Reading comprehension w/o really reading...

[ryry]

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So I took the Kaplan course and they told me to do the "mapping" strategy where you write down the key words and such on your white board and mark which paragraph it came from.

I always felt like I was writing down too much and end up spending more time than i would have if i just read the passage w/o doing the mapping.

for last couple days, i tried just answering questions straight up w/o really reading the passage, i.e. look up the keywords from the questions in the passage and surprisingly, i've been doing better than i did before (19 to 22/23 on TopScore + Kaplan).

anyone having this experience?

i am just confused whether Kaplan is teaching a good strategy and im just not following it well.
I got 6 days to decide if i should do the mapping or stick with my new "unorthodox" method!

 

[PooyaH]

So I took the Kaplan course and they told me to do the "mapping" strategy where you write down the key words and such on your white board and mark which paragraph it came from.

I always felt like I was writing down too much and end up spending more time than i would have if i just read the passage w/o doing the mapping.

for last couple days, i tried just answering questions straight up w/o really reading the passage, i.e. look up the keywords from the questions in the passage and surprisingly, i've been doing better than i did before (19 to 22/23 on TopScore + Kaplan).

anyone having this experience?

i am just confused whether Kaplan is teaching a good strategy and im just not following it well.
I got 6 days to decided if i should do the mapping or stick with my new "unorthodox" method!

No I think you're on the right track! I took Kaplan and I always ran out of time with their strategy! But I'm just not good at reading to begin with but whichever method helps you the most, go with that!!!

 

[efficient]

Hey man,
I took the kaplan program and their mapping strategy does not work. I did what you did and did well on the actual dat. I got a 23 on reading comprehension. My advice, Just read the passage really quickly in less than 3 minutes and then tackle the questions.

 

[Electrons]

So I took the Kaplan course and they told me to do the "mapping" strategy where you write down the key words and such on your white board and mark which paragraph it came from.

I always felt like I was writing down too much and end up spending more time than i would have if i just read the passage w/o doing the mapping.

for last couple days, i tried just answering questions straight up w/o really reading the passage, i.e. look up the keywords from the questions in the passage and surprisingly, i've been doing better than i did before (19 to 22/23 on TopScore + Kaplan).

anyone having this experience?

i am just confused whether Kaplan is teaching a good strategy and im just not following it well.
I got 6 days to decide if i should do the mapping or stick with my new "unorthodox" method!

Yes I experience some of this too, but not by alot.

Did you skip reading the rest of the paragraph when you spot the answer or still read some so you don't have to read it later?

 

[mddang]

I took the DAT on July 2, and I got a 28 on RC.

I read so little that I couldn't even remember (not until 3 days later.. I still don't remember what one of them is about) what the passages were about. I went straight for the answers, and I ended up with 10 minutes at the end to check allll my answers.

 

[Electrons]

I took the DAT on July 2, and I got a 28 on RC.

I read so little that I couldn't even remember (not until 3 days later.. I still don't remember what one of them is about) what the passages were about. I went straight for the answers, and I ended up with 10 minutes at the end to check allll my answers.

Yea you have crazy score. 🙂 Let's say the answer is roughly near the start of the paragraph, upon finding it, did you skip reading the rest or still finish the paragraph?

 

[Andrew324]

Yeah I dont know, everyone does it differently.

The people who go straight to the questions like it that way. They say its faster and better. I am not a big fan of doing it this way though. I dont get the tone of the passage as well, and its hard to find certain facts in long passages. I would love to hear exactly how they do this, keyword in the question and then skim the passage until they see it and go from there, but its never worked well for me.

I like reading the passage quickly, then going to the questions.

 

[mddang]

I would spend 20 or 30 seconds trying to find the answer to a single question. If I don't find it then, I skip it and search for the answer for the next question. While trying to find the answer for the second question, I usually come up on the answer to the first question. This was the basis of my strategy.

For the one tone question that I got, the first paragraph and the last paragraph were enough to answer it, but it depends on what you like to do and which passages are thrown at you.

 

[marmar]

well funny cuz I had the same problem and today I started doing the same thing and I did better not as good as you but a lot better than before. the thing is the info in the reading section is too much for mapping. you can not possibly do the mapping fast enough. I would stick to the directly answering.

 

[Andrew324]

I know part of the reason I do it my way, reading the entire paragraph first, is that it makes me more confident for the questions. When I go straight to the questions without reading the paragraph I get more nervous because I dont know what its about or where to start looking for things...and when I skip over one it adds to the feeling, we all do it differently though

 

[iSmile5]

I too took the Kaplan course and hated their mapping method, I never had enough time to finish. When I took the DAT I used the search and destroy method, basically just looked for answers, and it got me a 19. I had practically the same scores as you on reading for Kaplan/Topscore practice exams so if you are ok with around a 19 then stick with the search and destroy!

