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powerpuff: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 80; Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2011 4:00 amFollowed by: 5 members; Thanked: 4 times

by powerpuff » Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:11 pm

Hello guys,
I took a GMATPREP CAT to see how I am faring and was appalled to see my performance on RC.
Here's the scenario .
I thought that I understood the passage well, but when I started answering the questions I realized that I was taking too long to answer questions and that is because I was not able to eliminate one of the two remaining choices after I had eliminated three choices.
As a result of this, I couldn't finish the Verbal section on time .
Can anyone tell me how should I approach the questions - should I spend more time trying to find the correct answer or should I just move on to the next question ? And at what point should I decide that it is better to mark a question wrong than waste more time.
Your insights will be really helpful.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Reading Comprehension | Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:11 pm

hja379: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 208; Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:10 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Thanked: 20 times

by hja379 » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:05 am

Ron's Videos:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm
Reading Comprehension: Short Passages & Miscellaneous Question Types
Reading Comprehension: Long Passages & Main Idea Questions

Zeke Lee's RC Approach:
https://www.gmatpill.com/practice-questi ... -guide-rc/

Don't panic. Both are must watch for RC (in my opinion). Pretty similar approach to reading passages. It will save a lot of time during your initial read. The time saved can be used for detailed questions later. Or else, you'll end up spending about the same time, twice. And go through each answer and analyze why you missed that question. Figure out whether your weakness is with general questions or detailed/specific questions. I was and am a 'detailed' reader. What I meant by that is, I have to understand every sentence before I move on to the next. This is not going to work. You have to be somewhere in the middle, between a big picture reader and a detailed one.

If you exam date is very near, don't worry about changing your strategy completely. You can always fine tune your current methodology to achieve optimal results.

Another tip, move on. Take a guess and move on. You never know, you might have wasted 3-4min of your precious time on an experimental question. I am not the expert here, but more than 2min on any RC question is not a good sign. You might see like 4 Qs per passage. That leaves about 8min for the entire thing. 3-4min of reading the passage would leave you less than 1.5min per Q.

Google "GMAT Pill"<--really helpful, worth checking out--especially for RC passages.
e-gmat SC: Never thought it would be fun learning SC.
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David@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2193; Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:30 pmFollowed by: 512 members; Location: Vermont and Boston, MA; Thanked: 1186 times; GMAT Score:770

by David@VeritasPrep » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:31 pm

Are you using process of elimination as your primary means of attacking the Reading Comp questions?

This is not really the best method for most (75% or more) of reading comp questions.

Here is what you can try. When you get to a question, figure out if the question stem is specific enough to take you to just one paragraph. If it is then you can go back to that paragraph and reread the correct portion. It is easy to find the correct portion to reread because the question stem is a paraphrase of part of the text. The related portion of the text that is not paraphrased in the question stem is then paraphrased as the correct answer.

It is like a problem solving question. Once you know that the answer is 420 then you just go and find that answer. So it is not process of elimination with these types of questions where you can go back to the text. If you start with process of elimination you will certainly find that you cannot always get rid of four choices. Much better to reread the text and know the answer. You can then eliminate the choices quickly.

I am definitely not a fan of saving time during the reading of the passage. Remember that there are only 3-4 passages during the test and only 14 questions but there are 70 answer choices. It is the answer choices that take all the time. Spending and extra minute reading the passage is no problem but if you average even 10 seconds per answer choice this is too long.

I am posting an LSAT reading comp passage today. Why not try it and use the approach mentioned above when you read each question? Also take your time reading the passage and gather yourself at the end of each paragraph, integrate your knowledge, maybe even think about where the passage might be headed as it progresses, get involved in the reading and never skim.

Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor

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powerpuff: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 80; Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2011 4:00 amFollowed by: 5 members; Thanked: 4 times

by powerpuff » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:20 am

Thanks ,David for the great insights. You are absolutely right. I have been using the Process of Elimination(which I learnt in SC) in RC questions as well .As a result, I take a lot of time in questions without any surety that the question will be right.
Thanks a lot again. WIll try the LSAT RC you have posted.

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