Bailing on a whole RC passage?

Question

Hi there,

I struggle with RC and as I'm good in SC and CR, I think about just bailing on all RC questions ONLY if I dont understand the passage. The thing is, in some CATs I had so difficult RC passages that I got all questions wrong anyways, so I thought why not just guessing immediately. That means I will still answer RC passage questions that are easier. I saw that I got more dofficult questions in RC than in SC and CR in all my CATs, idk why, maybe just bad luck?

I will have my GMAT exam next week and will try this strategy tomorrow in another CAT.

What do you guys think about this strategy? Anyone with a similar issue or approach?

Raxit85 · Answer

As exam is approaching in next week, don't try to change your your strategy radically. It will be tough to identify level of difficulty in real exam, so don't try to gauge the same even in CATS, instead try to be natural (as you've been till date, with minor changes in strategy). All the best.

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AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  luis1 . I concur with what has been said above. A radical shift in your approach to RC may backfire at this point in your preparation. I would, however, suggest that you look to shore up your weaknesses rather than randomly guess on an entire passage. Learn to identify detail questions, for instance, so that even without reading the entire passage for meaning, you can still pick out those questions to target. An example of such a question is one with the tag, "According to the passage." I would also recommend checking out the  Ultimate RC Guide for Beginners  by resident Expert  GMATNinja  for useful tips.

Finally, what was the source of these CATs you have been taking? Some RC passages by third-party companies can run a little harder or seem somewhat off if you are used to practicing with official material. If such were the case here, you could be crafting a shaky RC strategy based on sub-standard material.

Good luck with your preparation in the next week.

- Andrew

ayushkumar22941 · Answer

donot change anything by much in last minute before your gmat . just forget about your performance in mocks and give gmat with free brain .

LIBERTYRodP · Answer

Bailing on a whole RC passage is a delicate matter. First, you must take into account that the exam's algorithm heavily penalizes series of incorrect answers. And if you guess all the 3 o 4 questions associated with a passage, you run the risk of getting up to 4 incorrect answers in a row! That's catastrophic. Second, it depends where the RC passage is at. The first questions of the exam are used to gauge your level, so I would definitely advice against guessing a whole RC passage if that passage appears within the first 10 questions.

Best,

Rod

Luis1 · Answer

Hi again!

Thanks a lot for your answers! I will follow those tips and dont change my strategy completely. Until now, when a passage was pretty hard, I still tried but cut off early enough. Thanks especially for the tip to still try the "Detail Question" type of questions.

All CATs I took were CATs from ManhattanPrep so I guesss the real GMAT will be more or less the same or maybe a little easier (thats what I heard).

So thanks for your advice!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Luis1,

"Dumping" an entire RC passages has the potential to be problematic - depending on a number of factors, including "when" the passage appears during the Verbal section and what your overall Score Goal is. Even with really tough prompts (in which you legitimately do not understand most of what you are reading), you should still be able to 'pull out' some information though - so your focus should be on thinking about the words that you DO understand and why each paragraph appears as part of the larger prompt (generally-speaking, each paragraph will either describe something to you or argue a point of view - or both).

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When is your exact Test Date? 
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

bigge2win · Answer

What is it about the reading passages that are hard? The details of the content or comprehending the points of the passage? Something fundamental must be holding you back because dumping an entire passage will end poorly. There’s usually a few different themes with reading passages, for example to express a certain perspective/opinion, to refute a certain point, to explain things, etc.

Also, paragraph construction is usually similar across the board. The first sentence always presents a point, the next sentence provides some evidence to support it, and the ensuing sentences will either provide more detail OR throw a however/although/some other keyword to present an opposing thought. Once you catch these patterns for passage styles, it’ll become easier to comprehend faster and anticipate details that you can skim over.

The questions themselves become easier because they’ll be recounting facts/interpretations or make you think critically, which you said you already do well with Critical Reasoning.

I used to be a very slow reader until I understood how to shift my ability to read in this manner and went from 40%tile RC to 80%tile. This was 5 years back. Between the Veritas Reading Comp book and the Critical Reasoning Bible, I improved both areas a lot and didn’t need to skip questions.

