Day 28 - 'Main Point' & 'Weaken' type CR questions

Hi reader,

I quickly finished two chapters from the Powerscore CR bible today. Pretty interesting chapters, but I guess just one chapter is possible in a day. By the time I completed, Weaken type questions chapter, I was exhausted. It was too much that I got confused. Not to forget the long pressing day at office today.

Today was a terrible day with a lot of complexities totally unwanted. My health is meanwhile getting better. Thanks to my manager for letting me work from home for a couple of days!

This strikes a cord. Soon I will post something on my views on 'Smart Working' and its pros and cons. Pretty interesting and debatable topic between different levels of employees at a company.

Material covered:
Powerscore CR bible - Pages 100 to 132 ('Main point' and 'Weaken' type questions)

Day 15 - Kaplan RC Practice

As a quick continuation to yesterday's RC strategies from Kaplan's Verbal Workbook, I went on to do practice questions along with some strategies in the following chapter. Again, my accuracy level remained the same. However, the ease of skimming through the necessary areas got better.

I feel more confident of where I have to concentrate exactly when reading through a passage. I guess practice makes it perfect when it comes to GMAT. The more I practice, the more I learn and therefore the better I become. With every passage from different area, say, economy, sociology, biology, reading gets better. Familiar areas strike the cord, and makes me realize the areas where I have to concentrate.

I guess I will do at least 2 passages everyday, to keep myself fit about RC. I guess the last few days, I have been studying everyday, and it makes me feel good after a long time. Primary reason is the work at office keeps me active all day, and the same continues as I reach home. Positive air is around, and I learn better.


Material Covered:
Kaplan Verbal Workbook - Chapter 4 - Pages 45 to 69.

Day 14 - Reading the GMAT Way

Watched a delightful rugged romantic-comedy 'Pyaar ka Punchnama' last night. Following this, I did Chapter 3 of Kaplan Verbal Workbook. After doing Kaplan's RC, it was actually exciting to read through the passages for the thrill of finding out if I am able to answer the questions properly. And yess, I was 95% accurate in answering the practice questions. Now that I am moderately confident, I went on to read the Verbal Workbook strategy.. Voila! It just corrected the exact area I was not sure of in RC. \m/

Now that I know what to do about RC, my style of reading the passage for GMAT has become different. I know how to focus and what to focus on. Thanks Kaplan. Today, I will try to cover Chapter 4, of Verbal Workbook and follow it up with practice questions.

Material Covered:

Kaplan GMAT Verbal Workbook - Pages 31 - 43

Day 13 - Kaplan RC Practice

A tiring week just came to its end. Every minute was spent wisely and I still feel short of time to complete my activities. Weekend is the best time to sit down to study with complete concentration. And so, I sat to solve RC questions from Kaplan's GMAT Premier guide. Initially I was skeptical about Kaplan's method, but man, they are really awesome. Ground rules to crack RC, is clearly set in Kaplan.

These rules will just help you get closer to the answer, considering the fact that you need to concentrate on the passage as you read. Kaplan suggests a Passage Map; in addition to this, I suggest a Passage Memory Map, wherein you restate the gist of the passage in memory in an orderly fashion, and hold them for a while till you answer the questions. I solved the complete RC set of 50 questions with around 10 passages in 70 minutes. 

Concentration is the key. If you don't understand a subject or if you are not interested in a particular subject, just tame your brain to pretend to like the topic and pretend to read with all interest. You are halfway through. To finish it, you just need to concentrate again ;)

Material Covered:

Kaplan GMAT Premier 2011 - Pages 169 to 220.

Day 12 - Kaplan's RC Strategy

Heavy week with loads of work in the office. Today I reached home early, taking some rest and thereby gathering more time to study - thanks to my headache !

I went on with RC strategy on Kaplan. I did a few pages, but I am really not sure if Kaplan's method will work for me as far as RC is concerned. Even after reading pages, I resumed to my own mode of solving RC questions. And I guess that works out better for me till now. But I am trying to go through Kaplan's method and start applying it, because it gives me the luxury of quickly reaching for the area of the passage where the answer is located.

Again the key is to concentrate. It will take just 2 to 3 minutes to read through the entire passage once clearly and absorb the important data, and jot it down. Given this concentration level, it is definitely easy to answer the questions that come along. Somehow if you happen to get a topic that interests you, well and good. I guess RC will then be manageable. So far, topics on Biology and Paleontology are the only scary topics that I keep seeing over and over again, where details are discussed as supposedly scary, but I felt every read good. Lets see, maybe some other topics will make me feel bitter about RC.

Material Covered:
Kaplan GMAT Premier 2011 - Pages 147 to 168