Fwd: How to Ace RC

I read so many general approaches to RC,

- Skim passage fast, then read very quickly answer qs. - Skim passage,read first and last  sentence of each paragraph  - Read first question first,then read passage answer first question immediately then read the rest of the passage.........

My opinion: This is not the way to go if you are serious about RC and your verbal score. So,the following is my general approach and I repeated these 2-3 times just before the verbal section on the test day.

1) Start to read(this is great advice,no?) SLOWLY. This was one of the best advices I have seen. I read this somewhere dont remember. It is crucial. You wanna solve RC as quickly as possible so you rush into the 1st paragraph, read it in 20 sc and move to the next and basically=> You have no idea about what to expect next,you have no idea about author's position, no clue about author's goal.
YOU SHOULD READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH SLOWLY!!!. MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THE OVERALL ISSUE!!! UNDERSTAND THE TIME ARTICLE REFERS TO. DIFFERENT PLAYERS.... NEVER EVER START FAST.
            

2) Paraphrase with exaggeration! You should think for 1-2 seconds in every 2-3 sentences and repeat your understanding in your own language. But when you paraphrase add something to it. When you repeat your understanding in your own language, say something in your mind that will make you remember that. For example, if author says scientist A was wrong. I paraphrase this in my own language: Wow look at this author , he says this stupid scientist made wrong assumptions.Lets see why?....  It may sound silly but it is very effective. This exaggeration also keeps your attention at high levels.

3)Related to the previous item: Reading with the desire to learn and at least agree or disagree with the author! In almost all passages, either the author or the people mentioned argue for X and some other people argue for Y OR there are two things described and author gives evidences etc.
It is not easy to stay focused in a long RC passage, to achieve this,I always tried to take sides,when possible, and criticize either the author or the other parties... Since I like arguments and discussions, this technique helped me follow turns in the passage, evaluate evidences and claims, expect what might come next. So, simply, take sides.(even in a neutral passage that just describes a phenomenon,you can find a way to stay focused by using number 2 and 3 above). Never ever read a gmat passage as if you are reading newsweek. What all gmat books tell you is => Read to learn?! But how??? Once again,I am repeating, the only way to read to learn is to TAKE SIDES and CRITICIZE,QUESTION,MAKE FUN OF THE AUTHOR or OTHER PARTIES. BE AGRESSIVE,ACT LIKE THEIR  WORST ENEMY OR BEST FRIENDS.

4)Take notes.
        

These steps may seem time consuming,but trust me on two things

- Other techniques will cost you more time overall,you will need to dig and search for info,get frustrated, lost concentration. And still get more questions wrong

- Also) believe me you wont be able to apply this approach 100% under the test conditions so it wont be that time consuming. YET,developing this systematic approach is so important, it will help you a great deal even if

Tough RCs: Lets first define ‘”tough”. For me, tough RCs means RCs that reduce my accuracy rate from above 90% to 60-70%.  Toughness is not directly linked to the length, structure or topic of the passage. I call an RC tough when I am unsure of 2 of the 4 answers I just gave!!! So whenever you see the word “tough” in the following explanation, remember what it means in this context.

How RC becomes tough:
                    I identified two(and 1 unique) major ways GMAT makes RC tougher and causes your verbal score take a dive towards low 30s.

a) Double or Triple Trouble:
                    Who- What -Where-How-Why?

If you start annoying GMAT verbal, it will throw you one of these Double/Triple trouble passages. These are passages where you are presented 2 or 3 theories, items, animals, events at the same time. This is still okay right, so GMAT does another thing, it talks about 2-3 attributes of these 2-3 main things. So you might have a bug which can fly but can not walkJ then you might have a bug which can walk but can not flyJ , then the first group can have members which are red but die at young age, then others in different colors but die old,the second group might have members which have a thick shell in red and reproduce young, the other members have no shell and reproduce when they are old etc.

This is the first trick GMAT uses. It overloads you with similar but different information for all the main things(bugs,events, people, theories etc) in the passage. Most people would say there is no need to understand those details,I say it is very important to understand the main differences between these groups as you read the passage. Passing these sections is a fatal mistake. (please ctrl+f this word in 1000 RC doc.   Macropterous, give yourself 7 mins for the passage you found)

What I do: I try to;

-Identify points of difference (how do they differ) and also parity (how they are similar) between these different things. Is it the time they die? Is it the whether they have a shell? Is it their color?

- Depending on the situation, I wrote down main points and  try to undertand where the author focuses and gives examples etc. I then paraphrase (again using exaggeration) my understanding.

-Also, I try to think of the questions I may get? This is critical. You should practice this in all RCs you solve and trust me it will not only help you know the questions in advance but also improve your understanding of the passage.

-In my first actual gmat and earlier prep tests I used to not read these comparisons and think these are details I have to disregard. What a mistake!!! Read this very carefully, it is correct that in RC you don’t need to read all the details. BUTTTT not all details are nonsense info that author is not interested in!!!! If author gives details to prove his case or to explain an issue, you better damn read those details and read them well.  Simply put, if you feel author is trying to say something to you, try to understand that section of the passage very well.

