Lesson: Miscellaneous Tips

Comment on Miscellaneous Tips

How many RC should we do everyday if giving paper in month or so ?
gmat-admin's picture

That depends on your current RC proficiency AND your target score.

If you are a LONG way away from your desired level of RC proficiency, then you might need to do 10-20 questions per day.

If you are VERY CLOSE to your desired level of RC proficiency, then you might need to do only 2 or 3 questions per day.

would you plz tell me where to find the RC flashcards
thanks
gmat-admin's picture

Sorry, but we don't have any RC flashcards.

great videos and technique

Hi Brent- I am struggling with Minorities passages. Can you help me with magazine or link which covers such topics.

Minorities - these passages are mainly about women, Native Americans, African Americans.

Thanks in advance.
gmat-admin's picture

Hi amolkokate,

Sorry, but I don't know of any collection of GMAT-style passages dealing with minorities. I'm not sure that would help either.

I think you'll make the most progress by reading actual GMAT passages. We have links to many such passages here (bottom of page): https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-reading-comprehension

... and you'll find thousands more here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/reading-comprehension-rc-137/

very beautifully explained.
confidence booster videos.
gmat-admin's picture

Thanks Vipul!!

Hi Brent,

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-majority-of-successful-senior-managers-do-not-closely-119740.html

In this RC for question 7, I do not understand why the answer is D. I see nothing in the article that tells me that managers using intuition take actions even if they are unable to articulate the reasons for that action, I only see it say, they skip the in depth analysis and move rapidly to engender a solution (this does not mean they cannot articulate the reasons for that action). I find the right answer to be B. Can you help please.

gmat-admin's picture

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-majority-of-successful-senior-managers-do...

Here's question #7:

It can be inferred from the passage that “thinking/acting cycles” (line 45) in managerial practice would be likely to result in which of the following?

I. A manager analyzes a network of problems and then acts on the basis of that analysis.
II. A manager gathers data by acting and observing the effects of action.
III. A manager takes action without being able to articulate reasons for that particular action.

(A) I only
(B) II only
(C) I and II only
(D) II and III only
(E) I, II, and III

You're saying that the only statement II is correct (and statement III is not correct).

The passage includes this line "Since managers often “know” what is right BEFORE they can analyze and explain it, they frequently act first and explain later."

So, it's possible that, at the very moment when a manager ACTS on intuition, he/she might not be able to articulate his/her reasons for the decision. This is very similar to what statement III is saying.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Yes thanks! That’s a tough it requires reading between the lines and re-reading every line closely.
gmat-admin's picture

Agreed!

thanx for the wonderful course! :)
gmat-admin's picture

Glad you like it!

ari.banerjee's picture

Hi Brent,

Thank you for the videos. These are perfect for getting your fundamentals right. I really like how you have categorized the different sections and highlighted the things to look out for.

I was hoping if there is a place where I can download the lecture slide like the ones we have for SC slideshares?

Helps a great deal in making notes and highlighting imp info and it also saves a lot of time.

Thank you!
gmat-admin's picture

Hi Ari,

I'm happy to hear you like the videos.

Sorry, but we don't have such resources for every module.

That said, we do have a general resource for all math concepts. That resource can be found here: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/content/free-content (under the heading "Flashcards"

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

https://gmatclub.com/forum/historians-remain-divided-over-the-role-of-banks-in-facilitating-eco-222700.html

In the last question here , what exactly does "qualify" in Answer choice D means ?
Also , they are talking about the claim by Paul or claim by other historians in earlier passages ?

Thankyou !
gmat-admin's picture

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/historians-remain-divided-over-the-role-of-ba...

D) It QUALIFIES a claim made earlier in the passage about the impact of banks on the American economy in the early nineteenth century.

In this instance, QUALIFIES = provides more details

The question itself doesn't provide any clues regarding which claim is being qualified.
That said, there are a few instances in which it's suggested that banks were crucial in growing the US economy (for a variety of reasons). Paul Gilje also makes this claim.

So, BEFORE we read the last sentence, it looks like banks helped the economy A LOT.

The last sentence, however, says that the exception was the South, where the banks didn't help much.

So, although banks seemed to help the economy for much of the US, this was not the case in the South.

So, this last sentence, provides more details (i.e., QUALIFIES) statements made earlier in the passage.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Yes, its clear now. Thankyou !

