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Hi All,

I have been wondering that how much time do people spend on RC questions. So I thought that if we answer the following three queries, it will be a great help to all of us.

Simple answers are needed infront of every query. Detailed answer will also be appreciated.

1. How much time do you spend on reading a passage (whether long or short)??

2. How much time do you take to read and answer all questions of a passage (whether long or short)??

3. Which approach do you use?? Skipping or notes taking approach??

Your input will help us all!!

yangsta8 · Answer

Hussain15 - nice thread. Might help those who have had RC problems.

1. How much time do you spend on reading a passage (whether long or short)?? 
Generally between 2-3.5 minutes. 2 for shorter passages to 3.5 for really long ones.
I would say my average is 3.

2. How much time do you take to read and answer all questions of a passage (whether long or short)?? 
Questions I typically take somewhere between 45seconds and 1:30 for the more difficult questions. The ones I consider easier are the "According to the passage" types and the harder ones are inference onces, or ones where the detail is dispersed throughout the passage.

3. Which approach do you use?? Skipping or notes taking approach?? 
I started with the skipping and reading just first para technique and found I was making too many mistakes. So now I read in detail but if its a technical passage I skip things that I can come back to.

Hussain15 · Answer

1. How much time do you spend on reading a passage (whether long or short)?? 
I take 5-6 minutes on average on reading a passage. Though this time is too much and it was a big concern for me but I realized after reading some debriefs that some high socorers also consume this much of time.

2. How much time do you take to read and answer all questions of a passage (whether long or short)?? 
My time is 12-13 minutes. As I am in my early phase of RC preparation so hopefully this will come down to 8 minutes.
 3. Which approach do you use?? Skipping or notes taking approach??

I follow bb's approach of taking notes. Though it makes me consume much time, but I am following this with the hope to reduce my total time after much practice.

fall2009 · Answer

1. 3-4 mins for the long passages without taking notes.
2. With long passages, I usually take long time, around 17 mins. Need to reduce it.
3. I don't take notes, just read all details and try to memorize and reread sometimes. 
Taking notes or skip reading doesn't work for me, I'll make so many mistakes.

Augustus · Answer

I'm happy to be of help. I think RC was one of my relative strengths and therefore I didn't go about my preparations of this segment very systematically.

1. How much time do you spend on reading a passage (whether long or short)?? 
It would depend on the passage. Some I could grasp in 3 minutes while others took as long as 5 minutes (I would imagine). My strategy was to make sure that I understood all sentences in the passage prior to even looking at questions.

2. How much time do you take to read and answer all questions of a passage (whether long or short)?? 
As previously stated, I spend 3-5 minutes reading the passage. After that I use no more than 1 minute on each question.

3. Which approach do you use?? Skipping or notes taking approach??

It did not take notes. I think whether or not to take notes depend on your note-technique and memory capacity.

Lastly, my advise would be that you should spent more time on passages that you have a hard time understanding. The time lost on these passages should then be regained in the easier RC's.

Good luck!

sudeep · Answer

1. How much time do you spend on reading a passage (whether long or short)??

In my attempt, I tried to finish the passage reading in 2-3 mins, and max 3.5 mins. in case of very long passage.

2. How much time do you take to read and answer all questions of a passage (whether long or short)??

As at the start of the passage, we do not know whether the passage will show 3 or 4 questions. I tried to go for 40-90 secs approach for each question after reading the passage.

3. Which approach do you use?? Skipping or notes taking approach?? 
I don't think note-taking approach will work unless you are excellent at SC and CR; this is because, note-taking approach is time consuming. So, I just read briefly the passage in one go trying to remember the main points/tags for each paragraph.

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