JamMasterJ wrote:SanDiegoJake wrote:Read once quickly, then read specific parts of the passage more slowly to find validation for ACs.
gotcha. Do you advocate marking a lot, a little, or none?
I'm a big marker. Here's what I mark and why - I do all this in the initial readthrough.
1) Author's tone - I mark author's tone with a + or a - whenever I see it. Why? It's difficult to skim the passage and find proof of tone, and as you know, I like to have passage support for every answer I choose. What I mark are "opinion words" such as "Fortunately", "Chiefly", "Primarily" etc...
2) Signpost words - Words that indicate a change in direction, an example or a list, such as "However", "But", "For example" etc... I circle these to draw my eye to them when I'm answering specific questions. For instance, when I'm answering a specific question in line 12, and I see a circled "However" in line 14, my eye is drawn there and I make sure to read the entire relevant portion. It greatly helps me avoid the trap of reading too narrowly (the most common trap on the test). Examples and lists help me for purpose questions and general passage structure.
3) Main ideas of each paragraph - I stop and pause after each paragraph to bracket the main point of each one. This helps me "chunk" the passage into parts, so I am sure to understand how each paragraph functions in the passage as a whole. I also re-read everything I've bracketed before answering any general question, as the right answer can't be too narrow or too broad - it has to encompass the whole passage.
Bottom line: Not only does marking the parts of the passage that get asked about help me in answering questions, but it also puts me in control. I often get bored and my mind wanders if I just read the whole thing without "looking" for anything. So by annotating the passage in this way, I am able to keep my pencil moving, focus, and rest assured that I am helping myself earn points (as opposed to merely trying to "comprehend").