Reading Comprehension

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  yhtkim Alum Member

  March 25 374 karma

  When studying RC, I think it's important to be honing a specific strategy. For me, this consisted of two things:

  1. I trained myself to invest a lot of time into the passage (70% passage, 30% questions, give or take). Taking the time to digest the passage made the harder questions so much easier, and I also saw a net increase in speed -- I was able to blow past most of the easier questions in 10 something seconds, sometimes even less.

  2. I know this doesn't jibe with everyone, but I always wrote low-res summaries. They made it heaps easier to digest each paragraph. Synthesizing the information forced my brain to get a better handle on the trickier, more subtle details.

  These tricks -- and a whole lot of practice -- helped me achieve a consistent -2 on RC. On test day, I'm fairly sure I hit a perfect score. (I got a 172, and I struggled HARD with the last logic game and a couple LR questions.) I owe a great deal of it to this AMA. It's a great read all around, but what it says about RC was the most helpful for me. https://classic.7sage.com/1-ama-w-7sager-cant-get-right-152-to-176/
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  Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  March 25 28109 karma

  @yhtkim said:
  When studying RC, I think it's important to be honing a specific strategy. For me, this consisted of two things:

  1. I trained myself to invest a lot of time into the passage (70% passage, 30% questions, give or take). Taking the time to digest the passage made the harder questions so much easier, and I also saw a net increase in speed -- I was able to blow past most of the easier questions in 10 something seconds, sometimes even less.

  2. I know this doesn't jibe with everyone, but I always wrote low-res summaries. They made it heaps easier to digest each paragraph. Synthesizing the information forced my brain to get a better handle on the trickier, more subtle details.

  These tricks -- and a whole lot of practice -- helped me achieve a consistent -2 on RC. On test day, I'm fairly sure I hit a perfect score. (I got a 172, and I struggled HARD with the last logic game and a couple LR questions.) I owe a great deal of it to this AMA. It's a great read all around, but what it says about RC was the most helpful for me. https://classic.7sage.com/1-ama-w-7sager-cant-get-right-152-to-176/

  There's so much to be said about taking the time to comprehend the reading. You'll see tons of tips and hacks that try to bypass comprehension, but it's literally a test of how well you understood the thing you just read. If you didn't understand the passage, you won't--and shouldn't--perform well on a test of how well you understood the passage. Investing in the read and taking the time to work things out is the most important thing. If you don't do it the first time, you'll just have to do it later--less efficiently--in response to a question you don't know how to answer. Invest the time to prioritize comprehension. I average about 4 minutes per passage, and I know I went -0 on test day because back then they told us. If you do the math on the remaining time, that gives me an average of about 42 seconds per question. Not a ton of time, but enough if you have strong comprehension. I'd much rather have 42 seconds with a strong 4:00 read compared to 51 seconds with a compromised 3:00 read.
• 1 Like

  MattyCzar Core Member

  March 26 99 karma

  In addition to the previous comments, because you're just starting out, do a few passages untimed. Get a feel for what its like reading the passages and what sort of questions you'll be expected to answer. And once you start seeing your score go up, then you can start focusing more on timing and getting through each passage quicker.