To make the most of your limited reading time, take quick notes on your noteboard as you finish reading each paragraph. These notes will make up your roadmap, a literal map of the passage that shows you where to look when you need to go back and find a specific detail. Forming a roadmap also helps guide your thought processes during your first pass. You can feel confident reading quickly and focusing on the big picture ideas while ignoring most of the details because you will know exactly where to look should the need for one of those details arise.
Every passage map has four major components:
Topic: the author’s basic, broad subject matter, such as antibiotics, volcanoes, or the PCAT. The passages on the PCAT will be titled according to their Topics, so you should be able to ascertain this within the first five seconds of reading.
Scope: the specific aspect of the topic that is the focus of an individual paragraph. The scope shifts throughout the passage but always relates back to the topic. For example, if the topic of a passage is antibiotics, the paragraphs might have scopes of penicillins and cephalosporins, mechanisms, and side effects.
Tone: the author’s attitude toward the material at hand. Since PCAT passages are related to science topics, most authors attempt to maintain relatively neutral stances, but subtle clues can indicate if an author is positive, negative, or truly neutral toward the subject matter.
Purpose : the reason why the author wrote the passage or how he is trying to change your mind. The purpose is always a verb, such as to explain, evaluate, argue, or compare.
Each passage map component can convey extensive meanings, but your actual notes only need to contain enough information to help you remember the broader ideas. Make use of your own shorthand to ensure your notes for each item average approximately two to three words each. When you’ve finished your passage map, you should have written one overall topic, purpose, and tone for the entire passage and one scope for each individual paragraph, such as in Figure 52.1.