The Last Eight Guesses
Minho is training for the reading section: 40 questions in 55 minutes across five passages that increase in length and difficulty. In his last mock he answered the first 20 questions with 17 correct but the last 20 with only 9 correct; the final eight were all marked C because he had 30 seconds left. He reads every passage line by line and mentally translates each sentence into Korean before moving on. He will not skip a sentence he does not fully understand. A vocabulary check shows he recognises about 85% of the words in passages 1–3 but only about 60% in passages 4–5. His accuracy on the questions he actually attempts is high, around 85%, and he rarely changes an answer. He has three weeks and can study one hour a day.
1. Diagnose the score pattern. Is Minho's main problem reading speed, vocabulary, or question strategy? Justify with the numbers.
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The pattern points to time allocation, not comprehension. He is 17/20 on the early questions, 9/20 on the late ones, and eight of those late items were never read. If vocabulary were the main limit, early accuracy would also fall. His 85% accuracy on attempted items shows that his comprehension is adequate when he reaches the text.
The 60% vocabulary recognition in passages 4–5 contributes, but it cannot explain eight unread items. The main cost is line-by-line mental translation, which does not scale as passages lengthen. A rough budget makes the problem visible: 55 minutes for 40 questions is about 82 seconds per question including reading time. A translation approach can easily spend two to three minutes on a single dense paragraph.
His strategy should change before his vocabulary does. He needs a hard cap per passage, question-first reading for the later passages, and a rule that no single sentence gets more than a short pause. The goal is to attempt all 40 items while preserving as much of his 85% attempted accuracy as possible.
2. A friend advises him to just skim everything. Evaluate that advice for this exam.
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Skimming is appropriate for locating information and for a first read of long passages when the questions are detail-based. It is risky when questions test inference, attitude, or the function of a paragraph, because those require close reading of a specific section rather than a general impression.
Minho's profile suggests a hybrid rather than a blanket rule. For passages 1–3 he is accurate and fast enough to read closely. For passages 4–5 he should read the question stems first, then scan for the relevant section and read that section closely. Skimming everything would likely lower his 85% attempted accuracy without guaranteeing that he reaches all items.
The test of the advice is the mock score, not comfort. He should trial the hybrid for one week and record attempted items and accuracy separately. If attempted items rise but accuracy falls by more than about ten points, the skimming is too shallow and he should narrow it to the passages where time pressure is real.
3. In passage 5 he meets three unknown technical terms in one paragraph. What should he do so the paragraph still yields answers?
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He should classify the terms before reacting: is each one a concept, a process, or one side of a contrast? Often the paragraph defines the term in an appositive, a dash, or an example, so reading to the end of the sentence is better than stopping at the unknown word. If no definition appears, he should substitute a placeholder (X) and track the grammar: does X increase, replace Y, or cause Z? Questions usually test relationships, not the term itself.
Word morphology can also give a rough category: Latin and Greek roots and prefixes often signal whether a term is a process, a substance, or a measurement. He should not translate the term into Korean, because translation adds a step and often fails when the concept is unfamiliar.
The decision rule is to spend no more than about 20 seconds on an unknown term unless a question directly asks about it. If a question does, he should return and read the two sentences around the term closely, since the answer is usually built into the surrounding explanation.