<p>Hi, I have a problem whenever I study for Critical Reading's Passage Reading Section. For Short-Passages, I generally do well by fast reading, but I almost always get stuck whenever I approach Long-Passages. For Long_passages, I heard that skimming is best to apporach, but the idea of skimming always interrupt my reading whenver the Long-Passage is Non-Fiction. </p>
<p>How do you approach Critical Reading: Passage-Reading (Esp. Long-Passage)?</p>
<p>Do you know which kinds of questions you tend to have trouble with? Are they inference questions, Main Idea questions, Detail questions?</p>
<p>Take a few tests and look at the questions you missed. Why did you miss them? If it was vocab, study vocab. If you over-analyzed the question and answers, try to remember you are prone to doing that. If you have trouble with Main Idea questions, or Point of View questions, or other kinds of Inference questions, learn what they look like and be on your guard when you hit them. In other words, learn specifically what you are doing wrong, and then fix it. Remember, too, that you need to look at the reason why the wrong answer you chose was wrong and why the right answer was right. (Wrong answers are called ‘distractors’ for a reason. For example, ETS likes to use a salient term from the passage in a half-right distractor, and then use a synonym for that term in the correct answer choice. The half-right info and the familiar term can make you jump to that answer before you really understand what it says.)</p>
<p>How do you approach actual reading of Long-Passages, especially Non-Fiction ones?</p>
<p>It helps if you are really interested in the passages. I love the science passages so that helps me pay attention. Maybe try focusing on a really boring thing, then reading will be easier as you pay more attention to it.</p>
<p>How about skimming?</p>
<p>Well as an 800 CR person on the past 6 sat practice tests, I find skimming wastes time because I do not retain the info long enough for all the questions, I would have to go back and reread it. However, if you can skim and retain info well, do so.</p>
<p>The problem I have is that whenever I try to read all the details in Passages, the reading itself takes like 5~8 minutes. Skimming is good but no quarantee in retaining infor. What is your average time for reading Long-Passages?</p>
<p>oh…yeah…I do take around that long (maybe 4 minutes) but I answer the questions very quickly. For me, the answer usually just pops out. I usually have like 5 minutes to spare on CR. I would just train answering the questions quickly? By practicing I guess.</p>