Anyone actually use the summary techniques on RC?

Question

I read all these summary techniques for RC that I should be creating a outline or sketch of the passage and NEVER actually reading it completely. Has anyone actually used this approach and been successful?

dabots · Answer

personally those techniques never work for me. i spend more time trying to follow a framework than its work. better to just read it over once and get a good grasp of the whole passage. im not a fast reader either.

jimmyjamesdonkey · Answer

I agree with that statement. Rewriting lists of words that are already on the screen seems like a waste of time. Points are received answering questions, not writing notes. I can see the value of making a brief outline on a long section, but otherwise I think it might be a waste of time.

baer · Answer

I'm sure it works for a lot of people, especially after seeing how well it worked for Rhyme, however I feel that the hardest RC questions ask for too much detail that's buried in extremely dense writing. I don't know how any summation method would solve this problem. 

 I acutally spent a week trying various summary methods, and I always found myself going back to the passage on a few questions.

jimmyjamesdonkey · Answer

Verbal as a whole is really a crap shoot. If you get stuck answer all SC questions in the first 10, you are kind of screwed and locking in a low score. I guess, unless you get them right but good luck with that

baer · Answer

I don't know, I would think the algorithm is a bit more sophistocated than that. I'm sure it waits till you have a decent assortment of RC, SC, and CR before it pegs you on a track. Maybe like 4 of each that aren't experimental.

jimmyjamesdonkey · Answer

Are experimental questions on average always the hardest?

baer · Answer

I don't see why they would be. I think they are questions that GMAT are looking to get sufficient sample information for. GMAT rates the level of difficulty on questions by seeing statistically what % of people get them right. The experimental questions are the ones that they are gathering date on.

jimmyjamesdonkey · Answer

I've always heard that if you come across a question that looks strange, out of place, and hard chances are it is a experimental and not to let it throw you.

baer · Answer

I doubt that... on my test, I had no idea what was experimental. Every question looked like it belonged. Maybe one or two looked a bit weird, but that's probably a figment of the imagination.

plaguerabbit · Answer

so baer, do you think that the verbal section is scored differently from the quant section because its hard to gauge how difficult a verbal question is?

I ask this because when I did the OG, in the quant section i pretty much got the first 2/3 of the problems for PS and DS correct. Not until I hit the last 3/4 did I begin having trouble.

However, for the verbal section I pretty much got problems wrong consistently. The OG claims to have ordered the questions from easy to difficult, but i really cant see any differences in the problems. In the quant section, you know when you have a tough problem, but in CR, for example, it's just a matter of whether you're thinking along the same lines as the test writers are thinking.

This leaves me a little worried that I'm gonna get a couple weird questions in the first 5-10 in verbal. If i screw em up, that pretty much destroys my score for verbal.

oh and yeah, i dont buy the whole summary thing for RC if you want to get a top verbal score. it seems to be the method that PR and other courses teach and i cant see any way that you can solve one of those "which of the following statements would the author most likely agree with" questions without really reading through and understanding the passage.

baer · Answer

From what I've heard, GMAT ranks questions based on how many people get them right. This way, question difficulty is not arbitrary. 

 For example if 90% of test takers get a particular question wrong, then it's a tough questions regardless of what you may think. The question might be easy, but it might have a twist that induces many wrong answers. For example, think of a math question where a simple sign change would cause you to get it wrong, or a decimal question where you could be off by an order of magnitude very easily.

jimmyjamesdonkey · Answer

Reply to that is -- Then how do the PR tests and etc judge scoring with nothing to compare it to?

anonymousegmat · Answer

I get nearly 100% of RC questions right on my CAT's and I never jot down any notes... (granted I am scoring 37-41 on Verbal b/c SC and CR are weaker so they arent the toughest RC questions)

personally, it just wastes too much time for me to even bother... i am either able to answer the question right away or not. If i can't answer it right away then i have to skim the passage to look for an answer (i.e. they are asking for something specific) and the answer wouldn't be in my notes that's anyway.

just my 2cents

oh and i know some test prep companies tell you to not waste time reading the entire passage and just note the 'sign posts and trigger words). that is complete bullocks. take the 2-4 minutes to read the passage clarefully and you will be able to bang out most of the questions relatively quickly (i.e. in almost as much time as it takes you to read all of the answer choices.)

bsd_lover · Answer

Cant agree with you more anonymouse , as I mentioned on my debrief. Its a one off investment. Get used to reading in depth and really concentrating for for 3-4 minutes because once you have done that you can knock of 3-4 questions in the next 2 minutes. Total time spent will be 1.5 mts max on each question +- .5 minutes.

Any fancy short cut is just a way for these companies to make the extra dollar.

dabots · Answer

people who sign up for kaplan or buy their materials want to think they are buying some magic formula or framework. they arent paying money to hear "read the passage. answer the questions"

trahul4 · Answer

I agree with anony.. writing down notes wont help much atleast for me .. i believe if you can concentrate well for 3-4 minutes , read nd understand passage .. then you have a better chance .. 
Upon this , if you have a good memory power then i fell this strategy will really help instead of writing notes ..

just see whichever strategy fits you best and practice.. as someone mentioned here the more you practice you will start getting that amazing kind of instinct which will guide you . its working for me at least ..

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Anyone actually use the summary techniques on RC?

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