by ohthatpatrick Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:19 am
I wholeheartedly agree with the previous poster, although I think I look back at the passage a little bit more frequently than she does in order to confirm the wording of the answers I'm picking.
I'm sure there are many different (valid) opinions on this topic, as reading speed/comprehension are VERY personalized skills/talents.
However, I have sometimes measured myself head-to-head with a class or student to see who is reading RC more quickly.
There have definitely been students who read the passage faster than I but struggle much more to get through the RC section in time. So there's great wisdom in the previous poster's notion that a quality first read is essential.
While I think that easier passages could be read in 2:30, harder passages can often demand 3 minutes and change.
I find that in RC and in LR, there's little value to reading quickly and getting only a shallow impression of what you're reading. I read both sections very actively, hunting for the author's conclusion, trying to understand other points of view, classifying facts as either neutral or supporting one of the points of view in the passage, classifying the role of the main ingredients.
By the end of your first read of the passage, you should be able to say to yourself:
Main Point
Purpose
Attitude/Tone (if there was any)
Passage Map (main point/purpose of each paragraph)
When RC details get confusing, I may allow myself to read-on without fully absorbing them. But when my RC big picture ideas get fuzzy, I will not allow myself to remain unclear. I'll re-read sentences I think are making important claims. I'll re-read topic sentences of new paragraphs to make sure I understand what this passage will be discussing. I'll go back to key sentences earlier in the passage when I think they connect to some pay-off later in the passage, just to solidify the connection.
Naturally, this careful reading CAN take time. However, the better you get at deciphering Big Pictures, the faster you can read through some passages, because your anticipation of the Big Picture gives you a framework for understanding all the other parts, actually allowing you to read through them more quickly.
Most of the speed difference I see between myself and my students comes down to knocking out wrong answer choices.
Several skills come into play there:
- how fast can you locate the sketchy/broken language in an answer choice? (normally an answer is wrong because of 1-3 words that are either Extreme, Out of Scope, or Comparative)
- how fast can you find the appropriate sentence(s) of the passage that this question is testing?
- how adept are you at navigating the nuances and paraphrases of the answer choice language?
- how quickly can you adjudicate a tricky Down to Two situation without overspending time?
So as a long answer to your question, your reading time sounds like it's only slightly on the slower side. The improvements you probably need to make relate more to upping the quality/retention of what you're reading for and upping your decisiveness with finding proof text, finding broken answer choice language, and clinching your decision.
hope this helps.