Reading Comprehension

winner's attitude wrote:Can you pls address two issues for CR ( hope these are not universal questions )

Do you think the same approach of predicting answer choice should be applied for CR ? i am asking this question because unlike RC, there are out of passage details required in the CR problems ?

What are pros and cons of note taking in CR ? would u suggest note taking for increasing CR accuracy, if yes how ,only conclusion or conclusion + premise etc. ?

whoa, whoa there

ANY question asking about CR across the board is not going to be a valid question.

EVERY CR QUESTION TYPE IS DIFFERENT!
DO NOT EXPECT TECHNIQUES THAT WORK FOR ONE CR TYPE TO WORK FOR OTHER CR TYPES!

so when you approach a question like this, the first thing you're going to have to do is separate your treatment of the different CR question types -- in general, it's going to be impossible to give any meaningful advice that applies to all of them.

in fact, much of the advice that works for certain CR problem types is directly contradictory to advice that works for other types. as a simple example, when you do "draw the conclusion" problems, you always need to select answer choices that are completely within the scope of the statements in the passage -- but then, when you do strengthening/weakening or "explain the discrepancy" problems, you always need to select answer choices that are (at least partially) OUTSIDE the scope of the statements in the passage.

you can see how this sort of situation translates to any other question about "general advice" for CR -- not a good idea.

in fact, the same is true for RC: you still shouldn't try to transfer advice for one question type onto other question types.
for instance, in the study hall, i was very careful to point out that "predict the answer" is ONLY good advice for the following types of questions:
* MAIN IDEA
* AUTHOR'S PURPOSE
"predict the answer" is generally not very sound advice at all for other questions, such as inference and detail questions.

Thanks very much Ron once again... your confidence in one approach gives me a concrete direction and motivation to put more efforts on the same line.

glad it helped.

tpr-becky wrote:I think you are basically correct in your reading comp strategy on the exam - however you have neglected the answer choices. the practice of translating your predicted answer to the correct answer choice can actually be the most difficult part of RC for some people. When looking at an answer you need to identify the key terms (what makes the answer stand out from the rest of the choices) and compare it to what you have predicted - if they are close in meaning/ideas then keep the answer if they are not then eliminate the answer. If, after reading all of the answers you have kept more than one then you have to compare those remaining answers with your predicted answer and the passage to see which one fits better.

Every specific RC answer can be traced back to something specific in the text so that is also a good thing to practice after you have completed a passage. reviewing each answer to a question to see why the test writers put it on the exam, what made a wrong answer attractive and why was it wrong and why, exactly, is the right answer correct. In my opionion it is this very careful, specific review process that gives the best improvement to anyone in Reading Comp.

hope that helps.

becky --

this may have been lost in translation, but, in the original presentation, i was very careful to make clear that "predict the answer" is only intended as a valid strategy for MAIN IDEA and AUTHOR'S PURPOSE questions.

largely for the reasons you've pointed out here, trying to predict answers to detail or inference questions ahead of time is going to be difficult, if not impossible, on most questions.

winner's attitude wrote:@ becky .. this really helped.

i am sure that after this 360 degree analysis of RC... i will surely improve on my RC...

Post this thread my frusteration over different strategies has come to an end , and it has given new direction to my efforts.

Working hard on RC now and expecting to to grow from 60-->80--> and then atleast 90% accuracy ( of course within the time frame :) )

thanks once again

WA --

be careful about the idea of measuring your performance by the % of problems that you get correct.

if you are working from paper books, such as the OG, then there's some validity to this sort of metric -- in general, as you improve your abilities, you will get a greater proportion of the problems correct in a paper book.
HOWEVER,
if you are using this "% correct" measure in evaluating your practice tests, that's a really bad idea -- remember that practice tests are adaptive: they get harder as you get better.
i.e., it's quite possible that, even if you are actually improving a great deal, you won't get a much greater % correct, because the problems themselves are getting harder!

