RC strategy

Question

Hi,
Most books recommend the strategy of making a short summary of an RC for answering RC questions. However, i have personally found that reading the passage and attempting the questions directly leads to approx same accuracy levels as compared to making a short story first, which by the way takes a good chunk of time..
What is the recommended strategy for RC, any insights???

Apoorv

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi apoorv601,

From what you've described, it sounds like you're getting approximately the same percentage of questions correct whether you take notes or not....

My immediate question is....what percent ARE you getting correct? If you're not seeing any improvements approaching RC "your way", then it might be time to learn and practice a different approach. In the broader sense, how you are scoring overall on your practice CATs? What is your score goal?

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

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

You certainly don't need to write a "short story." The purpose of note-taking is to make sure that you a) focus on the point of each paragraph as you read and b) stop to consider the overall point of the passage before answering the questions. If you are doing this adequately without taking notes, then the additional effort may not increase your accuracy (although it shouldn't take more than a few extra seconds). If you are  not  already reading this way, then it is worth practicing this method until you do see an improvement in your performance. This kind of passage mapping can really pay off if you combine it with "prephrasing," or attempting to provide your own answer to the question before looking at the answer choices.

apoorv601 · Answer

Thanks i will try it and see if it helps to increase my accuracy level..

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

One way to test how well you're reading is to follow your timed experience by doing the whole passage (and all q's) untimed. How well do you understand the passage now, and how does that contrast with your understanding after your first (timed) read? Are there important ideas that you didn't notice, but that were crucial to your performance on the questions? Did you miss or misinterpret the author's point? How could you have adjusted your reading to get closer to this new, higher level of understanding without running overtime? Use these insights to refine your process for the next passage you read.

apoorv601 · Answer

Thanks will certainly try this, looks like a good technique!!

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

Hi Apoorv,

In the end I think you should do what works best for you. That is, if your strategy is giving you consistently accurate answers then there's no need to change it. I find personally that the more I understand the text prior to getting to the questions, the less likely I am to be steered away by purposely misleading answer choices. The key is to understand the text on a global level and to know where to find the details when you need to. For me, that means mentally noting the purpose and main idea, and writing down 1-3 key words per paragraph of the gist, and any names or other details that I may need to pull up again later. Regardless of whether you take notes or not, you should spend some time reading the text before approaching the questions because jumping back and forth you may be able to answer detail questions, but global question types might prove more difficult. I hope that helps.

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RC strategy

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