Reading Comprehension Technique
I will start my humble verbal suggestions with RC, mainly because I believe the importance of this section is not well understood and there are too many theories. Again the following is my own technique(it may not be 100% original of course) and should be used with precaution.
First some thoughts on RC,
Out of the 3 verbal question type RC is the easiest to explain to a person who does not know anything about GMAT. Few years ago,I was talking to a friend of mine who was curious about GMAT and asked me about question types in verbal,SC,CR and RC. When I finished explaining RC , she said:''So it is just understanding what you read'' . She will never be a gmat guru but she was right. At the end of the day,GMAT RC,despite its question types,word games,close answer choices,is about understanding what one reads! So in theory if you are clever enough to understand all you read you should get all RC questions correct!!!
Yet, my humble opinion is that most testtakers, the ones who get 20-35 and who think RC was easy, make many mistakes in RC. Unlike SC, RC is very sneaky and doesnt make you feel you are getting questions wrong.
RC also carries a huge importance for the timing in verbal section. If you plan to solve an RC within 5 minutes,when you dont really understand the passage ,that time doubles immediately. Whereas, you can always pass a SC question by looking at the difference among choices, if you dont know where the info RC question is based upon in the passage, you are doomed. Worse: The additional time you spent in RC wears you out , decrease your morale. Please check your verbal mistakes, it is very likely that you will get more CR and SC wrong right after a horrible passage! At least this was happening to me.
Also, my experience with gmatprep tells me RC and CR mistakes are more damaging to the verbal score than SC ones(even after accounting for the disproportion in question number)
So RC IS IMPORTANT. DESPITE THE HYPE ABOUT SC,RC IS
First some thoughts on RC,
Out of the 3 verbal question type RC is the easiest to explain to a person who does not know anything about GMAT. Few years ago,I was talking to a friend of mine who was curious about GMAT and asked me about question types in verbal,SC,CR and RC. When I finished explaining RC , she said:''So it is just understanding what you read'' . She will never be a gmat guru but she was right. At the end of the day,GMAT RC,despite its question types,word games,close answer choices,is about understanding what one reads! So in theory if you are clever enough to understand all you read you should get all RC questions correct!!!
Yet, my humble opinion is that most testtakers, the ones who get 20-35 and who think RC was easy, make many mistakes in RC. Unlike SC, RC is very sneaky and doesnt make you feel you are getting questions wrong.
RC also carries a huge importance for the timing in verbal section. If you plan to solve an RC within 5 minutes,when you dont really understand the passage ,that time doubles immediately. Whereas, you can always pass a SC question by looking at the difference among choices, if you dont know where the info RC question is based upon in the passage, you are doomed. Worse: The additional time you spent in RC wears you out , decrease your morale. Please check your verbal mistakes, it is very likely that you will get more CR and SC wrong right after a horrible passage! At least this was happening to me.
Also, my experience with gmatprep tells me RC and CR mistakes are more damaging to the verbal score than SC ones(even after accounting for the disproportion in question number)
So RC IS IMPORTANT. DESPITE THE HYPE ABOUT SC,RC IS