According to the passage questions Forum

[ltowns1]

Does anyone have any advice on how you approach these types of questions? I truely hate them lol.

[kcho10]

Hey,
I struggled with these questions and inference questions too. My strategy has been to focus on the structure of the passage. Even if you don't comprehend every single statement, you should at least understand what the purpose of that statement is in relation to the main point (i.e does it support, or is it just background information). This will help you to easily know where the statement is in the passage. I would recommend at least at first to find the specific statement in the passage before answering the question. This strategy has helped me out a lot. What's great about according to the passage questions is that the correct answer is directly stated in the passage. So if you know WHERE it is, you're set. Hope this helps

[ltowns1]

Hey Kcho, so I'm usually good with structure, but my thing is there are usually at least two paragraphs that support the argument. How do you approach that? Do you look in both paragraphs or what? I think that's the big thing for me

[appind]

"according to the passage, which one of the following is true" questions are like MBT questions based on the passage. so they are different than "author most likely agrees with" or the "passage most suggests" questions in that the credited choice must be true, either through inferences or clearly indicated to be true, from the passage.

[ltowns1]

Right, but that only makes it harder to me because you're not thinking to yourself about what a point of view would say (which leaves a lot of wiggle room)as in inference questions. You have to basically go back and find the relevant piece of information, without any wiggle room. I think the only real answer is to quickly survey all areas of support, and try to find the info like that

[joeycxxxx09]

When you're going through the passage treat it like you're in 5th grade. Who, what, where, when, why. Mark these in the passage as your reading. Start slow then it becomes natural. Just doing this got me to -2 average on RC. -1 in October. Don't overthink RC

[ltowns1]

When you're going through the passage treat it like you're in 5th grade. Who, what, where, when, why. Mark these in the passage as your reading. Start slow then it becomes natural. Just doing this got me to -2 average on RC. -1 in October. Don't overthink RC

But I overthink everything..that's impossible lol

[appind]

When you're going through the passage treat it like you're in 5th grade. Who, what, where, when, why. Mark these in the passage as your reading. Start slow then it becomes natural. Just doing this got me to -2 average on RC. -1 in October. Don't overthink RC

was your rc score always this high or if not what did you do to improve? how much time do you take to read the passage, to do questions, respectively and if you have spare time at the end?

for the detail questions or "analogy" questions that are about some subtle issue in the passage, which can take long time to refer back and confirm in the passage, how do handle those?

i found that older rc was easier and i was scoring -0/-3 in those tests. but the tests in 60s/70s i had a huge drop in rc score. did you experience it?

[joeycxxxx09]

When you're going through the passage treat it like you're in 5th grade. Who, what, where, when, why. Mark these in the passage as your reading. Start slow then it becomes natural. Just doing this got me to -2 average on RC. -1 in October. Don't overthink RC

was your rc score always this high or if not what did you do to improve? how much time do you take to read the passage, to do questions, respectively and if you have spare time at the end?

for the detail questions or "analogy" questions that are about some subtle issue in the passage, which can take long time to refer back and confirm in the passage, how do handle those?

i found that older rc was easier and i was scoring -0/-3 in those tests. but the tests in 60s/70s i had a huge drop in rc score. did you experience it?

I used to be -8/-9 when i started. I started doing them slow, aiming for 12 minutes, asking myself who what where when why. Then I would start marking those on the passage, and I would make mental notes on things in the passage that I thought a question may come from. After I did a passage, I would do it again aiming for 8.5 minutes. After about 6 or 7 passages like that I started aiming for only 8.5 minutes. By October I was reading the passage in 3.5 minutes and with the marks and mental notes I usually had the answer to at least 1-2 questions without looking back. So I could dedicate 5 full minutes to the questions that you're talking about (subtle passage questions). If you're planning ahead when you're reading you should be able to get main point questions almost right away. I really started to attack the passage, actively seeking out what I thought would be questions and underlining, and my score improved dramatically. Attack the passage, take physical notes of the basic aspects by underlining, and make mental notes of structure/where certain info that may be question material is located.

[ltowns1]

So when you saw an according to the passage question did you skip until you did the rest of the questions?

[appind]

I used to be -8/-9 when i started. I started doing them slow, aiming for 12 minutes, asking myself who what where when why. Then I would start marking those on the passage, and I would make mental notes on things in the passage that I thought a question may come from. After I did a passage, I would do it again aiming for 8.5 minutes. After about 6 or 7 passages like that I started aiming for only 8.5 minutes. By October I was reading the passage in 3.5 minutes and with the marks and mental notes I usually had the answer to at least 1-2 questions without looking back. So I could dedicate 5 full minutes to the questions that you're talking about (subtle passage questions). If you're planning ahead when you're reading you should be able to get main point questions almost right away. I really started to attack the passage, actively seeking out what I thought would be questions and underlining, and my score improved dramatically. Attack the passage, take physical notes of the basic aspects by underlining, and make mental notes of structure/where certain info that may be question material is located.

how do you reconcile Who, what, where, when, why (which sounds like reading for details) with reading for structure? i find that if i can construct structure only after i have read the details in the paragraph/passage slowly, but all this takes a lot of time, more than 3:30 min, and the questions still take 6-7 mins.
you construct structure after reading details or in some different way? did it take you only 6 to 7 passages to get to 8.5 min?

[ltowns1]

Structure is something you have to keep in mind, the who/what/where/when process is a step beyond just knowing structure. So in short, you have to do both really. It's just that the who/what/when technique assumes you already know the basics, which is knowing the structure.

[joeycxxxx09]

I used to be -8/-9 when i started. I started doing them slow, aiming for 12 minutes, asking myself who what where when why. Then I would start marking those on the passage, and I would make mental notes on things in the passage that I thought a question may come from. After I did a passage, I would do it again aiming for 8.5 minutes. After about 6 or 7 passages like that I started aiming for only 8.5 minutes. By October I was reading the passage in 3.5 minutes and with the marks and mental notes I usually had the answer to at least 1-2 questions without looking back. So I could dedicate 5 full minutes to the questions that you're talking about (subtle passage questions). If you're planning ahead when you're reading you should be able to get main point questions almost right away. I really started to attack the passage, actively seeking out what I thought would be questions and underlining, and my score improved dramatically. Attack the passage, take physical notes of the basic aspects by underlining, and make mental notes of structure/where certain info that may be question material is located.

how do you reconcile Who, what, where, when, why (which sounds like reading for details) with reading for structure? i find that if i can construct structure only after i have read the details in the paragraph/passage slowly, but all this takes a lot of time, more than 3:30 min, and the questions still take 6-7 mins.
you construct structure after reading details or in some different way? did it take you only 6 to 7 passages to get to 8.5 min?

Structure really is something that you have to keep in mind the whole time, you should be able to mentally construct the flow of the passage in your head after you read it once. It shouldn't really be something that you spend much time on at all. It took me a little longer than 7 passages to really start getting it. But practice (a lot of it) is key.