Reading comprehension timing

[Eddie Gutia]

In reading comprehension passages I typically spend more than the average time and still not understand the passage well. So I typically end up spending more time (3- 4 minutes more than average time for all 3 questions) than I actually need so I can at least understand the passage well. This approach is of course costing my score as I end up having lesser time towards the end.

The second approach I have started taking is to continue doing the above and skip a complete passage in the middle of the test. This hasn't improved my overall score either.

Is there any other strategy that I can apply so I can understand the main idea of the passage fairly well in my first read and still stay within the recommended time limits?

[StaceyKoprince]

I *suspect* that you're probably getting too pulled into the details on the first read through and not actually holding yourself only to the overall main ideas...

When you're done, do you have details or examples or keywords written down? If I asked you about some of the details, would you be able to tell me more than, "I think they talked about that in paragraph 2..."?

If so, then you are learning too much on the read-through. :)

By the end of the first read-through, you want to know:
- the overall main idea (usually one sentence in the passage, sometimes two)
- the main idea of each paragraph (usually the first or second sentence of the paragraph)
- any major changes in direction (signaled by words like Yet, However, etc)

You do NOT want to know more detail beyond that. In fact, you should know that you don't know a bunch of stuff. You know where it is and you know the high level of what it is ("the rest of paragraph 2 is about how the chemicals negatively affect bees") but you didn't really take in the fact that fertilizers are disrupting the bees' central nervous systems, while pesticides are interfering with their reproductive cycles and blah blah blah. Your brain just thinks "If I get questions about bad stuff happening to bees, that's paragraph 2." and you ignore it unless and until you get a question about bad stuff happening to bees.

Have you taken a look at the What to Read and What NOT to Read lessons here:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

If that doesn't work, you can try this: skip one question for each passage (rather than one entire passage). It's worse for your score to have 4+ questions wrong in a row, so if you skip an entire passage, you run the risk of having a big drop in your score.