Improve timing on Critical Reasoning

[krishna.valluripalli]

Hello,

Can you please advice on how to improve timing on Critical Reasoning? My accuracy level increased (thanks to MGMATT CR Guide :)). However, timing is an issue. During practice, I am timing every question. This method seemed to work to some extent. However, during the exam, I am way behind on time. Please advice on how I can improve timing in this section.

Thanks alot,
Krishna

[StaceyKoprince]

There are two broad things:
(1) learning how to do questions more efficiently
(2) learning when a question is just too hard / will take too long and cutting yourself off more quickly

You're supposed to average about 2m on CR, so some will take closer to 2.5 while others will be 1.5. That's fine. If a hard question is taking 3+ minutes, though, then you'd really just want to cut yourself off faster (literally, get it wrong faster), so that you can spread that time across other problems.

Right now, you may be thinking, "But, wait, I want to get it right! I don't want to learn to guess faster!"

If so, read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

And then come back here and tell me why that is indeed exactly what you want to learn to do. :)

For the 1st part, are you slow on the read-through? Are you slow on the answer choices? All of the above? Here's a CR resource that might help you learn to work more efficiently (but it will take time / practice!)

https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

[anwesh.dayal]

Hi Stacey,

I've read your page, and the CR guide. My problem is the speed with which I read. Is there any tip/ tool to help improve the speed with which one reads?

AD

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, although making a significant difference in your reading speed is going to take time - probably several months at least.

How is your reading speed on RC - is it also slower there?

And one more question: you said you had read my "page." The second article that I gave you in my last post has links to at least 10 other articles. Did you follow all of those links and study all of those question types / strategies?

Next, there are speed-reading courses available - you can do some research to find one that's right for you. I took one while I was in university and it was very helpful. If you live near a university or a community college, check out their course offerings. (I took mine at a local community college because my university didn't offer it.)

You can also use articles from the following sources to practice:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/
http://harvardmagazine.com/
http://sciam.com/

Give yourself an artificial time limit - much shorter than it would take to really read the whole article (or just pick out several paragraphs from an article). Practice figuring out how to decipher the important details from the less important ones. How do you know where you should focus your attention and how can you tell which parts you can ignore or pay less attention to?

Read like this for 15 to 20 minutes every day for the next couple of months at least. When you're done reading, stop and summarize to yourself aloud what you just read and what the main points or main ideas were. Then go back and re-read the same material at your leisure (taking as much time as you want) and ask yourself whether you did get the main points, or whether you missed any. Also ask yourself whether you identified something as a main idea but you now recognize that it was just a detail - and you shouldn't have paid so much attention to it the first time. Then ask yourself how you should have figured that out when you were reading quickly the first time around.

You may also want to look at some of my RC articles, where I talk about this "what to read and what not to read" concept in more detail.
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

[rezaul_nsu]

I am also struggling with the speed for both CR and RC. I have found the followings effective to overcome from it.
(1) increase reading, and practice reading as quickly as possible.
(2) Increase your vocabularies, which is a building block.
(3) While reading , try to read fragments/portions of a sentence as a group. For example, you can read the whole relative close as a word.
(4)Increase your focus and decrease distractions.

While reading the passage of CR, read the passage with a mind that you are going to solve a puzzle. But here, puzzle is to find any language inconsistency or any abrupt jump from premises to conclusions. So, every word of the conclusion must be justified from the premises. If you can quickly find the gap, then you just need a few seconds to quickly find the right answer. Otherwise, answers will be both wrong and time-consuming.
So, just distribute seconds: 5 second to identify the Q type+45 sec for reading, writing rough and finding the gap+10 sec for your goal setting+last whole 1 min to find the right answer..hoping should be enough.
If you can answer 8 to 10 Q in every 15 min, you are on the track of time.

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for your input!

I remembered one other thing that I like to do for Critical Reasoning. I pretend that someone I know is actually making this argument to me...and it's someone with whom I sort of regularly tend to argue. (Well, we argued all the time when we were kids. It's my sister. )

Anyway, the point is that I'm already thinking, "Oh, I'm going to catch you! You were just illogical there!" etc. So I'm in the right mindset from the beginning on CR.

Luckily, we've both grown up and don't annoy each other so much any more. But I can still use that old relationship / mindset to my advantage on the test!