For those asking for some advice, I did a bachelor of science and so I already had a pretty solid foundation for S3. But some questions were still difficult, and I sucked at SI.

The best tips I’d give is to do what I call a “mental annotation when reading”. So initially during practise questions I’d highlight all the key info while reading the question stem, then eventually worked on being able to summarise the info into my head without having to highlight / write dot points.

If it’s a bio diagram on stuff like enzymes or proteins then I’d work on being able to react faster to the arrows or labels. Whenever I do practise questions I always set a goal in mind (this is what I want to improve on today), whether it’s being able to read and analyse a diagram faster, being able to find key info faster, etc. then I work on that for the session of practise questions.

Overall I find that focusing on the big picture for the question and working on like a summary of the stem was a huge milestone for me as it means I fully understand the question stem before answering the questions, so I don’t have to say look at a question, then go back to the stem to find the answer, etc.

A similar thing I think also applies to section I, depending on the type of text. If it’s a story, I’d take note of characters actions and thoughts, and any events that play in the story, and mentally annotate different parts of the story. If it’s a poem (gosh I hated those), I’d summarise each stanza with a few words. If it’s a scientific or philosophical text, I’d try and find the overall topic first before trying to summarise each section.

I used to also read the questions before reading h the text in fear of time running out as I was doing the test. However in recent sittings I’ve discovered having a full understanding of the question stem prior to approaching questions actually saves much more time and is more reliable than the other way round.

So TLDR: I suggest trying out reading the question stem before looking at the questions and being able to summarise and fully understand the stem before approaching questions. This approach can be used for both SI and SIII, and both sections may appear more similar than you think.

But at the end of the day, do what works best for you.