I'd like to share some my thoughts that bother me last time. I've found that I can remember some CR and RC for a long time and only a few words are enough to recall all passages and even answers on questions. But sometimes I cannot recall main information even after repeat reading. This phenomenon enforced me to recall an old psychological trick.

Once my friend in the school said me that he had an unique memory and can remember any 50 words that I would tell him. I thought it was a joke, but to my great surprise he repeated all 50 words in the same sequence without any mistakes! After this amazing show he told me a secret..... Maybe somebody want to try? no more than 2 sec per word to remember

35 words: ~1 min.

pear, car, church, mixer, notebook, parachute, cheese, luster, chief, Sun, bug, hair, water, house, cat, MBA, brick, elephant, death, library, hole, book, dean, dinosaur, soldier, cherry, shop, bus, window, rat, ball, food, iPod, salary, table.

minimize the window with the post and write out all words in the same sequence....
.....................................

are there no mistakes? Congrats, you are a brilliant man!!! Do not read next text.

I will tell you later the secret of the perfect memory and my thoughts about relation between this trick and GMAT RC/CR.....

Yours Walker
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Michaelny2001, give me please a few hours, maybe anybody has such perfect memory
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curious to know the trick..

I completely agree, the words should make sense to you, as if the author is narrating the story. Else it is a collection of words and structured in an organised fashion.

Until you are able to think they way author is and get involved, making logical sense of the whole para would be a very daunting task. If you understand the story, it is easy to work out the interpretation and hence create a memory.

Good point walker!!

+1 , yea that makes a lot of sense. Put the stem in your own words as you read (paraphrase) but as you do this exagerate or emphasize key words that you don't miss. For example, ALL of the people have brown hair, SOME have blue eyes. In your mind increase the volume whenever these limiting words come to you. After you do this as you read, go back and read it again quickly in your mind and reverse, so SOME have blue, ALL have brown.

Just an example for CR to help ingrain the stem in your head for those 2 minutes

damn i only remembered 20 of these words...

Yeah, it is a nice trick.. I was told about it at Uni.. I have never tried it though. But I think it works.

I was talking to my friend the other day. She said she did some test on reading and did almost all questions correct. Though she did not get what it was all about. Trick - She is a math-lover. And she said that she was simply using connections between the words in the questions and in the passage..She treated the passage like a math problem.. I did not try the approach.. I think it is similar to the one described in the other post: to scan for Key Words and use them to answer questions.

Some more thoughts on RC... (do not organize your AWA this way )

As for me to get the idea is the most important . LSAT passages are great help here. Frankly, GMAT passages are not that difficult when you go through LSAT RC sections. I was very frustrated at the beginning, cause some are pretty tough.. and I made lots mistakes. I remember one passage I could not get until I actually read the explanation to it.
In LSAT reading section there are 4 passages (mostly long ones) and 35 minutes to finish (about 26-28 questions in general). But after some days of constant practice GMAT passages do not seem to be that bad at all. Practice is the best here.. It truly is.
So, if you have time try that also.

Oh, and some more tips
1.I do make notes (very quick ones and mostly for the main paragraph). I never get back to them (trying to understand what I wrote can take too much time ). But they are helpful cause you actually remember them.
2. Speed reading is must. Improve here. I have some docs I found on other forums and web sites. So if anybody needs them, let me know.. I will also try to go through them and organize a bit in the next couple of days.
3. Close reading is indeed very helpful. And it does work when you read close. Personally, I like those passages. They are cool. You can learn smth new from them

P.S. I actually noticed that RC and CR indeed stay in memory for a long time.. Sentence corrections... unless you missed something in the explanation before you will probably repeat your mistake.. So, I would suggest practice SC until you know you got the trick but pick new CR problems and RC passages for practice.

Best of luck to everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chica, thanks for your post! (+1)

I would be very much obliged to you if you share the docs with us
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The People Who Are Crazy Enough to Think They Can Change the World, Are the Ones Who Do.

Here you go..
I added to one doc the most intersting and valuable tips on RC and speed reading (you can find most of them on the ScoreTop forum- the links are attached)

Hope, this will be of some help.

Hey Walker, it is long time to see you!


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