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Hi all,
I've been preparing for the VR section for a while now, using EK101 and TPRH.
For the majority of the passages, I read it straight through (no highlighting, underlining, no taking notes on the side) and answer the questions. Often, I'm able to understand the passage, remember certain things about it, and know which paragraph to refer back to (in case I need to). My method has worked decently for me (mostly scoring 10s on EK). Occasionally, I will run into a passage that absolutely makes no sense. If I do, I will pause my timer, and re-read it again, using as much time as I need to understand it. While it might help, I'm trying to avoid doing this since I won't have all the time in the world to re-read it on the real exam.
Today, I was taking a string of verbal passages from EK101 and TPRH. On most, I missed 0-2 questions. However, there was one particular passage that I could not grasp. Under timed conditions, I tried to stick it out and answer the questions. I quickly checked my answers for this particular passage, and I missed 6 out of 7. I didn't mark the ones I missed nor did I check the answer explanations. Instead, I erased all my circled answers, closed the book, and took a lunch break, deciding that I will re-attempt the passage again.
After lunch, I went back to that particular passage. This time, I decided to do something drastic--on a piece of scrap paper, I decided to make a quick outline of each paragraph. For every paragraph, I wrote out a couple of sentences even with some bullets. I began to realize that I completely misunderstood the passage the first time. I then proceeded to answer the questions, which by the way I didn't even remember the correct answers from the answer key. This time, I only missed 2 out of 7.
I guess the technique I used can be called "passage mapping." I'm tempted to employ this technique when encountering difficult to read passages. I find this better than moving on to the next passage and saving the difficult passages at the end (passage ranking, if you will), since you will have to deal with it anyway.
My only hesitation is that I don't want to change my game, especially since my test is in one month. Fortunately, I still have a lot of verbal material left to practice, so if I do encounter such passages, I will practice mapping. I've noticed that it's the passages that aren't well organized/stuctured with technical or advanced vocabulary that are hard for me to read.
So my question is, do you guys do anything special for those particularly difficult passages?
I've been preparing for the VR section for a while now, using EK101 and TPRH.
For the majority of the passages, I read it straight through (no highlighting, underlining, no taking notes on the side) and answer the questions. Often, I'm able to understand the passage, remember certain things about it, and know which paragraph to refer back to (in case I need to). My method has worked decently for me (mostly scoring 10s on EK). Occasionally, I will run into a passage that absolutely makes no sense. If I do, I will pause my timer, and re-read it again, using as much time as I need to understand it. While it might help, I'm trying to avoid doing this since I won't have all the time in the world to re-read it on the real exam.
Today, I was taking a string of verbal passages from EK101 and TPRH. On most, I missed 0-2 questions. However, there was one particular passage that I could not grasp. Under timed conditions, I tried to stick it out and answer the questions. I quickly checked my answers for this particular passage, and I missed 6 out of 7. I didn't mark the ones I missed nor did I check the answer explanations. Instead, I erased all my circled answers, closed the book, and took a lunch break, deciding that I will re-attempt the passage again.
After lunch, I went back to that particular passage. This time, I decided to do something drastic--on a piece of scrap paper, I decided to make a quick outline of each paragraph. For every paragraph, I wrote out a couple of sentences even with some bullets. I began to realize that I completely misunderstood the passage the first time. I then proceeded to answer the questions, which by the way I didn't even remember the correct answers from the answer key. This time, I only missed 2 out of 7.
I guess the technique I used can be called "passage mapping." I'm tempted to employ this technique when encountering difficult to read passages. I find this better than moving on to the next passage and saving the difficult passages at the end (passage ranking, if you will), since you will have to deal with it anyway.
My only hesitation is that I don't want to change my game, especially since my test is in one month. Fortunately, I still have a lot of verbal material left to practice, so if I do encounter such passages, I will practice mapping. I've noticed that it's the passages that aren't well organized/stuctured with technical or advanced vocabulary that are hard for me to read.
So my question is, do you guys do anything special for those particularly difficult passages?
