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Regarding Tough Passages at the end of OG!!

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Regarding Tough Passages at the end of OG!!

by adi_800 » Tue Jun 22, 2010 9:08 am
Hi All,

Wanted to know few things about Reading Comprehension!!

I have read the Manhattan RC guide for RC... And it is one of the best books that I have come across. This book has given me a strategy to solve RC....Before this, I was not aware of what exactly I m supposed to do when I get RC passage...

After doing that, I started OG11. In Diagnostic test of OG11... I got 11 right out of 17 and then started solving RCs..
Since then, I have been doing descent job, following strategy, making sure that I complete 5 questions in 9 minutes, taking notes while reading...
I had accuracy of around 75% n I was taking around 112 seconds to solve one question (As per manhattan guide, 2 min per q is the time limit)

But since, I have started solving the passages at the end of OG..That is from Q # 101.. my accuracy has gone down...timing has gone up. I m not understanding the passages... I know that passages n questions at the end are a bit of higher difficulty...

To make the matter worst, I have been getting biology n American history passages... N I hate Biology..

Can anyone let me know what you all are doing for solving tough passages? Any different strategy? Taking better notes? Taking more time?
How to approach tough passages?
Also, what is the difficulty level of the questions that come at the end of the OGs...May be last 30 questions...

Thanks in advance!!

Regards,
Aditya...
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by ironsferri » Tue Jun 22, 2010 10:53 am
Hi Aditya,
I've been facing the same exact issue. I'm a Mgmat student, so went thru the course, have all the books and applied all their strategies, which are very good.
When solving some tough RC from 1000rc though I've been struggling with time, especially long passages 50 lines up.

What is now working for me is to write down less, and to keep more in my mind, thus saving time between interim-times on/off the monitor.

It's like MGMAT strategy for long passages, but shortned.

1)Read well the first para
2)Read first line of each para well then literally skim thru VERY quickly thru the para noting (in your mind, not on paper) only major changes, such as changes in directions (however, but) or other signal words (for example in addition)
3)At the end and only at the end of the that para, write 2/3 words (in your own words) that summarize the TRUE CORE of that para.
4)Repeat for all others til the end
5)At the end take 5 seconds to jot down the Main Idea (what the author think; doesn't have to be complicated, think even in term of + or -; does he like the idea or not? )

With that jump to the first question - not to the answer choices though. After reading the question (if it's a "custom questions" meaning those that contains elements of the passage, take 5secs to DE-CODE the question: what's the question TRULY asking me to do : extrapolate from the question the 3 key factors you are after, which are SUBJECT+VERB+OBJECT). After you De-CODED the question, with the focus of what you are after in mind, read the answer choices, and you'll see that the correct answer will stick out to you in a very smooth manner.
If you are stuck between 2+ Achoices, remember the spoilers are:

-Word indicators
**Quantity words (a lot, some, few, ......- these words used in the AC(answer choices) must be equal/synonyms in the passage
**Probability words (always, sometime, never, often) - these words used in the AC(answer choices) must be equal/synonyms in the passage

-Extreme language

-Reverse (same words used, but reverse logic)



The main takeaways are to look at the structure, then ask the "why" the details are there, not of the "what the heck zxcasdaca means", and finally arm yourself with the scope in mind before even glancing at the answer choices (like a pirot when jumping into an enemy ship with his knife in his teeth! ;)
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Jun 22, 2010 12:02 pm
Received a PM asking me to respond.

FYI: I'm leaving on vacation in a few hours and won't be back until 5 July. While I'm gone, please talk to other experts; otherwise, I will reply after I return. (It may take me a few days after I get back to get through the backlog of PMs).
The main takeaways are to look at the structure, then ask the "why" the details are there, not of the "what the heck zxcasdaca means",
Love it! Good advice - structure and understanding why the author wrote what he wrote in each paragraph are really important because then you understand the overall point and flow of info. If you get a "what" question, you can go back and find "zxcasdaca" and figure out what it means then. :)

I haven't found it to be the case that the later RC passages are much tougher, actually - I think that's the one exception to the "higher numbers = harder difficulty" rule in OG. Each passage has some easier and some harder questions. You mentioned hating bio and history passages and getting more of those, so that might be more of the problem. It's also possibly that you're seeing a slightly higher proportion of certain question types that are harder for you - eg, if you're worse at inference questions and there are a few more of those... then those passages are going to be harder for you.

Go back to some of the passages you've already done (the ones you found harder) and start by trying to understand WHY you didn't understand whatever you didn't understand. Did you get confused by technical language? Was there a ton of annoying detail? Did you still get the main "point" or did you not even get that? If you didn't get the main point, is that because you were distracted by other stuff and forgot to make yourself find the point? Or was the language so confusing that you just weren't even sure what the main point was?

Go back now and try to figure out the main point (with no time limit). What prevented you from figuring this out before? That tells you what you need to study to get it right next time. (Most of the time, people miss the main point simply because they get distracted / overwhelmed by other stuff in the passage and this hurts their ability to concentrate on the main point.)

Generally speaking, if I find the passage itself extra tough, I focus even more on the high level and even less on the detail than I normally do. Most people do just the opposite but that is NOT what you want to do - if you aren't getting it already, then diving deeper into the detail usually doesn't help much. Instead, acknowledge that there's going to be stuff that you don't figure out on this passage - at least not on your initial read-through. Concentrate on getting the main point of the whole thing and understanding why each paragraph is sitting there. Is that paragraph mostly providing background? Is it providing support for the main point? Is it an example of some key point? Is it offering ideas that go against the main point? Maybe there are two different theories and one paragraph is about one theory and another paragraph is about the other theory? Etc.

(I've got a BTG article about The Point coming out on... I think it's July 6th. So keep an eye out for that.)

Here are some articles that can help in general with how to read RC passages and how to analyze and learn from RC questions. To adapt this for harder passages or questions, again, tell yourself that you might not get it all, or you might not get the right answer, but you're at least going to get the big picture or you're at least going to eliminate some wrong answers. Then actually figure out how to do that by going over some of your past passages and questions without a time limit. Then (and only then!) test yourself on some new passages. First learn the technique / learn how to get better (mostly using stuff you've already done), then test yourself on new stuff.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/02/ ... e-question
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by adi_800 » Tue Jun 22, 2010 4:43 pm
Hi Stacey,

I just loved this point.

"First learn the technique / learn how to get better (mostly using stuff you've already done), then test yourself on new stuff."

Thanks for your reply and also thanks to ironsferri for the reply.

What I m thinking is from the above two posts is...
1. Have a checklist for all the points (the questions mentioned by you)
2. Then check whether I have done those things... (I dont think I have)
3. Then come up with the analysis as to where I am right now, how can I learn at most from the passages that I got wrong, and how can I take those complex RC passages..

I am having work from home today...So, will complete the above stuff n post my findings..
Btw... We and BTG members will surely miss you in these coming days.. Have a great vacation ahead..
:)
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by adi_800 » Tue Jun 22, 2010 4:43 pm
Rest of the experts...
Please do contribute..Your advices will take me n all of us here a long way!!
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 05, 2010 11:29 am
And I'm back! Vacation was great. :)

I like your idea of a checklist - but I can think of two different types of checklists and I'm not sure which one you're talking about (or maybe you're talking about something I haven't even thought of!). Two levels:

1) When I'm doing a problem (under timed conditions), what should I be doing? What should I be thinking? (the "how to read" RC article talks about this stuff)
2) When I'm analyzing a problem, what should I be analyzing? What do I need to learn? How will I remember it next time? (The "how to analyze" article talks about this stuff)
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