Reading Help!

[TheDuce]

alright....im at my wits end with reading comprehension. What is the trick to doing half way decent on this section???? I got absolutely destroyed on my first pearson practice test. HELP!!! : )

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[arri]

alright....im at my wits end with reading comprehension. What is the trick to doing half way decent on this section???? I got absolutely destroyed on my first pearson practice test. HELP!!! : )

yes! please! can someone please provide some tips??!!!

 

[Binchen222]

yall are SOL. there arent any short and easy way to improve RC section lol. it is useless. so move on and try to see if yall can make it up the score by doing well on bio, chem and QA

 

[arri]

yall are SOL. there arent any short and easy way to improve RC section lol. it is useless. so move on and try to see if yall can make it up the score by doing well on bio, chem and QA

This is horrible advice. Why even post?

People who are naturally good at reading comprehension can offer some helpful tips that they use throughout their own exam. Reading comprehension CAN be improved with the right know-how and skill. Verbal is the section that is quite difficult to master in a short amount of time bc you don't know what words will be asked, you can memorize 1000 gre words but that doesn't always help bc you might be unlucky and none of them show up.

RC however requires a skillful task that can be applied if we knew what and how to use it.

I'm sorry not trying to argue or anything, I was just annoyed by your comment. Any advice is helpful

 

[TheDuce]

my problem is I don't know what approach to take...do I read the questions first then attack the reading or vice versa? I tend to read the passage.....go to the questions.....cant find a straight answer then I panic and end up guessing a ton.......ugh.....it seems like such an easy section but its not and it ends up screwing your composite score

 

[doctortp]

Well I can give you a little insight on how I approach it, the last time I got a 75 so not sure how good of a advice, but here's what I did. A lot of people will tell you and its true, Dr.Collins is not sufficient in RC. And others will say read a lot of scientific journals, but lets be realistic your pcat is coming up sooner than a couple years of constant reading.

In my opinion, and how I did it was, look over the questions for the first passage (usually taking about 1 minute or two) than read the parts of the passage you believe will help answer the question. There is always a question like, "this word means what in Paragraph 3". Or what is the main concept (which is in the beginning or ending of a passage). Time will definitely fly during the RC part just as the QA. Another option that I've approach this time around was using the MCATs examcrackers. They have a lot of helpful hints! Hope this helps, and good luck. I'll tell you how I do on Sept17 and if they new method words aha

 

[Binchen222]

This is horrible advice. Why even post?

People who are naturally good at reading comprehension can offer some helpful tips that they use throughout their own exam. Reading comprehension CAN be improved with the right know-how and skill. Verbal is the section that is quite difficult to master in a short amount of time bc you don't know what words will be asked, you can memorize 1000 gre words but that doesn't always help bc you might be unlucky and none of them show up.

RC however requires a skillful task that can be applied if we knew what and how to use it.

I'm sorry not trying to argue or anything, I was just annoyed by your comment. Any advice is helpful

haha it might not sound pleasant but it is a very realistic point. believe it or not. you can ask those people who took the pcat to see if they agree with me

 

[arri]

Well I can give you a little insight on how I approach it, the last time I got a 75 so not sure how good of a advice, but here's what I did. A lot of people will tell you and its true, Dr.Collins is not sufficient in RC. And others will say read a lot of scientific journals, but lets be realistic your pcat is coming up sooner than a couple years of constant reading.

In my opinion, and how I did it was, look over the questions for the first passage (usually taking about 1 minute or two) than read the parts of the passage you believe will help answer the question. There is always a question like, "this word means what in Paragraph 3". Or what is the main concept (which is in the beginning or ending of a passage). Time will definitely fly during the RC part just as the QA. Another option that I've approach this time around was using the MCATs examcrackers. They have a lot of helpful hints! Hope this helps, and good luck. I'll tell you how I do on Sept17 and if they new method words aha

Thanks!! This is helpful

 

[n611415]

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[winkelk01]

I'm ADDish, so I don't read the questions first. By the time I have read the passage, I've forgotten the exact questions...

I have found it best for me to skim the passage (moving your finger under the sentences as you read seems to speed up the reading speed), and then I answer the questions. If I need to do so, I quickly reference the passage to find the answer. You should probably try a few different strategies and find out what works best for you.

My scores:
Verbal: 412/68
Biology: 435/92
RC: 443/98
QA: 416/77
Chem: 438/93
Composite: 429/94

 

[aranza]

Are the lengths of the passages on the real PCAT almost the same length as the Pearson practice tests?

 

[ciestar]

My passages were about 7 paragraphs on average I'd say. I dont really have any real tips because quite honestly i did a lot better in RC than I thought I would

 

[Bear Rx]

I didn't do that great in reading comprehension (69) but my strategy was to quickly read through the entire passage while summarizing each paragraph in single sentence or a few words. This strategy helped since you can just skim over your paragraph summaries and figure out the passage as a whole for questions that require it. I felt like the only questions I got wrong were ones where I really didn't understand what they were asking for or ones with vocab words I didn't know.

 

[ciestar]

Weirdly worded questions is what tripped me up too. I surprisingly got an 81

I didn't do that great in reading comprehension (69) but my strategy was to quickly read through the entire passage while summarizing each paragraph in single sentence or a few words. This strategy helped since you can just skim over your paragraph summaries and figure out the passage as a whole for questions that require it. I felt like the only questions I got wrong were ones where I really didn't understand what they were asking for or ones with vocab words I didn't know.