How good is your reading?

[novella]

The most effective way to do better on GRE or MCAT tests is to do a lot of practice tests. Casual reading and discussion just won't do the trick, if your goal is to improve your test performance. Not just for reading comprehension, but for logic and format and the standard tricks testers use, it's best to work with the problem directly.

 

[Halcyon]

The most effective way to do better on GRE or MCAT tests is to do a lot of practice tests. Casual reading and discussion just won't do the trick, if your goal is to improve your test performance. Not just for reading comprehension, but for logic and format and the standard tricks testers use, it's best to work with the problem directly.

This topic seems more purposeful in a different forum all together but since it was engendered here let’s discuss it:

The most effective way to do better on GRE or MCAT tests is to do a lot of practice tests.
VS.
The most effective way to do better on GRE or MCAT is to have read a large collection of books

I tend to believe that practice tests won’t get you results. I think they help you get used to the format, but I believe the tests do a pretty good job of testing your reading comp skills which develop as a result of hours intently reading.

One reason I'm pretty sure I'm right is that the Verbal section of these exams is always the hardest to get up, so say the experts. With hard work, the math section can see huge improvement in a month or two, but the verbal is much more difficult to improve in because reading comp take a LOT of time to develop. If it was a matter of practice tests, it should go up reasonably close in speed to the math section.

But that doesn't mean that reading a lot will get you high scores either. I also believe that some people can read and read and never get any better at reading. It takes a lot of dedication, in my opinion, to become skilled. I’m a tournament chess player, and I think of people who play chess all the time but never improve. Where others play one-eighth the time and see their performances sky-rocket. The difference is that one player studies – tries to fix his weaknesses, understand new ideas, learns techniques, and takes learning seriously. Good reading is no different in my opinion.

 

[Cathy C]

Originally posted by Halcyon: I tend to believe that practice tests won’t get you results.

Hmm, sorry, but I don't agree. The problem you're facing is comprehension of word content, vs. analysis of the context to form a conclusion that may not be PART of the content. The example you cite is one that I'm not sure general reading will solve. To take A, B, and C and draw a conclusion may not be so much a question of comprehension of what you read, but of critical thinking skills that allows you to PRESUME things not actually in the text. This is a skill set that can only be learned by seeing other similar questions (as on a mock exam) and reading the answer repeatedly to understand what form of analysis is required.

For example, presume that all of the following facts are completely true:

Shirley is a blonde
Bill is a brunette
Most blondes are lawyers
Bill is a lawyer

then:
a) Shirley is a lawyer
b) Bill dyes his hair.
c) Both are true.
d) Neither is true.

While you may comprehend each of the statements, the critical thinking skills takes you beyond that to reach answer d). But you have to read the reason for the answer in the study guide to understand why. Does that make sense??

 

[novella]

Hmm, sorry, but I don't agree. The problem you're facing is comprehension of word content, vs. analysis of the context to form a conclusion that may not be PART of the content. The example you cite is one that I'm not sure general reading will solve. To take A, B, and C and draw a conclusion may not be so much a question of comprehension of what you read, but of critical thinking skills that allows you to PRESUME things not actually in the text. This is a skill set that can only be learned by seeing other similar questions (as on a mock exam) and reading the answer repeatedly to understand what form of analysis is required.

For example, presume that all of the following facts are completely true:

Shirley is a blonde
Bill is a brunette
Most blondes are lawyers
Bill is a lawyer

then:
a) Shirley is a lawyer
b) Bill dyes his hair.
c) Both are true.
d) Neither is true.

While you may comprehend each of the statements, the critical thinking skills takes you beyond that to reach answer d). But you have to read the reason for the answer in the study guide to understand why. Does that make sense??

Actually, Cathy, in this example we don't know whether either a or b is true or false, so d is not the correct answer. The correct answer would be "e) neither a nor b is proven as true or false"

 

[Halcyon]

Hmm, sorry, but I don't agree. The problem you're facing is comprehension of word content, vs. analysis of the context to form a conclusion that may not be PART of the content.

Sometimes you have sections in verbal exams like what you are talking about. The GRE used to have a section that played word games. I believe the LSAT does, but I haven’t taken any practice LSATS so don’t know for sure. The only two I know anything about are the GRE verbal, and the MCAT verbal. Both of these give you a passage, about 500 to 600 words long, taken from the humanities and social sciences. You read it and answer a series of questions at the end.

I agree with you on the ‘games’ verbal skills. Those do require skills beyond reading comprehension. In fact, if you read the description of the analytical-reading sections you’ll see that they are not trying to test reading comprehension. It’s sort of like IQ-tests.

However, the standardized verbal exams published by ETS that are designed to test your reading comprehension do a pretty good job of it. People seem to take it personally if they do bad on one of these. I don’t understand that. If a person is a weak reading (ie. Me) they need to set goals and fix it. Not complain about how the standardized exam is not really testing how well they read.

 

[Cathy C]

Actually, Cathy, in this example we don't know whether either a or b is true or false, so d is not the correct answer. The correct answer would be "e) neither a nor b is proven as true or false"

No, you missed the line above the statements:

For example, presume that all of the following facts are completely true:

The tests normally make such a statement so you only draw from what's printed. Because of this, your only known facts are those which aren't offered as answers, so d) is the proper choice.