Method to read passages-take it or move on?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>In a 4 paragraph passage, let’s say that there are 2 questions about paragraph 2, each with its own line references. Question 1 may refer to the first 1/4 lines, and Question 2 near the 3/4 mark of the paragraph. I’m trying to follow the strategy of not stopping at a line reference to answer a question, rather just read the whole paragraph/chunk and then going back to the line references. It’s just that after the lines from Question 1, the idea for Question 2 arises, and I sort of lose focus on Question 1. But after I spend the time to answer the question, I’ve sort of lost the “momentum” that I had when I was reading the paragraph. </p>

<p>I know this is kind of hard to explain, but it’s like a race where you have to do a task twice in the race, and you can stop during the middle, but when you have to start again, you won’t have full speed, but you can finish the track and go back with knowledge of the layout of the whole track. </p>

<p>So my final question, is it always better to just finish the paragraph and move on instead of stopping at each line reference? Not necessarily always, but in most cases does it help?</p>

2

<p>Unfortunately, it’s not “always” anything, as you note. Reading the passage first gives you the big picture, necessary for answering some of the questions.</p>

3

<p>That’s why reading the whole passage first works better, for me that is. Reading it in chunks and stopping doesn’t give you a good impression or idea or what the passage is really about according to my experience.</p>

4

<p>For the long passages I usually just do the questions about words in context or quotes first. I don’t read the whole passage, but just the pertinent parts required for these questions. Then I do the “big picture” questions the last by seeing if I could just do them without reading the whole thing, if not I quickly skim through the passage one last time and answer all of them. It’s easier to comprehend if you read the passage after having done the ‘small picture’ questions.</p>