Strategy 1: Flying over the passage

A topic that is hotly debated among test taking circles is whether or not you should read the reading passages before you read the question. One theory is that you can save time if you read the questions first and then go back and read over the passage. Another theory is that you should read the passage first and then go into the questions. Both theories have their own individual merit and due to the differences in ability and preferences among test takers, one method may work better than another for you.

Recommended theory is the flyover. You want to spend some time on the passage, at the bare minimum so that you have a general idea about what questions are going to ask and get your mind into the proper mindset for the series of questions. However, you don’t want to waste too much time on reading the passage, because much of detail will be forgotten by the time you get to the questions anyway. Therefore, you should fly over the passage. You should read it very quickly for a high-level overview (the flyover) understanding of what is contained in the passage.

In part, this is a compromise between the theories that gains most of the benefits of each. You won’t waste time on the details and yet will have a general idea of what the passage is about and what to expect.

Strategy 2: Creating a Tentative Summary

After you’ve finished your flyover of the passage, take a few seconds and compose a tentative mental summary of what you’ve just read. Try to sort out the details you picked up on and arrange them into a loose organizational pattern that describes the passage. Remember that your goal in the flyover is not to check it off of a test-taking list of things to do. You want there to be some purpose behind the flyover and having the definite goal of being able to put together a brief mental summary will you to maintain some focus and gain benefit from the flyover - as opposed to just skimming it for the sake of skimming it without actually picking up on anything.

As you begin going through the questions and answer choices, if you get good enough at putting together your mental summaries from practice, you should be able to eliminate a number of answer choices that are immediately contrary to your summary.

Note: However that if you find yourself without any good answer choices remaining (because you’ve eliminated them all) you obviously had to have eliminated the right answer choice. Don’t hesitate to reopen an answer choice that you’ve already “eliminated” from consideration and reconsider it as a possibility. If you think an answer choice contradicts your initial summary, you’ve probably right, but are not infallible.

Strategy 3: Openings and Endings

A main focus of this flyover will be the opening and ending sentences in each paragraph. These are likely to contain the main ideas of the paragraphs and should be mentally tagged for future reference. Try to remember a vague idea of what the different paragraphs are about, because this will save you time when answering questions later.

For the most part, make sure you never try to just answer the questions from this first flyover.

Always try to go back and confirm the answer, as your memory will play tricks on you and the writers of the test questions may deliberately have planted a trap for you- remember that they don’t exactly have your best interests at heart.

Strategy 4: Using Kitchen Logic

When a question ask the test taker to identify a main idea, you should first focus on the opening and ending sentences of the passage and each individual paragraph. If you can’t find the main idea from these key sentences, then ask yourself how you would describe the passage to someone who had never read it. Which words and phrases would you use to explain the principle ideas of the passage?

This is called “Kitchen Logic” - when you explain something the way you would if you were talking to your friends and family, while sitting at your kitchen table.

So, when faced with identifying the main idea of a difficult passage, make it easier on yourself by backing away from the passage and thinking about it in terms of using easy “kitchen logic”.

Strategy 5: Getting into the Author’s Mind

A number of questions become much easier when you place yourself into the mind of the author of the passage. Ask yourself of a few of different questions:

“Why did the author write this passage?”

“What was the author trying to say?”

“What angle is the author taking?”

“What is the single most important point the author is trying to make?”

Put yourself in the shoes of the author and imagine that you wrote the passage and try to identify what you were trying to describe and how you were trying to describe it. If you take on the opinions and ideas expressed by the author as your own, then it becomes easier to answer questions that would be easy for the author to answer.