crisronaldo wrote:
Appreciated for your sharing experience.
I think my main problem is the time pressure under the test. Basically, I could get accuracy around 80% given on normal time 2.5 -3 minutes per question. But given under my target time 1.5-2 minutes per question, I usually get wrong answer. In my side, the reason is due to given targeted short time, I can’t understand fully the scope of argument or unsure and not confident that whether my understanding on scope or reasoning of argument is correct or not. As such, I need an advice how to improve my accuracy under the target time.
I have found that your practice approach that finds out the pattern of CR question type by dividing in into 7-8 types which is really similar to my approach that I had done so far. As such, I think your advice could help me a lot to improve my CR skill because of similar approach to break this test.
1. I also did summary my note by myself which divided 7-8 types of CR type given 200 questions. It’s really appreciated if you can look overview on my note, share your experience, give comment on my summary note and assess whether it is appropriate not. If not appropriate, pls help to me give advice. It’s more convince if I send my summary note to your private email.
2. Given my problem under the targeted time, could you please give me other advice to deal with it.
Look forward to your response. Thanks a lot bro!
crisronaldo wrote:
Hi Van Dang,
Hope you are still well!
I have a problem with Reading Comprehensive question type which is my most weakest skill. I could usually get low accuracy 30-60% on RC. To me, my accuracy rate mainly depends on my prior knowledge with that topic. Furthermore, I spend a lot of time to deal with unfamiliar topics such as American history ( from when Bristish came), about Native American, African American Slavery, The Great Depression, Civil War, Women's right, suffrage movement, OR Black Hole, the origin of Universe, Galaxy..., and usually can not find out the structure of those passages.
I have read a few information you have shared on your RD strategy, but some my concerns are really needed your advice:
1. Could you share your experience what's your initial problems you struggle in RD questions and how you overcome them?
2. For unfamiliar topics, what's your solution to deal with?
3. Do I need to invest time to have an knowledge basic of unfamiliar topics or should I practice with the RD strategy you have shared?
4. In your RD strategy, you mention on "skimming". I mean your skimming that for example: when we see linking word of example, we can guess the relationship of the example to support the previous sentence, therefore, we do not take time to read the whole example. Skimming that means only read important sentence and do not take time to read unimportant sentence as possible. Is it correct?
5. How can we dealt with "detail" question type that do not mention the location of passage if we do not read the whole paragraph?
6. Based your experience, is there any similar/difference between different of topics: economics, humanities, science, biology, social. What is the approach to these kind of topics (the same or different kind of approach?)
Although I try hard to solve many RD passages but can not improve my accuracy anymore
. Really need to your advice! Hope to look forward to your response. Many thanks bro!
Sorry for the late reply. I've been busy applying for scholarship.
1. Regarding the timing: I found that SC should take you only around 1 min only. You follow this strategy: Read the original sentence very carefully, identify the mistake (if any), move on to answer, eliminate the answer with the same mistake as the original, eliminate S-V agreement issue, plural-singular issue, tense. Compare the rest for differences and choose the most correct. Spending too much time on SC will not help you, so don't.
The time you save from SC will be used for CR and RC. To practice with a timing, you should group 10 SC sentence together and try to solve them under 12 mins, 10 CR is 20 mins, and ~12 RC should be 25 (2 reading passage usually have around 12 questions).
2. For RC:My initial problem is actually infer question. It took a lot of time to find the correct paragraph and sometime I got too focus on that paragraph and forget the role of the information in the passage as a whole --> wrong infer. I also don't do too well on question asking what is the tone (as non-native most of the adjective they give are unfamiliar to me and I just guess their meaning based on the word root)
Don't bother reading on unfamiliar topic, there is too many that you can never possibly cover enough of them to make a difference. The topic of the question should not matter to you. I believe GMAT is trying to replicate the fact that MBA grad might find themselves working in unfamiliar industry.
For Reading passage: the theme usually fall into some of the following: describe a historical event/finding/research (usually will compare it to old research/finding/assumption, point out its influence/effect), praise/dispute a finding/policy (usually will list out who praise/dispute)... There are three tone: Neutral, Positive, or Negative.
When you skim through the passage, try to identify three information: what type of topic is this (economic, history, biography...), what theme is this (describe, praise, dispute), and what tone is this (neutral, positive, negative). Plus you should have a good overview of the structure of the passage + position of people/organization name (they are often Capital).
A good thing about RC question is that they often follow the passage. The 1st and 2nd question could be about paragraph 1; 3rd and 4th could be about paragraph 2 for example. So if you are asked a detail question, start from the information you need to answer the previous question and go down from there. You will have the best chance that way.
A tricky part of RC is the first question is usually about the general topic of the passage. In which case, you skim more carefully, you will most likely read at least a few sentence each passage. I always make a point of skipping any part that is example or extra information to clarify a point stated in previous sentence. If you are unfamiliar with skimming, I suggest you started this way. Just avoid reading any part that seems like example or extra information supporting previous point. When you get more use to it you will be able to skim better.
There is a few difference between subjects. Most of them is about the tone. Economics, biography, and sciences are mostly neutral tone. Social and humanity (art include) are often positive or negative. Other than that I don't found dividing them into topic help me much. Each subject is so wide that most of the time they don't resemble each other much.
If you found you can't improved your RC score then try to switch it up. Normally my strategy for reading order is question - passage - answer. However, for RC, question - answer - passage usually have similar result. The second order allows you to predict what type of information you will find in the passage but have the draw back that you will read 5 different answer which will clouded you mind a bit. However, I've seen people more successful with this strategy. You should test both and see which one fit you best. REMEMBER, this is only for RC. For CR, it is always question - passage - answer.
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31 Mar 2015, 22:03
