Serious troubles with Reading Comprehension

Question

Hi.

I've been studying for the gmat for 6 weeks now and have managed to improve from 550 to 670 (see progress below). I have still 3 weeks to go in which I can dedicate 20 hours of studying so I believe it is time to stop learning the basics and focus on my weaknesses. It is exactly for this reason that the title of my post reads "serious troubles with RC". While preparing to find out which was my biggest weakness, I found out that the worst type of question is RC. In my last CAT (02/01/2015) I had only 27% correct and on the one previous to that (01/25/2015) 6 out of the 12 wrong answers I had in Verbal came from RC. At this point I'll be better of just randomly picking all my RC answers and saving those 20 or 25 minutes to apply myself in the other questions

My background is as a Software Engineer with Spanish as a native language. I've never been fan of reading and verbal skills have never been on my list of strengths (even less in English).

I know there is no miracle formula and I'm willing to pay the price to improve, but I'm not sure how to proceed from now as I'm afraid to throw many painful hours into RC without getting much payoff. I'd greatly appreciate any advise you can give.

A second thing I was expecting to get some input on this forum is the following. Even though I keep on studying, it seems that my score has flattened around 660, 670. Is it realistic to expect to score 700 investing 60 hours of serious study?

12/06/2014 Mgmat Q37 V29  550 
12/20/2014 GmatPrep Q41 V28  580 
01/04/2015 VeritasPrep Q46 V37  680 
01/11/2015 VeritasPrep Q45 V36  660 
01/18/2015 VeritasPrep Q46 V35  670 
01/25/2015 GmatPrep Q46 V35  660 
02/01/2015 VeritasPrep Q48 V34  670

Thank you in advance!

P.S.: When I write my Gmat experience post, my first advice would be to take the GMAT by the end of the winter. That way you won't have to see beautiful days go by the window. I did the exact opposite, and living in sunny Costa Rica does not help with the 8 hours sessions on weekends.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi msad,

Since you've been studying for just 6 weeks, I would not expect you to be an expert at every aspect of the GMAT yet. Most Test Takers need 3 months (or more) to hit their respective "peak" scores, so it might be that you just need to put in more time. Since you're planning to take the GMAT in 3 weeks, and you're close to a 700+ score, you might very easily be able to pick up those missing points in the time that you have left. If you had more time, then you'd have a better chance to raise your scores.

I have a few questions about how you've been studying:

1) What materials are you using?
2) When you took these CATs, did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
3) What is your typical approach to handling an RC passage (what do you do? what steps do you take?)?
4) Do you have a pacing problem when dealing with any section of the GMAT? Do you ever have to guess on a bunch of questions just to finish on time?

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

msad · Answer

Hi Rich.

Thank yo very much for taking the time to reply to me. I totally agree that 6 weeks is not a lot of time. During this time I've invested around 140 hours or so (including the time for the tests), though at the beginning I was quite lost so it took me a while to pick up my pace.
Here are my answers:

1) I'm using Veritas Prep material ( Immensely helpful by the way ). I'm almost done with all the Quant books and videos, finished all videos for SC/CR/RC I'd say 40% through homework sections.
2) All the CATs have included IR (scores ranging from 4 to 7) and in the last CAT I did include AWA and I'm planning to include it also in the remaining 2 CATS I'm planning to do before the test
3) When I see a passage pop up in the test I do the following:
 3.1) I do my best to put on my best attitude
 3.2) I start with the first read which usually take from 3 to 5 minutes (depending if they are shot or long passages)
 3.3) I start with the questions. As suggested by most strategies, I always go back to the passage when asked about details and re-read the first and sentences of all paragraphs and last sense of the passage when asked about main idea questions.
 3.4) I'm usually able to discard obviously wrong answers but when I'm between 2 or 3 options I guess I fall for the most common traps
 3.5) I rarely say to myself in RC exercises "This is it, I got it right". Almost always I pick up the answer when 2, 3 or even 4 minutes have passed by and I know I have to pick something.
 3.6) I sometimes finish each RC feeling that I read some portions of the passage 3 or 4 times, so I wonder if I should skip the first read all together to start with the questions and ply my changes to randomly pick the "what is the title of the passage" type of questions. 
4. In my fists cats I ended up guessing at least 8 or 7 questions at the end. But with more practice and since I came across the video on youtube called  "Managing your time on the GMAT"  by GMATPrepNow I don't have timing issues as I'm able to finish both sections on time.

