. I had to guess on approx 4 questions from a harder passage.

Quick tip, the thesis of most writing is found at the end of the intro. P.S finished with 86 PR on RC.

 

[SClENCE]

What I did was read the passage first, then answer the questions, referring back to the passage when necessary.

I don't see any other "strategy" that can be used aside from the method of reading the questions first which I don't find helpful

I got an 87 on RC

 

[Thestrugglez]

The most efficient method (for me) is skimming the questions first and answering the ones that are paragraph specific (E.g. definition questions). Once you have answered those, briefly gloss over the rest of the questions before reading the passage. Note: should never read the whole passage more than once. For any questions that you can't figure out, pick the best choice and move on. Odds are, you won't have enough time to go back over any of them (I finished with about 2 minutes to spare) and even if you do, you won't remember the passage.

97 on RC