RC Dual Passage Questions Forum

[Zensack]

I've been doing pretty well on most RC problem sets, usually 1 or 0 misses, but on the sets that have 2 passages I'm doing horribly, usually ≈4 misses. Even if the subject matter on the dual section is much easier than a normal section I'll do worse on the dual. I'm obviously doing something wrong on these problem sets.

Are there any special techniques I should be using on these? If you do well on them, how do you typically approach them?

[LionelHutzJD]

Questions are going to ask you to identify pieces from either BOTH or individual passages. It's important to get the main point of each passage down before you attack the questions and try to see how they relate. Are they against each other? Do they agree/disagree on the issue? Try and see what role they play with each other in the big picture.

[HuskyHopeful]

After reading the first passage I put myself in the shoes of passage A adopting all of their viewpoints. I then read passage B as if I was the author of passage A. Helps me with pointing out and remembering differences.

[bp shinners]

I pick a persona I know from TV/the news to read the passage in my head. So if the first one is about cleaning up the environment, Al Gore reads it to me. Then, the pro-oil passage is read by that Texan from the Simpsons.

The big thing for these is to let the degree of difference between the passages guide the answers you're looking for. So in a very adversarial set of passages, something they both agree on must be general and vague (unless it's a specific fact that they both spin in different ways). If they mostly agree, then a difference asked about must be about something specific.

[Cerebro]

I pick a persona I know from TV/the news to read the passage in my head. So if the first one is about cleaning up the environment, Al Gore reads it to me. Then, the pro-oil passage is read by that Texan from the Simpsons.

LOL... When I get to the questions, it's always Steve Harvey's voice that reads the questions in my head, and then he says: "Top 5 answers are on the board."

[Zensack]

Does anyone do questions that are only about passage 1 before reading passage 2?

[RCinDNA]

Does anyone do questions that are only about passage 1 before reading passage 2?

That was a suggestion one of my former tutors gave to me. I use it occasionally. They also recommended looking at the answers choices for questions comparing #1 to #2 and remove the answer choices that never appeared in #1 if the question is asking which topics they held in common. It can be time consuming, though.

[bp shinners]

It can be time consuming, though.

That's the problem with that method. Also, sometimes cross-referencing reinforces concepts in your head, so you might actually remember Passage A better after going through Passage B and comparing them.

[05062014]

Is there some sort of consensus as to how difficult the Cather dual passage was on pt 57? Very tricky questions + not knowing what was going on in either passage until the 2nd reread cost me

[Br3v]

I like dual passages because off the bat you know like 3 questions that will probably be asked. Pay attention to how they are similar, something important one mentions but the other doesn't, and something both authors would agree on.

[chadbrochill]

Is there some sort of consensus as to how difficult the Cather dual passage was on pt 57? Very tricky questions + not knowing what was going on in either passage until the 2nd reread cost me

Yea that to me was by far the hardest dual passage to date.

[Br3v]

Is there some sort of consensus as to how difficult the Cather dual passage was on pt 57? Very tricky questions + not knowing what was going on in either passage until the 2nd reread cost me

Yea that to me was by far the hardest dual passage to date.

What was Cather again? I just did 57 last week

[toothbrush]

oo

[bp shinners]

Is there some sort of consensus as to how difficult the Cather dual passage was on pt 57? Very tricky questions + not knowing what was going on in either passage until the 2nd reread cost me

Yea that to me was by far the hardest dual passage to date.

It's hard because no one knows anything about literary criticism. There are also some tricky questions in that one.

However, your focus should have been the overlap between the Impressionistic techniques and their narrative style in both, and how they differ in the proof they use for it (in A, the analysis in comparison to Turgenev; in B, by dismantling the criticism levied against her by those who didn't understand her narrative style).

[05062014]

Yeah, I figured out the whole concept of describing by narration, the manifest by-products of emotions (the trembling hand holding the wine), instead of explaining the emotions behind those by products. I figured this out too late though, and in hindsight, it seems like a pretty tough concept to deduce in the moment. In Passage B, when the author said Cathers style anticipated narratology and then the author said narratology served as an appropriate criticism of Cathers works, I did not really know which direction the passage was going - again, until time was already up. Passage B was unforgiving if you did not analyze each and every sentence, in my opinion. Hopefully I can learn from this experience.

[Zensack]

Yesterday I scored perfectly on a dual passage section. I focused on discerning the authors' motivation and stopped after the first passage to read questions (as it turned out none were solely about passage A).

I don't have the booklet on me, but it was the first test in the most recent book; the passages were about narrative in history and law writing.

[Br3v]

Yesterday I scored perfectly on a dual passage section. I focused on discerning the authors' motivation and stopped after the first passage to read questions (as it turned out none were solely about passage A).

I don't have the booklet on me, but it was the first test in the most recent book; the passages were about narrative in history and law writing.

Right on