Bailing out on RC questions

[PrashantS209]

Hi,

I took my CAT2 and I thought of bailing out all three questions in a Reading Comprehension passage so that I did not even have to read the passage. I got all those three questions wrong. I have been reading in online forums that getting three questions in a row wrong is terrible for the final score. Could someone please demystify strategies around skipping RC questions?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're right that skipping on 3 problems in a row is a risky strategy, however, it may be the best solution in certain situations. First of all, it depends on the score that you're aiming for. You'll have trouble getting a really good verbal score (above 40) if you skip a whole passage. However, it depends what you're going to use the time that you save. I've had students who find that an extra 20-30 seconds on CR problems makes a lot of difference, so that the 6 minutes they save by skipping a RC passage can be profitably invested in other problems. Ultimately, it's really not worth rushing through a whole bunch of verbal problems and making a load of mistakes; it's generally better to commit to the problems that you do take on, especially for RC. Also, if you "skip" 3 RC problems, then you have approximately a 50% chance of getting at least one of them correct, so it might not be so bad.

In conclusion, I don't think that this is a bad strategy, although I suggest that you handle with care. If you know the kind of passage that you get confused with, then it might be a good decision. I've seen this strategy boost scores with students who either have a slow reading speed, or a smaller vocabulary in English.