In one embodiment, a state is reach from a memory cell comprising a phase change material (PM) region and a select device (SD) region by: ramping a voltage applied to a first address line of an address line pair corresponding to the memory cell until the first address line voltage is stabilized at a predetermined voltage, ramping a voltage applied to a second address line of the address line pair corresponding to the memory cell, detecting a snap in the memory cell while ramping the voltage applied to the second address line, and determining a state of the memory cell based on a differential voltage between the first and second address lines when the memory cell snap occurred.