‘Nough with the throat clearing.  Let’s talk question types.

I’m going to start with Reading Comprehension.  It tends to get short shrift in people’s study time, since they think “I know how to read!” but it is the one question type that is universal to all of the major tests.  It also isn’t measuring your ability to read.  Or comprehend.  And it is completely breakable.

There are two ways the test writers like to trip you up.  First, they want you to get the wrong answer.  Second, if you are going to get the question right, they’d like it to take a long time.  Don’t feed the test writers!  Refuse to follow their lures.

The cardinal rules of Reading Comprehension:

1. Do NOT, under any circumstance, read the fucking passage.  It is a time sink put there to bore you to death and a low score.
2. Read the question stem carefully instead.  Figure out what words or phrases you are going to skim for.
3. Skim for said word/phrase.
4. Read just the section that contains the word/phrase.
5. Now consider your answer choices: you must prove your answer choice.  Every fucking word in the answer choice MUST be in the passage.  You must point it out to yourself.
6. The correct answer is usually infelicitous.  It will usually be phrased in a way that you would never consider phrasing the answer.  It might even be written in a way that you have a hard time understanding.  But every fucking word will match what is in the text.
7. There will be a wrong answer, which is clearly written, that almost matches the text.  There will be some slight deviation, though.  IT IS THE WRONG ANSWER.  Do NOT choose it.  It will sing to you, call you out.  Plug your ears and pick the ugly answer.

Once you learn to do that EVERY TIME, you will have smashed RC to smithereens.  No more wrong answers.  Yay!

What do you do when it is a question along the lines of “The primary purpose of this passage is to:”?  If it is an overview question, read the first sentence of each paragraph, and, possibly, the last sentence of the entire passage.  Each paragraph must be addressed in the correct answer.  There will be a wrong answer that beautifully describes the most important/interesting paragraph in the passage.  Don’t choose it.  It is the wrong answer.

Lots of students hate not reading the passage.  It makes them really nervous.  They might miss something.  They are right: they are going to miss most of the traps the test writers have carefully placed for them!  They are going to miss the lost time that reading the passage extracts from their lives!  Do.  Not.  Read.  The.  Passage.

My recommendation will be hard at first.  I don’t care.  Get over it.  Keep following the rules, and you will smash this question type.  You may already be scoring pretty well on RC, relative to some of the other question types, so it might be tempting to just keep up with your current practice.  DON’T!  Unless you are getting them 100% correct all the time and creating time to spend on the harder question types, you need to keep practicing reading comprehension.  This is one of the easiest question types to smash, so get out your hammer and free yourself once and for all from boring passages!