Target2009 wrote:Hi Ron,

This time I am more into "Analyzing Your Work" section & really working hard on learning from my own mistakes.
I do have few questions/ queries.

just to make sure -- are you just talking about reviewing your work in general?
(the way you've capitalized those words seems to indicate that they are the title of some unit/chapter/lesson in some book or other resource; i just want to make sure that's not the case.)

1. When to start analysis? After looking into answer( only) or answer n explanations( if available) or just after I completed my reading n associated questions? :?:

not sure what you mean by "n" -- is that supposed to be the number of problems? like n = 3 for a short passage and n = 4 for a long passage?

well -- you clearly don't want to start doing any review until you actually see the answers to the questions. otherwise you won't know whether anything you're doing is right or wrong!
you can review this stuff in any order that makes sense to you, really, but you may want to try the following:
* first, check the answer
* then, see whether YOU can come up with a decently complete explanation (both of why the correct answer is correct, and of why the wrong answers are wrong)
* finally, check the official explanations to see whether you were on target

2. Should i re-read the passage during my analysis? :?: If I have to re-read, what is the best method / time during analysis to do so, because re-reading the passage always made me understand passage better. :?:

that may not be such a good idea -- you don't want to become accustomed to re-reading passages. if you do that, you may even start exerting less effort to understand the passage the first time you read it.

in general, i don't think re-reading the whole passage is worthwhile unless you miss a main idea question, which is the only type of question that actually uses the passage as a whole.
if you miss another type of question -- such as a detail or inference problem -- then you should just go back and find the part of the passage that deals with that problem. these problems shouldn't need to be informed by the passage as a whole.

Other problem I am facing is, during skimming. When i try to skim facts / examples in passage, its more or less like skipping it and by the time i reach to end of passage, I have no idea what was discussed in those facts/examples. :( :( So when i get some specific details questions, I have to search ( as i am not able to locate directly) & re-read complete details including couple of previous lines. :(

well -- unless you are a blazing fast reader, you just aren't going to have the time to actually read through all the specifics. (plus, noticing all the specifics would be a colossal waste of time, anyway -- remember that you're only going to get questions on two, or maybe three, of those details at the very most. considering that there are a lot more than 2-3 details in the whole passage, the amount of time that you'll be wasting on the others is unconscionable.)

here's a compromise:
think of the way you'd explore a new city -- you'd just notice the general neighborhoods of the city at first. i.e., you wouldn't notice lots of individual storefronts while driving through the city for the first time -- just "that's an italian neighborhood", "that's an industrial neighborhood", etc. then, if you wanted to find specific things, you'd go to the appropriate neighborhood -- which you found before -- and look there.
in fact, this is the only reasonable way to find things while exploring a city (barring technologies such as internet directories, etc.) think of how ridiculously difficult it would be to find, say, an italian deli by randomly trying to remember where you'd seen an italian deli. now, think of how much easier it would be to find that same deli if you remembered where you saw an italian neighborhood, and then went there and looked for the deli.
you should do the same with long passages:
just notice the "neighborhoods" of details. for instance, if some paragraph describes the 4 steps of some scientific process, don't bother to try to remember what the steps actually are; instead, just say "hey, that's the 'steps' neighborhood" or "hey, that's the 'procedure' neighborhood". then, if the passage asks you about one of those steps, you go back to the appropriate neighborhood and find it.

What should i do during skimming to retain at least some amount of information? Should i note down few words discussed there?

maybe. although it's more important to get a sense of the general "neighborhood" of that part of the passage, as stated above. if you can get that general sense by noting a few words, then go ahead and do that.

I would also like to mention getting gist of the passage & paragraph ( main idea, tone , structure) really helping me to answer general question with good accuracy level. :) :) is

that's good news.

Target2009 wrote:Hi Ron,

Thanks a lot for detail reply.

