If there is one thing I want people to remember in RC it has to be:
"Overcome the fear of missing something"
There can't be a greater example of this then to remember that none of us remember who coined the phrase "The devil lies in the details"
Tell yourself a million times.....nay, a billion times before you pick the next RC passage. You don't need to read the entire passage to understand it entirely. And you don't need to understand the passage entirely in order to answer all the questions.
Learning something new is hard. Unlearning an old habit is harder. We have become so used to remembering the details for our school exams we forget that its the concept that is important. We can *always* revisit the passage for minor details.
So next time you hit the passage, try this (try this for 5 passages and I guarantee you will see a change):
(1) Focus on the first few lines - read critically to understand what the author is trying to say. For longer passages this could be roughly 1/3 of the first paragraph.
(2) Skim the rest of the passage. In most cases, the author just ends up justifying what he is trying to say in the first few lines. Skim for the GIST (GI -> General Idea S->Structure T->Tone).
(3) Now for a longer passage try putting down in less than 10words for each paragraph what you thought was the crux. For shorter passages, the same might be for a chunk of 3-4sentences.
eg. Author shows 2 reasons a & b for a theory.
Goes onto show why a is wrong and b is unproven
Explains his own theory (c)
Gives lots of examples for c to be right
(4) Remember that while reading you might not even want to read the examples given and dive straight into the questions
More about strategy on each type of question in the next post.
HTH,
Arun