Hi Brent,

Would you please help me here?
https://gmatclub.com/forum/women-s-grassroots-activism-and-their-vision-of-a-new-civic-consciousn-87397.html

Question 2 - What is referred to as the "View" here? My understanding led to answer choice B but that's incorrect.

As always, thanks so much!
gmat-admin's picture

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/women-s-grassroots-activism-and-their-vision-...

Here's the relevant part of the passage: "To the reformers, child labor and industrial home work were equally inhumane practices that should be outlawed, but, as a number of women historians have recently observed, working-class mothers did not always share this view."

So, the reformers felt that child labor and industrial home work were inhumane and should be outlawed. HOWEVER, working-class mothers did not always share this view.

In other words, mothers back then didn't share the view that child labor and industrial home work were inhumane and should be outlawed.

Cheers,
Brent

While making a paragraph summary, do you recommend reading the entire paragrah and then making the summary, or sentence by sentence? Just trying to get an idea on what would be the most efficient.
gmat-admin's picture

Read the entire paragraph first.
Remember, you're trying to glean only the general idea/purpose of each paragraph.
Force yourself to use as few words as possible (9 words at most!)

Cheers,
Brent

Yulia's picture

Hi Brent. Thank you for your hard work you do for us.

What if a passage has a one huge paragraph or two large paragraphs? How to summarize in that case? I usually summarize as soon as I get lost comprehension with reading.
gmat-admin's picture

I suggest that you summarize each paragraph after you finish reading it. For especially long paragraphs, you can give yourself a few extra words in your summary.
Having said that, when it comes to Reading Comprehension questions, I don't believe there's one strategy that works for everybody. So, if you have a different way of handling the summaries, by all means go with that strategy.

Yulia's picture

Dear Brent,

Could you please advise on how I can find a difficulty level of an RC on gmatclub website?

The example of a passage here https://gmatclub.com/forum/archaeology-as-a-profession-faces-two-major-problems-first-it-is-the-76231.html

I got all questions correct and I wonder what difficulty level it is. I guess a low one?
gmat-admin's picture

Passage link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/archaeology-as-a-profession-faces-two-major-p...

Since each passage has several questions related to it, we can't really assign a difficulty level to a passage. We can, however, the difficulty level of each question.

If you examine the following link, you'll see that 62% of students correctly answered Question #2: https://imgur.com/xNCSfBj.
I'd say that this places the difficulty level of this question in the 650+ range.

In general, when it comes to RC questions, I'd say:
- A question with a success rate greater than 85% is in the 350-500 range
- A question with a success rate between 65% and 85% is in the 500-650 range
- A question with a success rate less than 65% is in the 650-800 range

ASIDE: I suspect that the reason the success rates are so high is due to some students checking the correct answer before entering their own answer.

Yulia's picture

Thank you Brent.

So level of difficulty is assigned to a question only not to the passage itself, right?

Yesterday, I have found a way to check the level of difficulty. If you go to a error lock, which I only discovered yesterday, it displays a level of difficulty of each question. :-)
gmat-admin's picture

Yes, on GMAT Club, they display difficulty levels by question, not by passage.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/at-the-end-of-the-nineteenth-century-a-rising-interest-in-native-amer-119818.html

Can you please let me know how to understand and answer the second question?

Also please assist me in dealing with such kinds of questions easily.
gmat-admin's picture

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/at-the-end-of-the-nineteenth-century-a-rising...

Question 2: Which of the following is most similar to the actions of nineteenth-century ethnologists in their editing of the life stories of Native Americans?
This is a tricky question, since we're asked to find and as for choice that's analogous to the actions of the ethnologists.

The answer can be found in this portion of the passage: "Paul Radin contended that investigators rarely spent enough time with the tribes they were observing, and inevitably derived results too tinged by the investigator’s own emotional tone to be reliable"

So, the ethnologists are drawing conclusions about a culture that they have very little experience with.
This is analogous to answer choice C: A sports announcer describes the action in a team sport with which he is unfamiliar.

Answer: C

Hi Brent,

In this RC Problem, Can you help me understand why the answer to Q2 is C and not A? I was confused between these two options.

Qs: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-small-number-of-the-forest-species-of-lepidoptera-moths-and-butterf-76035.html
gmat-admin's picture

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-small-number-of-the-forest-species-of-lepid...