I am really really thankful to you for guiding me to finalize my reading comp strategy. With all above discussions & valuable suggestion, I came up with following practice & analysis strategy & going to practice it for some time before evaluating my progress in this area.

Practice Strategy:
1. Start reading 1st para ( normal pace) and paraphase & take note after each 1 or 2 sentences. Notes must not contain what all ready mentioned in passage.
2. Point out Main idea / Point of 1st para.
3. Read, parapharse & takenote for all subsequent paragraphs for first one or two sentence.

... and also check out the last sentence.
sometimes the last sentence is just more random details, but sometimes it makes an important point.

4. Skim rest of the contents of paragraphs & during skimming take notes for unfamilier, new words or any eye catching words.
5. Once done with the passage, summrise Main point/idea, little bit on structure/ organization of passage.
6. Move on to questions.

this sounds decent.

remember that the bulk of the advice that i give on this board is tailored to students who tend to be excessively detail-oriented (since that's the profile of most people who post here). if anyone reading this post tends to be a natural "big-picture" thinker, then he/she may have to emphasize things differently in reading the passages.

Analysis Strategy:
1. Look at the OA to find out whether your choices are correct or not. Don't look at official explanation at this moment.
2. Try to justify each answer choices. (i.e. why correct ans is correct and why wrong is wrong)
3. Don't re-read passage unless some general question missed.
4. In case of specific question try to find , what was missed during initial read that you were not able to locate to the details.
5. In case you were able to location the details & still chosen wrong answer then try to find what made you selecting wrong choices.
6. Once you done then try to match your explanation with Official explanation.


Kindly suggest if I am missing some important points.

Regards
Abhi

don't forget "be sure to predict answers to main idea & organization questions before you look at the choices". otherwise, this is good.
i also like the fact that it's short -- it's a manageable amount of information with which to walk into the test. too many people try to write down page after page after page of points and memorize all of it -- which is fine when it comes to detailed facts (if your memory is good for that sort of thing), but is a disaster when it comes to protocols: nobody is going to remember, say, a 20-step process, unless they've executed it thousands and thousands and thousands of times.

mundasingh123 wrote: Hi Ron , One one hand you said that you agreed on the point of passage "Author presented a popular research area ( polygamy) which was lot discussed before Remi ( a researcher) published his book to share same view."
as stated by Target 2009 .
Then you went on to say that "theory says co-wives = power & money" would be a great description of the point of passage .
I am confused.

no, check out that post again; i didn't say that the co-wives thing was the point of the passage. rather, i was using it as an illustration of how one should go about taking notes on specific facts, **IF** one determines that those facts are central enough to merit actually writing down (note that this is not true for the vast majority of facts).

in other words, that part was meant as an illustration of the idea that one should always rephrase statements from the passage into one's own words -- i.e., if you actually copy the statement verbatim from the passage, that's usually an indicator that you don't really understand what it means.
moreover, copying statements from the passage is never useful -- bear in mind that you still get to consult the passage whenever you want, so having a fact in two places is no better than having it in one place. (in fact, it's worse, because needless copying of specifics will both (a) distract you from more important points and (b) prevent your brain from looking for those points in the first place, because it's not possible to concentrate on both details and the big picture at the same time.)

mundasingh123 wrote:Hi Ron thanks for answering my question . I have 1 more doubt regarding target2009's version of the point of Passage,which you agreed with , whhich is ""Author presented a popular research area ( polygamy) which was lot discussed before Remi ( a researcher) published his book to share same view." This point has no mention of the theory or what theory said about polygamy .So How can this be the point of passage ?

basically, the point of the paragraph is (a) to describe a research field and (b) to segue into one particular author's view of that subject.
when you consider the main idea, you don't need to (and shouldn't) get overly into the specifics of that author's work; from the standpoint of the main idea, you just need to identify (1) that one scholar's view is being presented, and (2) any relationship between that view and the rest of the passage.
if you delve too deeply into specifics, you will not also be able to concentrate on the main point(s) of the passage.