A General Referencing Technique Question

[Winup12]

Some of the reading com questions start with:

"it can most reasonably be inferred from the passage that ... (e.g., the author would agree with which one of the following statements)"; or
"to which one of the following questions does the passage most clearly provide an answer"...

Do we need to examine each answer choice to ensure a right answer? My concern is that it is very time consuming to refer back to the passage for each answer choice, especially when some of them are just made up by the test maker.

It's sort of a dilemma: if more time is spent on retaining information while reading the passage, these questions can be obvious if the right information is retained, or they can be time consuming if something is missed (making things worse with the initial time spent on retaining information). I am still working on VIEWSTAMP diagramming, and sometimes such questions are right at where it was marked. But sometimes it wasn't. In those cases, what is the best way to accurately finish the question. Any general referencing technique discussion is appreciated.

Thanks!

[Jon Denning]

That's a good question. First, I always encourage people to read every answer choice, so as a general rule I think that's a good idea. Is it more time consuming? Yes. But it's an investment, where time spent is rewarded with a higher percentage correct (more incorrect answers avoided). And typically a good prephrase makes it so that the time spent is fairly minimal.

On the questions you reference ("to which one of the following questions does the passage most clearly provide an answer", for instance) you often really can't prephrase all that well/accurately, so you'll have to simply use the answers to guide you. Fortunately these types of questions are rare, and if you've read the passage properly with VIEWSTAMP you'll be able to eliminate at least 2-3 of the answers from memory, and search for the remaining contenders with some specificity since you know the passage structure.

As a final thought, if you recognize a question like that and know that it typically takes you several minutes to answer, there's no harm in skipping it and moving on (come back later if you have time). If skipping that single 2-minute question allows you to read/answer three that you wouldn't have gotten to otherwise, that's a really beneficial move.

Hope this helps!