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Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 2:25 am
by Darmody
-1 one day then -14 the next. -3 another day then -8 the next. I've done it all timed. What does this mean?
Re: Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 2:36 am
by Clearly
Practice your ass off.
Re: Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 2:45 am
by Christine (MLSAT)
Often times this kind of wild score fluctuation means that you have inconsistent, unreliable, or non-existent process. The more we rely on sheer gut instinct, the more we are at its mercy - when it fails us, we have nothing to fall back on.
So, what IS your approach to RC? How do you organize the information you are given efficiently? What is your process for answering each question?
Are your errors from a lack of understanding of the passage as a general matter? A lack of proper processing of the question specifically? A failure to fact check your selected answer carefully enough against the passage? Careless misreadings of answer choice wording? Running out of time because you worked inefficiently?
It's likely you are relying entirely too much on gut, but to get more specific, you'll need to answer all of these questions for yourself.
Re: Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 3:18 am
by blackbirdfly
The above advice is great. My advice would be to look at specific passages that you're losing points on and see if they have something in common (organization, topic...)
Re: Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:03 pm
by Darmody
I took a PT and got a -14 on RC the other day. Before going over answers, I waited a day and redid the RC section un-timed and got a -4. Does this mean I know how to approach RC, but the timing/pressure of the clock is what's throwing me off?
Re: Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:37 pm
by Clearly
Darmody wrote:I took a PT and got a -14 on RC the other day. Before going over answers, I waited a day and redid the RC section un-timed and got a -4. Does this mean I know how to approach RC, but the timing/pressure of the clock is what's throwing me off?
No, it more than likely just means you're more familiar with the passages the second time.
Re: Reading Comp is all over the place
Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 2:09 pm
by knicker
I have consistency issues on RC, too. By tracking practice tests in Excel, I'm seeing a strong trend: I do way better on RC when the section is towards the beginning of the exam than the end. My guess is that I'm more susceptible to fatigue on RC than on other sections. I'm currently practicing by stacking several RC sections together and doing them back-to-back. I'm also going to use RC experimental sections from now on to increase my amount of practice.