Rule of Thumb: If you read a long paragraph and except for 2-3 lines you understood everything, should you feel confident??? NO! RCs are designed in a way that you and I don’t get some sections of the passages and believe me the questions will be directly from those 2-3 lines of the passage that you didn’t understand.  As I said above, this will happen especially with passages that compare/descrive two three things. I accept that knowing what is superficial detail and what is important detail is not easy but if you work with tough RCs you will be so good at this, trust me.

One last thing that can  further complicate these passages and that is used in CR as well: Naming namesSimply put, the passage says red bugs with shell at the beginning then somewhere in second paragraph(by the time it refers to all different bugs and makes your brain go crazy…) it refers to the same bugs as “hareklisnese”. Or it talks about different books/authors and all of a sudden starts calling that one of the book/author by another name.  And it does this without really warning you. This of course complicates things and becomes deadly if you are already frustrated with all the details you get and you dont notice the sudden change in names!

Last advice: Don’t think not drawing a small table in 20 sc will cost you more time than not taking notes will! At the risk of overgeneralizing, I am saying that if you don’t fully understand: What,Where,How, Why aspects of these tough passages, you will be literally guessing, even if you don’t admit. Try macropterous, you will see what I mean. These are just like the 50-51 quant questions you solve in math section, why do you give 5-6 minutes to 1 question in quant but not spend 20-30 sc to draw a simple table in  a 51 verbal question??? 

b) Close Answers

Sometimes the passage itself will be easy to read, probably passages on business or social sciences etc., since the passage is easy you will relax and your attention level will drop. Then , when you start reading the questions you will say: Damn, I understood everything how can I not answer these questions?.  The second GMAT trick in RC is to give the test taker an easy passage with very tough questions with answer choices so close one would need to think of the meaning of 1 word etc. to click the right answer.

Cases in point are the “Role of Gender in Africa etc” RC in the new sets (key words Ghana-Kenya role of women and) and “Women Education in US, a discussion about an author” RC in old sets.

When you get these passages, understanding the passage is not enough. No matter how carefully read the passage, how effectively you take notes etc. You will have to evaluate at least 2 probably 3 answer choices. They will be very close. To trick you even more, GMAT will make the 2 choices as follows

a)Half of this choice will be exactly true and will be put in a very good format. So if author described a book , half of this choice will say,  author described a book!!! So you will go: Oh this is 100% true so this might be the answer. Yet the other part will be blurry, it will use words from the passage . Your brain will remember those words and also the halo effect created by the first half(which crystal clear & correct) will make you think this is the answer.

b) This answer choice will not be so crystal clear, maybe it will say author introduces an issue and give examples,( this part will be okay but still not as good as the first part of the answer choice a)  then the second part will be even less appealing but you wont think it is incorrect , you will feel it is just not that direct and “good looking’’ as the answer choice a.

In tough passages you will always face this dilemma: YOU HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT ANSWER WHEN YOU HAVE TWO CLOSE ANSWER CHOICES AS DESCRIBED ABOVE!!! GMAT knows that your brain will remember few words from the passage and also that you will prefer more direct and ‘’good looking’’ answer. In the above example, answer choice a will be wrong because one word or one part will be wrong.

What I do: First,since I know I will do well in verbal, I know that when GMAT gives me an easy to read passage=> Answer choices will be close!!!. I spend less time on the passage. I KNOW I WILL NEED TIME WHEN ANSWERING.

Then when answering questions, I wrote on the paper the choices I eliminated (I do this in verbal when things get messy and tough) and the two left! Then I use POE by focusing on single WORDS!!! Not on the complete answers. And I always ask myself: IS THIS REALLY TRUE? If answer says “author questioned the validity of a theory” I directly ask: Did the really do that? NO=> one word is wrong,the whole thing is wrong. Remember this rule if the one piece of information,verb used to describe an idea,event etc. is wrong ,  the answer choice will be wrong. Doesn’t matter whether the rest,which might be 90% of the answer choice, is correct and very nicely put in words!!!!! One word wrong=>GONE.

The last thing I do, I pay attention that I am extremely confident! Don’t be confident if you don’t know anything. But if you know a lot, you have to be very confident to eliminate the other answer choice! No matter how many questions you solve, unless you have the extreme confidence, YOU WILL BE STUCK BETWEEN TWO ANSWER CHOICES (this is correct in CR as well).

Once again I repeat, business, social sciences etc. passages are easy to read and will definitely have close answer choices. Don’t relax when you read these passages if you wanna nail the next 4 questions!

In your prep, try to solve business and social science passages as well,don’t just focus on science passages. Remember topic does not make a passage easy or tough.

C) Satiric/Unclear Tones:
                    Just a short advice: Sometimes, the author will use satire or will write in a way to disguise his tone==> you wont be able to understand what he really thinks,normally it should be easy but still: If you notice author is using satire/unclear tone and you don’t really understand what he thinks. STOP READING! UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON.WHO THINKS WHAT THEN MOVE ON.NEVER EVER  READ THE WHOLE THING WITHOUT FIRST UNDERSTANDING  THE POSITION OF THE AUTHOR(if he has one)