You may need to go back to basics to improve how you comprehend. After you solve that problem, it may catapult your score if you’re knocking out RC questions like clockwork.

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unraveled · Answer

Luis1 First of all, know that changing strategy would not give you any positives rather it will take you down, most likely. I know how bad it is to not able to answer correctly when you have to read the whole passage since i too had a very bad reading habit. Its been a year now i feel better but i still need to amp up things to reach 70-80% accuracy. Coming to your point, I would say approach it strategically. Know that your will get 3 RC passage at least - you should give your best in the first without overdoing it. Also, in the last one you will get 3-4 questions, may be 5 if have bad luck

just saying, so out of 4 questions one would be main point, another an inference question and two might be details-based questions - it can be any type of detail. What i am trying to say here is that those two details-based questions would bail you out and if you gauge a little on the passage structure - you can do that if have built a reading habit at least for RC passage - you can answer that too. So, all in all, you would have a good chance answering the 3 questions correctly, if not then 2, but if you guess you have zero probability. Try it with you next CAT.

AndrewN · Answer

Glad to hear I could offer some useful advice when you were in a pinch,  Luis1 . If I might be so bold as to offer one more bit of it: take one of the two free  official  CATs you can access through mba.com so that you get the best idea of what to expect on test day, content-wise. This can also help you focus on something besides grinding through practice sets and wondering if it will all amount to anything. It is not that I am knocking Manhattan Prep--it is just that if you get too used to Manhattan Prep material, then you risk getting to the exam and feeling as if the look of it is slightly off. I have seen 20-30 points swing to the lower side simply because a test-taker has not practiced enough official material.

If you have any further questions between now and test day, you know how to lean on the community. Good luck.

- Andrew

freedom128 · Answer

Hi Luis

Many people have commented here. In RC, comprehension on the passage is crucial in answering all questions correctly.

If you feel the passage is hard to comprehend after you read it (not skimmed it) entirely, then perhaps just answer the questions randomly and quickly.

Btw if you got all answers right, you should get second and third passages harder one.

Never play around with first passage.

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bigge2win · Answer

This comment is right that you should try official questions because Manhattan is actually notorious for making their RC passages very lengthy and convoluted, which aren’t realistic.

However, my recommendation diverges from his on where to get the questions. I would advise AGAINST using the MBA.com practice test to find realistic passages and questions. You’d be blowing a free, real exam. Why waste that exam to get 3 passages and 12-15 questions from a 3.5 hour long exam just to get a “flavor” of what the realistic content is like?

If cost isn’t too big of an issue, MBA.com has 2 additional question banks that do not overlap with their practice exams and the OG. One bank has 400 questions for $30 (https://www.mba.com/exam-prep/gmat-offi ... -questions) and the other has 300 of all Hard questions also for $30 (https://www.mba.com/exam-prep/gmat-offi ... -questions). Yes, it’s out of pocket, but sometimes these are necessary evils to get what you need. The MBA will already cost you at least $130K for tuition, so $60 is worth the additional investment to get the material down.

It’s critical to not use practice exams from the official source unless you are taking an exam because those should be used when you have good command of the material, not when you’re trying to get a feel for it.

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AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  bigge2win . I agree that official CATs should not be taken lightly. However, in the original post above,  Luis1  said,  I will have my GMAT exam next week . In such an extreme case, with someone who has used Manhattan Prep CATs exclusively (as far as I know), I  do  recommend jumping straight into an official practice test. Better to feel prepared for the exam and to know what lies ahead than to  think  everything is under control and then be caught off guard. With a few days to spare, I would take at least one of those tests. (Even official practice questions are not as valuable in their predictive capacity as a CAT.)

To be clear, I am in full agreement with you if a test-taker has some time to prep. But with less than a week to go, in this particular scenario, I would double down on those official--and free--CATs.

- Andrew

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Has anyone bailed/left on an entire passage and got above a V40?

unraveled · Answer

Yet to see someone do that but if someone has then it must have been a hell of an effort to pull that up.
But this forum is large enough with ~2Mn posts - who knows.

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Bailing on a whole RC passage?

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