Strong in verbal, but astronomy RC passages slay me. Help?

[lmaura429]

Hi all,

I'm sure some can relate to this. I'm generally pretty strong in verbal and RC, but the passages on astronomy and physics kill me. It's all very abstract and hard for me to visualize. I have a hard time taking useful notes on these passages, too.

I just finished reading Stacey's recent blog post that reviewed the meteor stream passage from GMAT Prep. The post was really helpful, so thanks for that Stacey.

If I want to improve how I do on this topic, is the best way to just keep practicing with this specific passage type? I'm guessing yes, but any other thoughts would be great. Thanks!

[jlucero]

Part of the difficulty of a computer adaptive test is that you have to get some questions right (unless you're aiming for an 800). This can be frustrating for students who feel like they are strong in an area (verbal, for example) but have a particular sub-topic that they feel weak in (off the top of my head, let's say astronomy RC passages). Kidding aside, if you're consistently scoring in the 90+%ile in verbal, don't think of this as a weakness, think of it as you being very strong elsewhere.

That said, this doesn't mean you can't improve in this area. I do think reading more astronomy passages can be helpful, but I'd also recommend spending more time reviewing the notes that you took (or thinking about why you didn't take them) while reading an astronomy passage. People tend to struggle with things outside their comfort zone, but the GMAT doesn't require you to be an expert on any topic to do well in reading comprehension, just the ability to read through an article written at a college level.

Which leads to my last point, most of us aren't used to reading things written at a college level. News and sports sites aren't written at this level. Most blogs certainly aren't written at this level. Which means some of us need practice at effectively going through something written for the average reader, but at an above-average writing ability. Two sites that I'd recommend you start with:

http://www.economist.com/science-technology
http://www.aldaily.com/

I could find a ton of articles in here that pique my interest, but sometimes it's about being able to read something outside of your interest areas and training yourself to concentrate during those 3-4 minutes on the GMAT by training yourself to concentrate for longer periods on some of these articles.

Hope this helps!

[lmaura429]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for this advice! Super helpful. I'll be sure to take some of your pointers.

[jlucero]

Glad they helped!