Reading Comprehension Strategy: Search and Destroy

[Murraculous]

A quick tip on the RC section of the DAT: Search and Destroy

Paragraphs are numbered, therefore:
–As you quickly skim the passage, write down a brief (1-4 words) summary and keywords of each paragraph.
–The list you make should help you quickly find the answer to each question by identifying the paragraph it is in or near.
–Remember
•What is the question asking for?
•Where am I most likely going to find the answer?
–In some cases, the answer won’t be in the location that seemed most likely, and you may have to quickly skim the entire passage for a key word or phrase from the question or answer choices. If you still can’t find the answer, then guess, mark, move on, and come back later if you have extra time.

Best of luck!

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[malikhind]

Is it a good strategy to read the questions before reading the passage?

 

[stressedscholar]

Is it a good strategy to read the questions before reading the passage?

What I did was during a new article, there would be an entire page of just the passage. I would read this entire page (about 5-7 paragraphs) quickly and use the highlight function to mark key terms, names, dates, definitions, etc. I was not reading to fully understand, but skimmed more to get a feel for what each paragraph was talking about and where terms were located. Then I would click next and when a question popped up regarding a certain term, I would already know where the term was and answer the question from there. If I didn't quite remember where the term was, I would skim only the parts I highlighted and I would remember what the paragraph was about so I could go through the article rather quickly.

When I got to a few questions in a row I had no idea about, then I would continue reading the article again highlighting key words and would repeat the process until I was completely done with the article.

TIP: If you are unsure about a question, if it's just a little bit, I would mark the question. At the end of the page, you can only go through all the marked questions or all 50 questions. I remember I had a question I was unsure about towards the end of the section but didn't mark it and had to go through every single article and question before I was able to access it again.

 

[Murraculous]

Is it a good strategy to read the questions before reading the passage?

I experimented with this strategy and it didn’t work as well for me. I preferred to skim the passage before looking at questions. But you should definitely experiment with practice exams to find the strategy that works best for you.