jgdjgd wrote:Congrats Hardik!
Could you tell me how can I work on my RC speed and accuracy, as I am currently taking hell lot of time ,and thus screw my score in verbal in whatever test I take. As I fail to finish test everytime I take.
Thanks in advance!
Hello jgdjgd,
I was a slow reader like yourself, but I never had problem in comprehending any passage. To increase my reading speed, I started practicing timed reading. I used 1000 RC document, LSAT Test Papers and OG. I used to create verbal tests consisting of all RC questions(30 to 40 questions) and use my simulator to practice timed reading. Basically your goal should be to use max 6:30 mins (5:30 mins ideally) to answer an RC having 3 questions and 8:00 mins (7:20 mins ideally) to answer an RC having 4 questions. The extra time you are using to answer RC questions should recovered while answering SC questions.
I felt that passages in 1000RC and LSAT Test Papers were similar to the real GMAT passages in terms of length and wide variety topics. When you are reading any passage, look out for following details - Author's tone, function of each paragraph in the passage and author's purpose for writing that passage. Practicing LSAT CR also helped me in improving my reading speed. LSAT CRs have comparatively longer passages and they ask tough questions, so to reduce your average speed in CRs you'll be forced to read the passage fast and look for minor details in the passage.
Test Day
I had four passages on GMAT. 3 passages were of medium size and had 3 questions each, and one passage was really long and had 4 questions. The good thing about the long passage was that out of 4 questions, 3 questions were about highlighted texts. So you need not read the passage in so much detail. You just need to get the basic idea of the passage and later read the lines around the highlighted text to answer the question. I was comfortable with highlighted text question types. I read one debrief here on this forum, where it was said that GMAT is asking more and more highlighted text questions in RC. I saw 4-5 questions during my GMAT.
Hope that helps..