Reading Comprehension

My accuracy at RC is current around 50 % . done with both OG 12 and Verbal Guide . Need to bring this up to atleast 80 % . Any pointers ? not sure what I should practice as im done with both the books .

Hi Ritika,

Ideally one should begin by the reinforcing the basics.

Reading Comprehension (RC) strengthening the base: Read editorials from NY Times® or Washington Post® online or Hindu® editorial on daily basis. It helps in building your reading speed. It should be a daily exercise. But I guess you are beyond this stage as you have already worked on a lot of RCs.

Strategy: Read easier passage in 2-3 minutes & understand the basic gist of it. If the passage is really tough you can take up to 4 minutes. And then spend around 45 secs on each question. If you work by this strategy, you will improve your accuracy but still not falter on time. Work on these timings and do not rest until you achieve accuracy > 85 % in all practice sets.

Point to note: I would also advice against jumping to questions first & then looking for answers in the paragraph. Reading essay first makes answering "main point" & "summary of essay" questions seem like a cakewalk. SO do not go with the flow if a lot of aspirants around you are skipping essays and jumping to questions straight.

Practice: Practice from all possible sources as a lot of raw practice is required to ace RCs. Practice at least 100 RCs before you start giving mocks. If you are done with two books you mentioned go for a third one.

Best of luck.

Thanks a lot .. are there any other reliable RC passage sources I can use ?

Manhattan GMAT RC Guide, Powerscore RC Guide, Kaplan Practice tests. You may wish to research reviews about them on internet and then decide which one to pick.

Re-do passages you've already done before. Try to figure out what types of questions you usually miss or find most challenging. For example, do you miss main point/purpose questions, or inference questions, or questions involving quotes etc. So, instead of just practicing tons of RC passages (quantity), in this case you would be analyzing and optimizing your process (quality).

Rank the question types you miss often. Re-do passages to understand why you missed those questions, and read specific strategies on how to address specific question types. For example, are you reading too fast/slow, Not reading for structure, mis-reading, having difficulty with mostly science/humanities passages, missing the point etc...

I've also heard that some GMATers use RC passages from LSAT prep. But note, LSAT RCs tend to be longer, badly written (or wordy), and the questions on average are arguably more difficult. However, I do think they could be useful for prep. If you decide to use LSAT RCs: the 1st and 2nd passages are usually easier.

Well the best idea would be to time your RC passages depending upon on the number of questions as suggested in Manhattan RC guide.That really works.For instance take up 2 passages which contain 6 and 5 questions respectively.So time allotted to both the questions would be 12 and 10 min respectively(2minutes*no.of questions). Keep a track as to how much of time do you take to solve the questions and get them right.Note them down when you finish the passage.The next time when you start off with other passages go through the previous stats with respect to time and correctness of questions and motivate yourself that way to do well in the next 2 passages and compare both.

2 passages a day should be fine.

For instance for a 10 minutes passage if you were able to answer 4/5 questions then that's pretty good but answering 5/5 within 10 min is much better.

While reading the content just try and scribble all the imp points.It seems to be an unconventional method but it has worked well in my case.If you have exhausted RC from OG and verbal review try passages of RC99 Grail for practice questions.

Veritas Prep question bank ,Grockit etc are pretty good resources too.

Totally agree with Brent..I was About average on RC (65-70% accuracy) and basically did my own thing (read the Passage and answered the questions)..On timed tests (Full tests) my accuracy dropped to around 50% even though i was doing the same thing as practice. The problem was that my mind was fresh and had a lot of "juice" when i was practicing RC but when taken at the back end of a tough Quant section (not to mention IR) i saw my RC accuracy drop significantly..I then began researching different strategies, and my strategies basically takes some tips from the MGMAT RC book (5th edition) and some from members on this board (David @ Veritas Prep, Stacey etc)..I cannot overstate the IMPORTANCE of having a strategy to tackle RC..Identify which strategy (or a combo of strategies) works best for you, and then Hit practice hard..Try to be regimental so that even when you are fatigued you follow a SET of procedures and technique to answer questions (practice the same way)...My accuracy is now above 80% and i owe it to having a STRATEGY..

Best of Luck..