RC: Approach ...

camitava · Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:39 pm Post subject: RC: Approach ...

Guys,
I am facing problems with RC. I have gone thru Princeton Review, Kaplan 800 and Manhattan RC guide to find out the approach to attack RC. Now I am going thru OG-10. I initially thought of an idea - In GMAT I will get hardly 10 min to complete a big RC Qs [generally consisting of 5-6 Qs!]. So thinking that I tried to complete each RC of OG-10 in 10 min. I am basically taking the following approach to attack RC -
1. Read the first paragraph thoroughly.
2. First one/two sentences of each para following the first para.
3. Tries to draw the idea what a particular para is trying to say.
4. Now going to the Qs to answer.
But even following this approach, I am not being able to get a clear picture of a RC and sometimes 4 out of 6 Qs are getting wrong. What should I do now? I am confused! Even I am not being able to complete a RC [including 5-6 Qs] in 8-10 mins. It is generally taking 12-15 mins! Guys need some approach to deal with RC!
Waiting for advices...

N.B.-However, I think, I have not expressed any copy-righted approach of any publishing house! The idea what I mentioned above, is basically drawn by me...

beatthegmat · Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:53 am Post subject:

Thanks for sharing your approach, camitava. It's so tough to advise on RC strategy since it varies by the individual. My advice is to experiment with as many strategies as possible, including:

Skimming the passage while taking notes
Reading through the whole passage carefully while taking notes
Reading through the whole passage carefully, and afterward creating an outline
etc.

The Kaplan, PR, and MGMAT books should provide you some guidance on the various strategies. However, you may find that you need to come up with your own unique strategy.

I know this is a frustrating area of the GMAT, but stay persistent, experiment, and practice! Good luck!

puneet · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:34 pm Post subject:

I am also struggling with same approach. However I am looking for some tests on the web which will give the same GMAT simulations so I can practice more. Like having a stop clock indicating the amount of time remaining on the web browser. Would you know of any such application or tool.

Thanks a lot..

solaris · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject:

I'd recommend a strategy involving previewing RC questions and 'skimming' passages only for Short Passages. It is however essential to take down SOME kind of notes when faced with a Long Passage, especially if you get a passage from a scientific journal or similar.

In my experience, it is very hard to well on such Long Passages without at least some kind of note taking.

What details you actually consider worth noting down depends on you as an individual and is something that can be honed with further practice.

nislam · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:58 am Post subject:

Camitava,

Have you figured out an approach that helped you? I'm in a similar situation you were.

camitava · Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:00 pm Post subject:

nislam, as of now, I have left all the approaches. I am just trying to read all the para and note down the major points. That's it! But still I am not able to answer most of the question correctly! At least, 2 out of 6 questions are getting wrong! Sometimes I found that the Qs is having some tricky part associated with it. These Qs are really tough to answer at least for me... Embarassed

nutreino · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 3:11 am Post subject:

camitava,

RC questions are time consuming as you might have realised even after reading the passage once you have to go back and read some lines again to answer the qns.

I have the following approach.

Bottomline: RC will take time and its better that we respect it with extra time. Try to do SC and CR qns in lesser time.
1. Read the passage carefully once. Now you know what parts of passage speak about what. (5 mins)
2. Consider we have 6 qns on the passage:
Generally 1 would be main idea (need not look back at passage for this)
1 would be application (this takes longest as answer is nowhere in passage)
Others are mixture of supporting ideas, inferences etc.
3. When answering qns I look back at parts passage atleast 2-3 times while answering a qn.

At the end it takes me about 12 - 13 mins to answer a 6 qns passage. DOnt get discouraged if you take longer in RC. Spead up other sections Smile

Let me know if it helps

chidcguy · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject:

Yeah Speeding up in other sections is a good idea but the thing is over speeding can kill. No matter how fast we want to do SC & CR, Some Q's will definitely take more time in SC and CR esp the harder/hardest ones. Not only we have to solve SC & CR questions at faster speed but also need to maintain accuracy. This is useful if one can solve RC questions better using more time. For some people RC accuracy does not improve with increased time.

I came across the Amazon Review for [url]http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0690015283/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1How to read better and faster by Norman Lewis.[/url] Does any one think that reading this book will help improve GMAT RC skills?

chidcguy · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 8:20 pm Post subject:

RC will take time and its better that we respect it with extra time.

This is very true. I also noticed that I am solving Q's ok when i am doing them by themselves. It appears that my biggest problem is coming out of getting hung over on the RC questions. I am going to read MGMAT RC guide again now. I know the 7 point strategy but its very difficult to apply all strategies for all questions when being tested for stamina in 4th hour of the test.

I did a practice test now and as I said before I was able to do first 34 Q's with 5 min left and I got 23 correct out of them. Out of the last 7, 2 correct (both of them SC) and all RC wrong.

The last RC had 3 Q's and the first three has 11 Q's and I got 7 correct after a great deal of time. Should I be getting more Q's correct if I were spending lot of time. I am trying to figure out is my accuracy improving with time spent or not. If its improving with more time spent, I should focus on getting SC/CR better.