 

[Kotik]

i tried Kaplan strategy too.... never finish on time!!! 🙁
How did you prepare for reading?... did you read passage/day?

 

[2pound]

i used kaplan road map got a 16 on my first DAT. Got a an 18 on the second. i usually scored higher than 18 on practice Topscore and achiever, but got really nervous and messed up with an 18. I agree along with others. skim read 3 mins and search for keywrods.

forget kaplan's roadmap! you just dont have time to be writing a bunch of things down, at the same time looking up and down as you read and write.

 

[berze]

I followed the KAPLAN course roadmap strategy and received a 28 on the reading comp. I've always been a strong reader and that may have helped, but I think their strategy is good. Some of the questions ask for the author's overall tone in the passage, and that is a "shot in the dark" answer if you just look for keywords and don't read it.

 

[peerless218]

SEARCH AND DESTROY!!! Go straight to the answers and then locate the KEYWORDS. This technique will work on MOST passages except for the TONE question ones. I did Kaplan's method and NEVER got above an 18 even on the practice test and a 15 on the real DAT the 1st try. Then I switched over to search and destroy and averaged about a 21 on rest of the practice tests. Then I got to the real test and got pianoed, so I ended it up with a 19 on my real DAT.

 

[ddsjc2014]

How many paragraphs on each passage??

 

[teedoff00]

I took the DAT last year with a score of 27 on the reading comp. I would suggest a mixture of Kaplans roadmapping and search and destroy. I started the passages by reading the first question and then started skimming the passage, writing down 2-4 words for each paragraph (keywords) and as soon as I found the answer to the first question answered it and moved to the second question, answered it if possible or refer back to my "map" if still no, then continue skimming the passage and writing down a few key words.

I find that you tend to get nervous when the clock starts ticking for real and a few key words can save you when you are on the 2nd or 3rd passage and everything starts to run to together.

 

[mikexima]

I took the DAT on July 2, and I got a 28 on RC.

I read so little that I couldn't even remember (not until 3 days later.. I still don't remember what one of them is about) what the passages were about. I went straight for the answers, and I ended up with 10 minutes at the end to check allll my answers.

i did this twice, and i got 15's and 16's.... i guess its just getting lucky enough to spot the key word you're looking for.

 

[Vicviper]

I had the exact same experience, Kaplan RC's Mapping thing did not work well for me at all! I was getting like 18/19 tops, but then when I came up with my own RC strategy of SnD, I instantly shot up to a 28-29, and I managed to get a 30 on the real deal. Not to say that any particular strategy is best, and that any strategy will work well for anyone - you have to find the way that works best for you, but if you're interested in reading my strategy, I've got it very detailed in a post called "Vicviper's RC Strategy" or something along those lines... it was a while ago, haha. Good luck, and find what works best for you, but the silly Kaplan mapping didn't work for me at all!

 

[Maygyver]

I'm just curious how difficult is it to search through the passage with it being on screen? So far the reading practice I've done has been in a Kaplan book so it's a lot different than having to navigate through the passages on the computer.

 

[Vicviper]

I'm just curious how difficult is it to search through the passage with it being on screen? So far the reading practice I've done has been in a Kaplan book so it's a lot different than having to navigate through the passages on the computer.

It's a tad harder since you can't trace along with your finger well at all, but you get used to it pretty fast.

 

[kaderoju]

If I'm correct, when you are reading a passage fro the 1st time, it's on a fill screen so u'll be able to scroll down the screen without any problems but then once u start answering questions, the passage will now be above the question being asked so if you dont remember something you can just scroll through the passage while searching for the key word of the question. What I usually do is I read the entire passage 1st and then i tackle the questions. And i only refer back to the text only as a LAST resort

 

[Vokalyzd]

RC is really dependent on how fast of a reader you are (sorry for the obvious answer). I took Kaplan too but I read relatively quickly so my approach has been mapping/skimming rather just mapping. I mapped out every paragraph on my practice tests and it serves as confirmation for answers. When I read the questions and pick out keywords, I tend to remember if I wrote them down or not. If i haven't, S and D. I think combination of Mapping/S and D works really really well for me and I generally finish my practice tests with 5 minutes to spare per question. I'm averaging 23-24 on Kaplan's practice tests and I miss questions which the answers are spread out in multiple paragraphs. Good luck!

 

[dentalWorks]

Me = took the DAT with very minimal RC studying

reason for that is... I took a few practice RC passages and I SUCKED so bad (averaged 14-16). Demoralized me and decided to "wing it" come test day. Just let my instincts answer the questions, no S&D, no mapping, nothing....... Ended up with a 19 on the real deal and been happy about it ever since