icandy wrote:
bb wrote:
I still found that I would spend 10-12 mins on a passage or up to 15 mins and I could not cut it down, so instead I would study SC and CR harder to to cut time down on SC questions and use it on RC.
My goal was 1 min on SC; 1:30 on CR; Remaining time on RC. That translates into 15 mins on SC; 25 mins on CR, and 35 mins on 3-4 RC passages.
Finally, I also read as much quality fiction as I could and I put a basic list here - it was much more effective (for me) than newspapers:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/t76079-books-to-read-improve-verbal-score-and-enjoy-a-good-readThe only problem I have with this approach (in color) is one has be almost next to GOD, Just like Rafael Nadal is these days, in SC and CR. I agree that if we have more time for RC, we will score better in RC. How ever, it should not come at the cost of some thing else.
A 700 level test taker might knock out the first 3/4 SC's in a minute or even less. How ever, the curve becomes a little bit steep from there as
all the Q's will become tough except for the occasional placebo. Unless we have a well rounded knowledge/stamina in all sections we cannot sustain the adaptivity of the CAT. Practice, Practice Practice is the only key to success in Verbal.
Thank you for the compliment
However, let me "defend" my strategy a bit. I am not saying this should be everyone's strategy, but I just looked at it realistically and figured that I had a better chance of cutting down my timing on SC's than on RC's - better investment of study time. SC was my favorite type of questions - I enjoyed cracking them, RC's were hated as there was no clear rule to RC's and no clear strategy to improve really.
Here is what I found:
With SC's, in more than 50%, I could pick out the mistake and how to fix it just from reading the original sentence without having to read another answer choice.
In 25% of cases, I could spot one after reading a series of answer choices or validate that "A" was the best answer. In either of these cases, I could do an SC in about 30-45 seconds. Of course these are 75% of easier questions.
In yet another 25%, I had to actually look for the mistake through answer choices, noticing differences, and checking what the trap may be. Also I would always get caught with parallel structures, so I had to doublecheck at the end just in case.
however, I do think that after question 15 or 17, the difficulty stabilizes and stops going up/down significantly - at least that's my personal experience. This goes a bit towards the test format and algorithm rather than strategy but I think the two are related.
I am a non-native speaker, so I do have a bit of an advantage in terms of grammar, since I had to learn it rule by rule rather than just intuitively figure out at the age of 5. (I am a grammar mess in my native language though
)
_________________