Another thing that I haven't decided yet is if I should spend exactly most of my available time for studying RC on reading techniques, watching videos, reading forum posts (I've read quite a few already) or if I should delve myself into exercises until I get them correct.

Thank you.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi msad,

In both RC and CR, it's important to try to make a prediction (if possible) BEFORE looking at the 5 answer choices. It sounds like you're working through the answers when you don't really know what you're looking for. On Test Day, the 4 wrong answers fall into predictable patterns (some are obvious, some are subtle), but it's tougher to spot those patterns if you don't know enough about what the answer is supposed to state. So that is one area that requires a bit of work on your part.

There's a lot of questionable pacing 'advice' offered by different sources. If you're following bad advice, or following good advice incorrectly, then you might be mis-managing your time and missing out on some points because of it. When reviewing your CATs, how often do you get a question wrong because you "narrowed it down to 2 choices but 'guessed' wrong" and how often do you get a question wrong because it was just "too hard"? If you're close to getting the correct answer, but you choose one of the incorrect ones, then it's possible that with a little more time you COULD have gotten those questions correct. In that way, your time was not necessarily used properly (and you rushed through a question that you could have gotten correct with a bit more work).

The realistic answer is that you probably just need to put in more time and hone your skills. As it stands, you could pick up most (if not all) of the missing points that you're looking for by improving your Quant Score, so you have a couple of different options to get to 700+.

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

msad · Answer

Thank you Rich.

I'll try to find those patterns in the 4 wrong answers as I continue my study plan. Hopefully I'll get to hit at least half of the RC questions on test day.

If there are other students out there with similar stories, I'd like to hear about them, specially if you managed to overcome your weakness towards RC.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hey Msad,

Here are my 2 cents to your problem.

I am a strong believer of the fact that a good score on the GMAT results from an organised and a methodical approach to solving a question. So I would suggest that you use the following method to work your RC tasks out.

1. Spend the first couple of minutes in going through the passage. For every paragraph of the passage try to zero in on one sentence either from the passage or on your own. This sentence should ideally summarize the entire paragraphs. In order to get better at this, you should probably Read and understand the Opinions and Skip all factual data present. This step should NOT take you more than 2 minutes. By the end of two minutes you must be able to identify "What the passage is talking about?" and "What is the author's opinion / tone while presenting his opinion about the issue being discussed?"

2. Attack the Question. Questions can usually be General (Which focus on the entire passage), Specific (Focusing on smaller parts), Complex (Inference). Identification of this is important as the approach to answering each of these questions differs.

3. Try to answer the question accordingly. This has to be in your own words. However, remember that any answer that you give a question has to have proof. For General questions you can refer to the key sentences made at the end of step 1, for specific questions try reading a sentence above and below what is being asked for and for complex information retrieve all information from the passage.

4. Eliminate answers that don't match your answer. Try to compare each and every option with what you have written and check if it is in the same line. Eliminate answer choices that don't match.

Hope that helps!! Again, remember that this is not a skill that will come to you overnight! Go slow and master it.

All the very best

msad · Answer

Thank you CrackVerbalGMAT.

I have a question for you. While doing verbal exercises on the question bank from Veritas page, I'm now getting from 30% to 40% of the questions right. Using the question package from the GMAT prep software, I get 80% to 90%. Is this common among students?

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

I would ask you to focus on the accuracy level that you are getting on the GMAT Prep questions as they can be a close representation of what you will see on the test. Just make sure that you have solved these questions for the first time. There is no point getting a good accuracy over questions that you have already solved, isn't it??

msad · Answer

Hey guys, I'm writing to report that I've managed to improve my RC, to a point in where my weaknesses in SC are not more evident as it became now the area in where I need to improve the most. I found that my issues where related to poor concentration while reading plus the wrong selection of technique as I didn't do well with the quick scans of the text to come back later for specific information. I'm taking full 4 to 5 minutes per passage and this has helped me a lot. This is also proof that the advises you find online are not a one-fits-all solution.

I had a couple of CATs with scores 610 (which were quite demoralizing) but I came back to score 710 a couple of days ago.

I'm planning to take 3 more CATs before test day at the end of next week, so I'll let you know if my 710 was just a lucky strike or the score that I deserve

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