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Is it "wrong" not to take notes during RC?

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What is your RC strategy:

1) Paraphrase as you are reading (1-2 sentences at a time)
0
No votes
2) Paraphrase as you are reading (chapter by chapter)
1
17%
3) Read in entirety then paraphrase
1
17%
4) No paraphrasing at all (read and retain)
4
67%
5) Varies depending on content/length
0
No votes
6) Other (let me know if you have any other innovative tricks)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 6
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Is it "wrong" not to take notes during RC?

by m&m » Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:14 am
I'm having trouble with timing during RC questions. In order for me to take notes, I find the need to pause every 1-2 sentences, paraphrase the material on my page, then find my spot on the screen (which I sometimes loose) and resume. By the end of the passage I'm often far behind (time wise) that I stop writting notes altogether.

I find that writing things down keeps me honest to the passage - forces me to pay attention. Though I feel with enough practice I can train myself to do the same by reading the passage fully and be as comfortable with the material.

What are successful RC test takers' thoughts on note-taking during RC?

Thanks for response
Last edited by m&m on Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:40 am, edited 3 times in total.
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by shadowsjc » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:52 pm
i tried jotting notes when i first studied for RC a year and a half ago (for the LSAT). for me, it was more a of a waste of time than anything.

what i used on the gmat was just reading through the passage - not too quickly - just once. if you read through it too fast, then you're bound to go back to the passage again when youre answering questions, which is just as big of a waste of time as paraphrasing.

of course, this works differently for everyone, which is why RC is generally the toughest to improve in.
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by cbenk121 » Sat Oct 03, 2009 6:09 pm
Not sure why this is here instead of RC?

Anyway, I paraphrase each paragraph. So on my paper I'll write "1P", then a sentence describing what the main idea was. It takes a little time, so I try to write fast, but once I'm done with the article, the questions then are almost blindlingly obvious.

If the question asks for author's intent, you'll have the main ideas in front of you. If the question asks about a specific section, then you'll already know what the surrounding paragraph is about. Etc etc...

If I were you, I'd stop obsessing over the details (every 1-2 sentence paraphrase?), and look for the big point in each paragraph. I'm also one to write things out, a visual person, so that's why simply reading a passage won't work for me, especially on a computer screen where you don't have the tactile interaction.
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