Timing strategy

[Jo07]

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I'm wondering what strategies you guys have used for reading...especially with the tone questions. Reading the whole thing at once is a no go for me bc I have a bad memory with that sort of thing.

On practice tests it has mostly been finding the answer... so I go to the questions first and then search it out. But on the real thing should I skim/outline first so that I can get info easily for the tone questions? What time frame do you allow?

 

[dental0903]

I think its a good idea to at least skim or very quickly read the passage before going to the questions. I always tried to quickly read the passage in 8 minutes or less writing down a few key words per paragraph. Then, I moved on the questions. I just went back to the passage for the detail questions, but for the tone questions I would just answer based on my memory of the passage as a whole and then mark those questions to come back to if I had time at the end.

I also kept track of my time on each passage as a whole. I moved on to the next passage after 20 minutes unless I had just 1 or 2 questions to go. Yeah, it sucks to come back to questions after you've already done 1-2 other passages, but it sucks a lot less than being flustered because you don't have enough time on your last passage. Hope this helps!

 

[Mstoothlady2012]

I'm wondering what strategies you guys have used for reading...especially with the tone questions. Reading the whole thing at once is a no go for me bc I have a bad memory with that sort of thing.

On practice tests it has mostly been finding the answer... so I go to the questions first and then search it out. But on the real thing should I skim/outline first so that I can get info easily for the tone questions? What time frame do you allow?

well you really dont have to memorize the passage so even if you have bad short term memory its ok! but you need to understand the passage... and write down the key words from the passage. That way you can answer the "straight from passage" questions by going back to the passage (ofcourse you dont have to memorize all the facts) and the tone questions you can answer almost without going back to the passage if you understand it.