The most common way to fail the modern-text reading section of the gaokao Chinese paper is to read the passage carefully, then read the questions, then read the passage again. That is twice the time for half the accuracy.
Skim the questions first — thirty seconds is enough. Then read the passage with a pen in hand and underline anything that looks like it answers one of them. When you reach a question, go straight back to your underlining.
For open-ended questions such as 'What is the author's attitude…' (作者的态度是……), answer using the passage's own vocabulary. Markers look for specific phrases from the text, and a paraphrase can lose marks even when it is correct.
Never leave an open-ended question blank. A weak answer that echoes a single keyword from the passage can still earn a mark. A blank earns nothing.