Reading Comprehension Success in 20 Minutes a Day, 3rd Edition

Keep Moving
Once you begin the test,
keep moving
. If you work
slowly in an attempt to make fewer mistakes, your
mind will become bored and begin to wander. You’ll
end up making far more mistakes if you’re not con-
centrating. Worse, if you take too long to answer ques-
tions that stump you, you may end up running out of
time before you finish.
So don’t stop for difficult questions. Skip them
and move on. You can come back to them later if you
have time. A question that takes you five seconds to
answer counts as much as one that takes you several
minutes, so pick up the easy points first. Besides,
answering the easier questions first helps build your
confidence and gets you in the testing groove. Who
knows? As you go through the test, you may even stum-
ble across some relevant information to help you
answer those tough questions.
Don’t Rush
Keep moving, but 
don’t rush
. Think of your mind as
a seesaw. On one side is your emotional energy; on the
other side, your intellectual energy. When your emo-
tional energy is high, your intellectual capacity is low.
Remember how difficult it is to reason with someone
when you’re angry? On the other hand, when your
intellectual energy is high, your emotional energy is
low. Rushing raises your emotional energy and reduces
your intellectual capacity. Remember the last time you
were late for work? All that rushing around probably
caused you to forget important things—like your
lunch. Move quickly to keep your mind from wander-
ing, but don’t rush and get yourself flustered.
Check Yourself
Check yourself at the halfway mark. If you’re a little
ahead, you know you’re on track and may even have a
little time left to check your work. If you’re a little
behind, you have several choices. You can pick up the
pace a little, but do this 
only
if you can do it comfort-
ably. Remember—
don’t rush!
You can also skip around
in the remaining portion of the test to pick up as many
easy points as possible. This strategy has one draw-