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RC: Approach ...

by camitava » Thu Dec 27, 2007 10:39 pm
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...
Correct me If I am wrong


Regards,

Amitava
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by beatthegmat » Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:53 pm
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!
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by puneet » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:34 pm
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..
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by solaris » Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:42 pm
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.
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by nislam » Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:58 am
Camitava,

Have you figured out an approach that helped you? I'm in a similar situation you were.
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by camitava » Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:00 pm
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... :oops: :cry:
Correct me If I am wrong


Regards,

Amitava
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by nutreino » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:11 am
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 :)

Let me know if it helps
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by chidcguy » Sat May 10, 2008 6:47 pm
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 https://www.amazon.com/review/product/06 ... man Lewis. Does any one think that reading this book will help improve GMAT RC skills?
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by chidcguy » Sat May 10, 2008 7:20 pm
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.
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by tanviet » Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:21 pm
you should review "Kaplan verbal workbook" to improve RC,
any one have SC bible, pls, lend me
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by i.dreem » Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:23 am
Hi,

I just finished practicing RC from OG10 and OG11. My average accuracy rate for 243 questions i did, is 79%. I know its not good but its not too bad either.

From my experience of RC and from reading above posts, I can say that:

- Definitely RC takes time and needs to be respected.

- My approach for RC after trying so many things is:

Read the passage first. Don't try to skim it. I have experienced whenever i try to skim RC passage (or try to be smart with RC), it fails. Because i am in a hurry while skimming RC passage.

Now, I always read the passage first. Understand it properly. That doesnt mean that i try to remember each and every detail.

I CONSCIOUSLY do kind of meta reading. That means,
- i find out what the passage is all about. What is it that the author of the passage is talking about.
- i find out (applying my critical reasoning skills) what the author wants to say. give or take the details but what is it that author wants to convey. that is what is the bottomline. (main idea).

Lots of time, these 2 are done with the first paragraph only.
Sometimes, there will be details mixed with the idea. I CONSCIOUSLY tell myself that these are details by which he's supporting the main idea. sometimes, i dont get into details and read along.

- I keep CONSCIOUS track of the words used. However/Although/Seems like/Rather etc etc. This tells u that how the structure of the passage is progressing. This will help in many questions like "how does the information in para 3 relate to para 2?" Moreover, this helps me in roadmapping the passage.

Till the end, I read CONSCIOUSLY ,always judging what the author is telling.

Then i go to questions. In the questions, I follow this:

- Scope is very important. If the question is of main idea. And there is some word which was used as detail, I eliminate it immediately.
- Sometimes, the questions are easy (depends on the easiness of the passage also). So i just find the right answer and tick it.
- Sometimes , I follow elimination strategy. After reading the question, if i am not very sure abt the answer, i read the choices. Most of the times, I eliminate 3 choices very quickly. Then it boils down to 2. There i follow the scope technique or re read that portion of the passage.

RC is not only abt reading. It's about thinking right thru ur reading or reading the mind of author.

Please feel free to discuss the points which I have mentioned. I also need to improve on my RC skills.

-i.dreem
"Trying to make each day better than yesterday"
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by abracadabara » Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:55 am
Here are my 2 cents...

I too face similar dilemma about RC..wondering what strategy will suffice. I think that the best strategy depends on comfort level of each person and nobody/book can teach it to you. One strategy might work for one person but might completely fail for the second one.

I initially started doing RC by taking regular notes of "gist" of paragraph.. but felt that taking these notes actually
1. caused delay in reading complete paragraph
2. disrupted the thought process

Moreover, I always had to refer to paragraph in case of detail question...notes hardly served any purpose since whatsoever I write I'll anyways remember...so stopped following this strategy. :(

Nowadays, I try to keep RC as simple as possible..I read the paragraph and try to understand it(sounds simple enough??).. If some section is awkward and is taking too much of time to "understand", I pass over it.. The idea in RC q's is not to remember each and every point the paragraph tries to explain ... rather the idea is to know where the information is present in a set of 3-4 paragraphs along with the mood and the main idea of the complete set.. Again, we need not cram this information since it is always present with us to find answers from..

On the contrary, if you are taking too deep interest in understanding paragraph, then
1. u end up spending more time in reading
2. u might also do some mistakes if you answer the questions using based on ur "understanding" rather than what is in the paragraph...

Since a mistake is costly affair, it is better to get each answer from paragraph!!! In other words, if information is in front of you, then why not use it?
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HI

by saege » Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:19 am
Oneof my friends resilent used to remind me that any answer you select has to be suported by a line from the passage. if not then that answer has high probability that it is assumed or wrong.
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by mbaprocrastinator » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:06 am
I have to agree with another beatthegmatter who mentions about using Kaplan's Verbal Workbook. I think the strategies mentioned in the book are quite simple and the more you practice the better you get at it. Even if you are using paper based practice questions its alright. The main aim is to quickly get the gist of the passage, the medium should not pose a problem (generally, though I know there are people who prefer to choose practicing questions on the computer than paper-based ones). So the best way to attack RC questions is to practice, practice, practice, practice and practice even more. Even when you are reading the newspaper or browsing a website like CNN, just think that the passage on your screen is a GMAT RC question and practice. It helps!

Cheers!
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by neomax85 » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:44 pm
i got a book thru some guy in orkut..found it amazingly useful..i dono if i could share it here...my hit rate has increased dramatically..they use a approach called anchor phase lookup...which is like looking up the imporatnt phases in the questions with the phases in the answers
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