Cruel RCs

Question

Please provide me with some good strategies....I am almost taking 12-14 mins to a solve big passage.... thats screwing up my whole performance......

Aj85 · Answer

There are some good strategies here. https://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/ls ... egies.html

gorupruthi · Answer

I am solving RCs from OG-10,11,12.
I am following following strategy to solve :-
1) paraphrase first line of each para.
2) note the key words from each para
3) read the question and identify the keyword and go back to passage to find the answer near keyword.

Can u please suggest some techniques to improve.

Aj85 · Answer

12-14 mins is too much for a passage. This amount of time on 1 passage can even affect other sections of your tests. I am not an expert but I have improved my performance considerably from when I started the prep. I will like to offer a few strategies.

Do no read the whole passage with same emphasis. if you will read the whole passage with same emphasis you will get lost in content of the passage. Gmat passages are all about IDEA of the author and his TONE and STYLE and not about the content. Read the first few sentence of the each paragraph and try to extract the motive of the author from those initial sentences. After reading first few lines with intent of catching the purpose of passage skim through the passage very quickly. Only slow down at beginning of next paragraph. After first few sentence of each paragraph the author goes on explaining something in detail. Such details are only required for answering specific questions. For general questions you should answer the question on initial reading and not by going back to passage again and again.

How do we know the idea/purpose of the author ? Look at the tone of author. if she/he talks about 2 findings and studies and contrasts them, then does he favour any one idea report over other ? Does he give his own conclusion in passage or he only discusses findings or reports of other scientists/economists/historians ? Also note the tone of author. Try to find if author is critical of any subject or just studious. Look for U-TURNS. Means at any time in passage does author changes his stance or after praising something or someone, does the author then finds any flaws or weaknesses in that someone or something. Words like 'However', 'even-though', 'but' are very import.

Now to answers- Avoid extreme answers. Answers which have 'ONLY if' , 'NEVER' etc are most of the times too extreme. Also questions which asks for primary purpose of author, answer should be balanced. Does author promotes something in passage or explains something or criticises something ? All such answers should be given after reading authors tone and style throughout the passage.

gorupruthi · Answer

thanks for ur reply. i will try to use whatever u said....

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