You are not bad at reading. You are bad at one specific thing inside the larger skill of reading. Almost every RC student who feels stuck is failing on one of the six diagnoses below. Find yours.
You do not have a reading problem. You have a specific problem inside reading.
1. You read too slowly
If your sustained reading speed on dense academic material is below 200 words per minute, you literally do not have time to think. You will run out of clock before you finish, and your "comprehension" issues are mostly time pressure issues.
Sign. You finish the third passage with under 5 minutes left and guess on multiple questions.
Fix. See reading faster for the DAT. Subvocalization, word-by-word reading, and regression are the three drags. Pick one and drill it.
2. You over-trust your memory of the passage
You read the passage, form an interpretation, and answer the questions from memory. The right answer matches the passage exactly. Your memory matches the passage approximately. You pick the answer that matches your memory, not the one that matches the text.
Sign. You consistently pick the second-best answer when you are torn between two choices.
Fix. When torn, point to the specific sentence in the passage that proves your answer. If you cannot point, you are guessing.
3. You over-infer
On inference questions, you reach for the answer that requires the most thinking, because it feels like that is what inference rewards. The DAT rewards the opposite. The right inference answer is one step beyond the text, not three.
Sign. Your inference accuracy is below 60 percent.
Fix. See inference questions in detail. The defendability test fixes this for most students in 2 weeks.
4. You miss the question stem
You knew the right idea. The question asked for "the author would LEAST agree with" and you picked the choice the author would most agree with. You read fast and you misread the stem.
Sign. When you review wrong answers, more than once or twice you find that the same question phrased plainly would have been right.
Fix. Underline the operative word in every question stem before looking at choices. NOT, LEAST, EXCEPT, primary, best supported. Three seconds per question saves 3 to 4 points per section.
5. One question pattern is killing you
You are good on most patterns and brutal on one. Your overall accuracy looks okay but a specific pattern is dragging it down 20 percentage points.
Sign. Per-question-type accuracy shows a 20+ point gap between best and worst.
Fix. Read the deep-dive for that pattern (start with the 7 patterns guide) and consciously apply the fix on every question of that type for the next 2 weeks.
6. You have not done enough passages
Some students are doing everything right but have only done 10 timed passages. RC is a skill. Skills require reps. There is no diagnostic that fixes "you have not practiced enough."
Sign. You have done fewer than 25 timed passages and your score is unstable.
Fix. Do 50 more, with a focused reason for each one. Diagnosis without volume is theory. Volume without diagnosis is grinding. You need both.
What to do this week
Pick the diagnosis above that fits you most. Do its specific fix this week. Take a timed section at the end of the week and check whether your score moved.
Most students who pick the right diagnosis see a 2 point lift in 2 weeks. Most students who guess at the diagnosis see no movement in 2 months.
Related: The 5-bucket diagnostic · Realistic improvement plan