Published Oct 9, 2014
archives
10 Posts
I've been studying this exam for a long time, and I'm so disappointed to see that the lowest score I received was from the Reading section. Embarrassingly, I got a 66% in it.
Here's my score for today's 1st TEAS V attempt:
Reading 66%
Math 83%
Science 85.6% (not as bad as a thought)
English Usage 93.3%
Composite 81%
Is it realistic to make at least 85-88% in the Reading section for my case? In the testing center, it was fairly cold, so I guess I became overwhelmed at those passages. How can I improve? I read most of the time, but I'm mainly having trouble with making logical conclusions, inferences, and deciding if an author is actually persuasive or just being informative. Any good practice tests online? (I'm more confident at reading things written on paper.)
LoyalWeim
273 Posts
The reading section can be a bit harder to prepare for, in my opinion. I mean, reading and reading comprehension are sort of there or not and takes a long time to actually improve. Having said that, I did poorly at first while studying and doing the practice tests because I didn't really delve into the meaning of the terms like conclusions, theme, support evidence, etc.... I had to spend a quite a bit of time really learning what those things mean and then practice, practice, practice...
Good luck,
LW
MSofia
71 Posts
If you scored a 81 I would leave it at that and move on. Idk what your school requires but if you retake the teas you might get lower on another a section you did well on and who knows you may end up with another 81. It's not like you can just take the reading over. Unless you feel you can retake and get the same scores on math,sci, eng then go for it. 66% is consider passing you did well and have nothing to be ashamed about don't be so hard on yourself
I am thinking that the key here is that you said that you are having trouble with "making logical conclusion, inferences, persuasive vs. informative, etc... I had the very same problem at first. You need to study how/what these different things mean. It wasn't that I couldn't read or comprehend- it was that I too did not really understand what it was I was actually looking for in the answer. You need to practice these over as many different passages as possible. Once I did that, I was able to score much better. I did note however, that my performance for a given passage seemed to depend on the content of the passage. I had one that covered several generations of 17-18th century monarchs and I just could not do it as well. I found the material so completely mundane and boring that I could "absorb" it as well.
Regards,
I appreciate everyone's input in here. I'm going to retake it next month (in order to be competitive for my program), so I hope I'll be able to improve. Right now, I'm practicing reading passages as LoyalWeim had said. Honestly, I had more than 10 minutes left in every section, and I should probably try slowing down.
rtcnp
46 Posts
Another unorthodox method that I think MAY help is to try doing some MCAT verbal passages. Keep in mind that they will be MUCH harder, but if you can do decent on them then you'll likely do very well on the TEAS reading section. Prior to taking the TEAS, I studied a few months for the MCAT and felt that many of the strategies carryover. If you don't have a way to gain free access to these passages though, then I don't recommend going out of your way to buy them.