newhousj wrote:Surprisingly, I am having a lot of difficulty answering "Main Point" questions, but only in the RC section. I get only ~50% of these right (2 right per test), whereas the rest of RC is score considerably higher. Is there some sort of hidden strategy that I am missing? How does Powerscore recommend attacking these problems? I took the online course but still struggle with these.
From my perspective, these should be the easiest questions on the passage. And I typically am confident of my answer after selecting it. So, I'm clearly missing something when attacking these problems. Any advice would be welcome!
Hello newhous,
First off, try to see the "big picture" rather than focusing on just one paragraph of the Reading Comprehension passage.
Also, it may be easier for some people to find the main point when reading a small passage, e.g., a Logical Reasoning stimulus, than in a long passage. However, it doesn't always have to be that way. In a LR stimulus, it is sometimes hard to determine what's the main conclusion and what's just a sub-conclusion, say. But in reading comprehension, the main point often has to sum up a lot of things and tick a lot of boxes, so often the main point is the one which ticks the most boxes.
For example, here's a super-short RC passage I'm making up: "Ice cream is a popular dessert for various reasons. Though fat is an issue, the milk can be good for you. And the 31 or more flavors can expand your taste horizons. Of course, there are potential problems, like leaving ice cream out in the sun, or ice cream cones dripping all over the pavement."
Now the main point could be just the first sentence, "Ice cream is a popular dessert for various reasons." However, the testmakers might not make things that simple. Some answer choices could be, "Ice cream is a popular dessert", "Ice cream melts in the sun", and "Despite various hazard possibilities, issues like health and taste are positive factors in making ice cream likable." I think the last of the three answers just mentioned might be the closest to a main point (though feel free to disagree on this), since the first answer just talks about the popularity (not the reasons); the second only talks about the melting; but the third, while it doesn't use the word "popular", at least says "likable", and also hits many of the supporting points of the passage. Again, ticking off as many boxes as possible can be important.
Another thing you can do is to see if there are any "Global Purpose" questions, e.g., things like, "What was the author's purpose in writing this passage?" The right answer to that question will often be a skeletal, sort of abstract and dried-out version of the right answer to the Main Point question. So if you can't answer the MP one first, try answering the Global Purpose one, and see if that inspires you with the MP question.
Hope this helps,
David
