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RC Time Allotment

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RC Time Allotment

by tanvis1120 » Sat Sep 13, 2014 6:23 am
Hi Experts,

What my interpretation from the books and forums is that a test taker should allot (rather, allowed to do so ) approx 2.5 minutes to read the RC passage (Create passage map etc.). He/She can start answering the individual questions, taking 1.5 minutes per question. In contrast to my assumption, I find that GMAT prep everytime raises red flag after 1 min 50 secs of throwing a passage. Thus, I lag behind.
Experts, please help me resolve the confusion and let me know what should be the time limit to read and map an RC passage and to answer the individual questions.

Thanks a lot!
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by brianlange77 » Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:22 am
It's a good question. At its simplest, our approach suggests that, for an entire passage plus answering the questions, total time should approximately equal the number of questions * 2. So, a four-question passage should yield you about 8 minutes.

Now, it's not perfect, because you don't know how many questions you will be facing until you are done. So, given that, I think most would agree it's about 3-4 minutes for the passage, and about a minute or so per question.

Does that make sense?

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by [email protected] » Sat Sep 13, 2014 11:09 am
Hi tanvis1120,

While many Test Takers are concerned about their pacing in RC, they tend to ignore their pacing problems in CR and SC, so it's worth examining how you approach the ENTIRE Verbal section.

Here are a couple of ways to gauge your overall performance:
1) How often do you spend MORE than 90 seconds on an SC? (most SCs are actually meant to be solved in UNDER 75 seconds).
2) How often do you spend MORE than 120 seconds on a CR?

While it sounds like you might have a pacing problem in RC, your real (more pressing) problems might be elsewhere.

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by brianlange77 » Sat Sep 13, 2014 2:54 pm
I think Rich's point is a fair one -- even more broadly, I think that most people get stressed about timing on quant and often don't think about it on verbal as much. Everyone's approach is going to be individualized here, but it speaks to the importance of tracking data and really using your own performance to help you figure out where/how/when you need to be more focused from a timing perspective.

Good luck!
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:19 pm
In contrast to my assumption, I find that GMAT prep everytime raises red flag after 1 min 50 secs of throwing a passage. Thus, I lag behind.
Unless I am mistaken, the GMATPrep timing is only based on taking the 75 minutes and dividing it evenly between either 37 questions on Quant or 41 on verbal. 75/ 41 = 1min 49.2 seconds. So it seems that at 1 min and 50 seconds on EACH verbal question regardless of question type, the GMATPrep will say that you are over time.

Now experts agree that Sentence Correction should be the quickest and that the first question on a reading passage will take much longer than 1:50! But the GMATPrep exam is not that specific as to when the timer turns red.

My advice is not to pay too much attention to that timer but rather to understand how you work best. For me, the only verbal question that is close to 1:50 would be Critical Reasoning. Sentence Correction will usually be well under 1:50 and so will most reading comp questions, however the first reading comp question which includes reading the passage will always be over 2 minutes.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:21 pm
As for the time you should spend on reading versus answering the questions, we have incredibly experienced instructors at Veritas who different thoughts on this. I have taught well over 100 courses and was a contributing author to the latest edition of the Veritas books. I tend to take longer to read but then I am quicker at answering each of the questions. Many instructors and students find success this way.

One of the lead authors of the newest Veritas Prep books, a instructor who has taught for Veritas for 10 years and also has taught over 100 full courses goes for the opposite approach - he reads more quickly and then returns to the passage on most every question and so takes longer on the questions.

The truth is that we each take about the same amount of time in the end and we each get just about every Reading Comp question right. So there are different ways to do this and different ways to be great at reading comp.

You can take longer with the reading and then be quicker on the questions, or you can take less time reading and devote more time to the questions. The one thing that you cannot afford to do it to take more time reading AND take more time on the questions!

Try both ways and see what works for you!

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by tanvis1120 » Sat Sep 13, 2014 6:17 pm
Thank you everyone for your detailed response !
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by brianlange77 » Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:21 pm
Hey Tanvis -- It's been two weeks since this thread got hoppin' :=) How's it going? Any progress / lessons / new questions to share here with your peers?

Thanks.

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