RC strategy?

Question

Hello!

I'm in the GMAT PRep mode and one part that it really giving me a hard time is the RC. I am not particularly bad at understanding the English usage in the passage but when it comes to questions,I get bowled over. I get almost 70% of the questions in every passage wrong. I am not an English native speaker but studied in English schools/colleges all my life.
I reviewed the MGMAT RC book and found that I'm unable to implement their strategies. I could not get myself to think about ther 'strategies' and other things. I think I'm just going to go with the passages and practice,practice and practice.

Does anyone here know any other book/guide for RC strategies? Or should I dive into the passages and start practicing a few pasages daily. I think the OG would be a good start. 
Please post your comments/opinions/strategies/whatever :-D . I really need to get through this RC....

Thank You

meatdumpling · Answer

If you're looking for reading comprehension help, there's 3 places I can think of.

1) MGMAT RC - well, you already have this and apparently it's not working for you

2) GMATPill's RC - these are videos showing thinking process from a guy that did well on the exam and you can read some tips here
https://www.gmatpill.com/gmat-prep-about ... sion-tips/

3) PowerScore LSAT Reading Comprehension
This one is going to be even more dense than anything you've come across before. The LSAT passages are generally much much longer and complex than GMAT reading passages. So i would choose this only if you're really looking for something that will be challenging - but might not be representative of what you'll see on the exam.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098017 ... 0980178290

heygirl · Answer

Meatdumpling(nice username :-)

) , thanks for ur input. I think my best bet would be to stick with MGMAT RC book. Get through the book one more time and then attack OG problems systematically. If that practise is not enough then I will get to RC99. Any more inputs, welcome. I need to do everything to improve my RC

heygirl · Answer

So,I worked a little on my RC and have found a strategy that works for me. I realized that taking notes is not helping me at all! Is this something that I need to worry about, because the Kaplan Verbal book and MGMAT RC book emphasize on note-taking??? But, I don't even write one word on my scrap paper and that's actually helping me answer right.

What do you guys think?

What do you guys think?

parker · Answer

Heygirl, I think quite a few people for whom RC is a weaker area would share your frustration-- RC is often difficult to achieve significant improvements in, especially within a short period of time (whereas in math you can memorize formulas for geometry, for RC you may have to reteach yourself to do something *differently* that you already do every day-- process information as you read).

You seem to already have a good pool of resources in terms of books, so I'm going to take a different tack and try to explain why the note-taking is helpful for many people. If these reasons are not applicable to you, then by all means don't use note-taking! Every student is different, and there's no "right" strategy, other than the one that gets you the most points in the period of time you have allotted to study.

And when I say "notetaking" below, I mean "good notetaking"...more on that after the points:

*Notetaking helps you stay alert. For people who struggle with RC, a huge part of the battle is just preventing their eyes from glazing over while reading large chunks of text. The physical act of putting pen to (glossy yellow laminated) paper keeps you awake.

*Notetaking helps you synthesize information as you're reading. Aside from the physical alertness-aid, the act of having to quickly distill what you've read into its crucial parts helps that information sink in.

*Notetaking provides a repeatable process that creates comfort zone that allows you to do your best work. Why do certain math questions seem so "hard" and others "easy?" If you recognize what kind of question you're confronted with, and have a repeatable process to execute on that question (because you recognize the type!) your job is much easier-- execution of something familiar rather than working through something for the first time. Reading passages can be that way too-- the long passages are, well, looooong, and notetaking gives you a tool and a *structure* to stave off that feeling of words flying at your face.

So what is  good note-taking  for long-reading? You can ascribe to one of the test prep company note-taking methods--all the methods worth their salt provide a  repeatable, structure-based process to create a way to hold any new information you're faced with on RC.  Try a bunch, and see what feels best to you (and yields the best results)--the goal is to arrive at a method that allows you to process just the right about of information *for you.* Some people are front-heavy and need to learn to let go of details, others are question-heavy and need to learn to focus a little more on the passage before. It's a tricky line to toe. But either way you must give yourself the time to really give the methods a shot before discarding them-- reading work may not yield instant points the way some math work can, because what you're working on is *process* (you're working on process on the other question types too, but a larger portion of the work for those other types involves content). It will be slow at first, but getting better will help you get faster--the reverse isn't necessarily true.

This is all, of course, assuming you have the time to devote!  If you've only got a week til your test it's a  different ballgame, and unless RC is your only weak area you can probably achieve a higher points earned/time invested ratio on other topics  At a certain point too, you will know that you've plateaued and your time may be better spent elsewhere.

The practice, practice, practice method you're suggesting can work for some people, if they're super-vigilant about the *review* of that practice. The thing you want to avoid is burning through tons of materials without analyzing your process. I see that a lot--many hours invested with little payoff. And even with detailed work to RC-passage process, you'll want to spend quality time working on doing and reviewing OG questions. A lot of the attention-to-detail work that can be done on CR is applicable to RC, too--a word here, a punctuation mark there...learning how and in what ways the test-writers are anal-retentive will yield points across the board.

Good luck!

heygirl · Answer

Parker, thank you for your wonderful tips and strategies. I went through the MGMAT RC strategy guide again,keeping your points in mind(about note taking). I must say that my RC skills have improved :-)

,with, ofcourse, scope for more improvement. I think the note taking strategy is helping me more than not taking any notes at all. I'm pretty impressed with my RC skills now :-D

.It took a lot of effort and I get only 1/2 questions wrong now as compared to getting only 1/3 right(before). Thanks again.

parker · Answer

Glad to hear it--wishing you continued luck (and perseverance)!

gtr022001 · Answer

ron has some great strategies on RC, see here -- https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays- ... loc=forums

heygirl · Answer

thanks for that..All the videos are so useful. I did not know about these videos until now :oops:

miguelmick · Answer

these videos from GMATPill's are great. Thanks.

heygirl · Answer

Will try it out if I get a chance, luckily for me , I have improved in RC.

meatdumpling · Answer

yeah, GMATPill RC videos were pretty good. signed up. Even free stuff was good enough for me.

AN225 · Answer

For a while I was struggling with 'what is the main idea', 'author's tone is..' sort of questions and I did not believe in reading first/last sentences as Ron and Co suggest. But.. I gave it a try (after watching Ron's videos) and have received great results.

BUT... the problem now is that quality of my 'all of the following is true about X except ...' questions decreased drastically, because by speed-reading the text I omit many details, knowledge of which is tested later. For example, try to deal with this beast pterosaurs-108625.html

So, my quest for the perfect strategy continues...

heygirl · Answer

SAme with me :-D

. Somehow, the only strategy that seems to work for me to get most of RC questions correct is to Concentrate on the passage.

meatdumpling · Answer

Vorskl,
I don't see a "All of the following EXCEPT" type of question in the pterosaurs article you pointed out? Can you point it out?

Yeah the strategy is going to be different depending on question type. Most according to the passage questions might work with speed reading. But all of the following except questions require digging.

RC strategy?

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