You can adapt HOW YOU READ the passages, questions, and answer choices to focus on the specific details that PbR questions usually ask for.  This type of adaptation will make you a more efficient reader.

PASSAGES

• Read carefully until you have determined the main idea of the passage. This should be evident by the end of the first paragraph.

• Once you've found that, look at how the passage is organized. You can move more quickly through the passage as you read for this information. If you're stuck, look at how the paragraphs relate to each other. What types of transitions does the author use? How does he/she tie one paragraph to the next?

• At the end of the passage, you should be able to outline the author's MAIN ARGUMENT and the ORGANIZATION of that argument.

QUESTION & ANSWER CHOICES

• Read the question and think about what kind of information it's asking for. If it's about a particular part of the passage, re-read that part of the passage. It may be helpful to read the question again before looking back at the answer choices.

• As you read each answer choice, look for a good reason to eliminate it. In this section, it's pretty easy to end up with a couple answer choices that you think may be right. Instead of straining to figure out which one is the most right, focus on knocking out the wrong ones.

• Be wary of extreme or absolute answer choices. In general, the right answers are more subtle or thought-out than the wrong ones. (This makes perfect sense if you think like a test-writer. The right answer is easier to create because it is based on what's already stated in the passage. But the wrong answers aren't based on the passage, so the test-writers have to make them up. To create the wrong ones, the test-writers have to make bad assumptions on purpose. So those choices end up being less precise.)