redwin Posted August 18, 2011 Report Share Posted August 18, 2011 I honestly, don't know how I had more time at the end, I just did lol. I guess it's because I cut out all the time-wasting crap. 1. Do the passages in order. You will have to do all of them anyways, so stop wasting time jumping around and trying to rank the passages (ranking implies that you read a passage for a bit and some of the questions --> big time waste) 2. Minimal highlighting, if any at all. I don't highlight anymore. When you highlight, you are essentially reading twice, which wastes some time. Just make mental notes. EK asks you, "When was the last time you referred to highlighted text when answering a question?" Honestly, right there I stopped, because the answer for me was never lol. 3. After you read the passage, take about 20 seconds to form the main idea of the passage, and the author's tone. These two things will help answer the MAJORITY of questions relating to the passage. EK emphasizes to answer questions without referring to the passage (as finding and reading stuff wastes time) and just relying on the main idea. I've been much quicker answering questions this way (I was really unsure of this method, but it works well). Although, obviously you need to refer to the passages sometimes, just try and limit it. 4. Eliminate answer options that don't relate to the question, are too extreme or narrow. Princeton does a good job on this front. 5. Be confident when you are doing this section, and try to be interested in what the passages are about. Getting into the 'zone' before verbal has really helped me out. As Alchemist11 (Mac FTW) stated, take your time (about 4 minutes) reading the passages and understand it to the best of your ability. You don't need to understand the whole thing, just the main idea, which most of the questions will be about. Remember, not to re-read paragraphs or sentences if you think you haven't been paying attention (big time sink), you've retained more than you think! These are some things that have worked for me. Obviously I'm not an authority on Verbal, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I write tomorrow, so I'll let you know in a month if this works on the real thing lol! If you need anymore help, feel free to ask, especially Erk who is awesome with this stuff. Wow, thanks! You know what, when was the last time I looked at highlighted text to answer Q...almost never for me either. I would scroll to the paragraph that I know the info is in, but read it from the top anyways. But highlighting does take a lot of time, and interrupt thought process. So I will try to highlight very sparingly, and use that extra 20s to formulate the main idea/tone, which helps with analogy/new info question as well. Great advice! Good luck tomorrow!!! You'll do well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacBiochem Posted August 18, 2011 Report Share Posted August 18, 2011 LOL what? Did I write I go to Mac somewhere? >_> How do you know I go to mac bro! we all knwo you go to mac lol... your mac insider forum name gives it away. haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwin Posted August 18, 2011 Report Share Posted August 18, 2011 Don't spent 3 minutes on the passage. Spent at least 4 or 4.5. You're going through the passages too quickly; if you can't get the main point and nuances in the argument then you'll be wasting time "figuring out" obvious questions, hence your trouble with finishing on time. True. Better to understand main argument than to pointlessly bounce back and forth between Q and passage. Will try hard to take that extra 20s to formulate main idea, even though looking way for 20s just to think might be hard haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alchemist11 Posted August 18, 2011 Report Share Posted August 18, 2011 we all knwo you go to mac lol... your mac insider forum name gives it away. haha Lmaoo lovely... Yeah I should have definitely used a pseudonym...hopefully nothing I say here will incriminate me at Mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sugarmouse Posted August 25, 2011 Report Share Posted August 25, 2011 I have been doing examcrackers questions for a while, and I found that I tend to do pretty decent with main idea questions, but sometimes I tend to miss really minute details. And even though examcrackers tell you to go with the main idea method, I find that even some of their inference questions are really focused on really minute small detail words. (For example, the 2nd last passage about Morgan Stanley in EK practice exam 14). So any suggestions on how to spot these minor details? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
99Problems Posted August 25, 2011 Report Share Posted August 25, 2011 I've developed 6 cardinal rules that have helped me in VR: -The passage is everything. It contains all the answers. Try to gain an understanding of the MAJOR points, read as quickly as possible. -use one or two sentences to summarize each paragraph. -eliminate extreme or generalized/vague answers -Don't make inferences unless asked to. Use passage information only. -Read the questions very, very carefully. -Remember: how the author would answer the question is the answer you're looking for! The last one is my personal favorite. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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