Here are my summaries of the 3 paragraphs:
1) What causes population fluctuations?
2) Virus might be the cause
3) Virus hypothesis is attractive

Question #2: The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) describe the development of new techniques that may help to determine the driving force behind population cycles in lepidoptera
While the new techniques play an important role in the hypothesis, I wouldn't go as far as saying the main purpose of the passage is to describe the DEVELOPMENT of those techniques. In fact, nothing is mentioned about how those techniques were DEVELOPED.

(C) present a hypothesis about the driving force behind population cycles in lepidoptera
This seems to be much better answer.

Thanks Brent. Could you also help with this question please?

- https://gmatclub.com/forum/jon-clark-s-study-of-the-effect-of-the-modernization-of-a-telephone-ex-88689.html

(Mainly questions 1,3 & 4)

Does the GMAT give such long questions in the test?
gmat-admin's picture

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/jon-clark-s-study-of-the-effect-of-the-modern...

To answer your other question (Does the GMAT have such long questions?), this is an official (retired) GMAT question, which means that used to appear in actual GMAT tests. So, you could see something like this on test day.

Here's my summary of the passage:

Paragraph 1: Clark’s study helps determinism vs constructivism.
Paragraph 2: Clark: technology affects workers (determinism). Braverman: The reverse (constructivism)
Paragraph 3: Constructivists misrepresent determinism
Paragraph 4: Clark refutes constructivism x 2

Question 1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
The passage examines constructivism versus determinism, and leans towards being pro determinism.
Answer choice C best encapsulates this summary
(C) Consider a successful challenge to the constructivist view of technological change

Question 3. Which of the following most accurately describes Clark’s opinion of Braverman’s position?
Quote: "For Braverman, the shape of a technological system is subordinate to the manager’s desire to wrest control of the labor process from the workers."
Clark rejects this opinion, and this make sense for choice B the best option.
(B) He disapproves of its misplaced emphasis on the influence of managers.

Question 4. The information in the passage suggests that which of the following statements from hypothetical sociological studies of change in industry most clearly exemplifies the social constructivists’ version of technological determinism?
The answer to this question appears here: "The constructivists gain acceptance by misrepresenting technological determinism: technological determinists are supposed to believe, for example, that machinery imposes appropriate forms of order on society. The alternative to constructivism, in other words, is to view technology as existing outside society, capable of directly influencing skills and work organization."
This is in line with answer choice A.
(A) It is the available technology that determines workers’ skills, rather than workers’ skills influencing the application of technology.

Hi Brent,
I need ur help in understanding whether I am spending more time in CR questions or not, and how to measure where I stand by means of correct/incorrect answers?
Passage Link 1:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/jon-clark-s-study-of-the-effect-of-the-modernization-of-a-telephone-ex-88689.html
Time taken to read the passage and answer 8 questions: 16min 11sec
Correct Answers: 4 (Questions 2,3,4 & 7)
Incorrect Answers: 4 (Questions 1,5,6 & 8)

Passage Link 2:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/archaeology-as-a-profession-faces-two-major-problems-first-it-is-the-76231.html
Time taken to read the passage and answer 7 questions: 11min 41sec
Correct Answers: 6 (Questions 1,3,4,5,6 & 7)
Incorrect Answers: 1 (Question 2)

Passage Link 3:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/at-the-end-of-the-nineteenth-century-a-rising-interest-in-native-amer-4680.html
Time taken to read the passage and answer 8 questions: 13min 43sec
Correct Answers: 5 (Questions 1,3,4,7 & 8)
Incorrect Answers: 3 (Questions 2,5 & 6)

Passage Link 4:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/historians-who-study-european-women-of-the-renaissance-try-58391.html
Time taken to read the passage and answer 5 questions: 10min 03sec
Correct Answers: 2 (Questions 3 & 4)
Incorrect Answers: 3 (Questions 1,2 & 5)
gmat-admin's picture

In the RC general strategy video (https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-reading-comprehension/video/1122), I recommend that students spend 2.5 minutes reading short passages, and 3.5 minutes reading long passages.
From there, I suggest that students spend approximately 1 minute answering each question.

So, for example, the question at https://gmatclub.com/forum/jon-clark-s-study-of-the-effect-of-the-modern... is a long passage, which means you should spend approximately 3.5 minutes reading it, and then spend 1 perfect timing minute per question 8 related questions, for a total of approximately 12 minutes.

I hope that helps

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