When encountering long Reading Comprehension passages, I’ve found that actively rephrasing and simplifying the text is very helpful for understanding. However, this process can be time-consuming.
Question: What’s the most effective tactical first step to decide if the time spent rephrasing/simplifying and writing this down for the entire passage is worthwhile? Is this something we should be doing on our scratch paper as Step 1 intuitively?
I’m wondering if I should always begin by quickly scanning the questions to see how many relate to the passage (and thus, how much detail might be needed), or if generally better practice to always rephrase/simplify the entire passage as a default first step, regardless of the number or type of questions?
Read all the questions before reading the passage: Don’t worry too much about understanding them completely (they may not make sense until after you read the passage, especially if they contain jargon), but pick out key terms that will help guide what you’re looking for as you read (especially for primary purpose and sentence function).
Determine subject strength/weaknesses: Are there certain passage subjects (science, technology, history, philosophy, etc.) that tend to be more opaque to you? Knowing this can help you determine if you’ll need notes for a given passage.
Determine Difficult Sentences: If you don’t understand a sentence quickly, this is a sign to rephrase/take comprehension notes on it. Don’t want to waste time rereading the same sentence over and over when you can actively decipher it instead.