How to Work With Students Mild-mod in Reading Comprehension

March 04, 2022 Post a Comment

Mike MᶜGarry

How to Report for GMAT Reading Comprehension

GMAT Reading Comprehension - image by Magoosh

GMAT Reading Comprehension Facts

Fact: A typical GMAT Verbal Section will have four GMAT Reading Comprehension passages, among batches of SC & RC. Each Reading Comprehension question has a batch of 3-4 questions with it.

Fact: "Short" Reading Comprehension passages on the GMAT are typically 200-250 words long and typically have 3 questions. "Long" RC passages are typically 300-350 words and typically take 4 questions. A GMAT Verbal section unremarkably has iii Short RC passages and i Long RC passage, although in rare instances it could have ii of each.

Fact: Passages may business concern the natural and social science (e.grand. from textbooks or journals), the humanities (eastward.g. from books or academic manufactures), or the business organization world (eastward.grand. economics, sales, human resources, etc.). In no case are you expected to accept outside cognition of what'southward in the passage.

Fact: The chief skills RC tests are (1) the power to decide the master idea of a passage; (2) the ability to draw connections betwixt facts and concepts; and (3) the ability to extend the pattern, to meet where the argument is heading.

Fact: The GMAT presents RC on a split screen. On the left side is the passage: it volition have a scroll bar if information technology'southward long. On the right side, ane question at a fourth dimension will appear. You will e'er be able to see the passage in its entirety, only you can only run across i question at a time.

Fact: Nearly all RC questions fall into one of the post-obit half-dozen categories:

(a) detect the main thought (this is almost E'er one of the questions)

(b) supporting ideas/details — why did the author mention such-and-such?

(d) analogical — applying information in the passage to a completely new and unlike situation

(e) logical structure — does the author support a new thought? contrast 2 ideas? shoot down something traditionally accepted? etc.

(f) tone — the emotional color with which the author presents the material — is the writer enthusiastic? critical? optimistic? etc.

GMAT Reading Comprehension Strategies

Strategy #1: GMAT Reading Comprehension is not a speed-reading competition!

Give yourself two.v minutes for short passages and 3.5 minutes for long passages. Every time yous read a passage, set a timer for this fourth dimension and so you become used to information technology: y'all will find that these times permit you read at a relaxed pace that allows for thorough comprehension while yet affording a infinitesimal per question.

Strategy #2: Map, don't memorize!

When you lot read, your job is to decide (a) the master thought of the passage and (b) the topic/function of each individual paragraph. Create, as it were, a "map" of the passage from which you can locate details if the questions address them.

Yous do not need to memorize the vivid details of, say, Hesseldorf's new theory of the evolutionary changes in mammalian digestion at the onset of the Pleistocene. Y'all just have to know where the passage goes into detail about that factoid so that, if a detail question arises, you tin can go back to that place and reread. Your goal is to read the whole passage once, at a relaxed stride, and reread merely specific item passages as necessary.

Strategy #3: Accept notes!

This is one strategy many people fight tooth and nail. When you read RC passages, take notes on scrap paper. Write downwards the main idea in ten words or fewer (symbols and abbreviations that make sense to you lot are fine). Write down the topic of each paragraph in ten words or fewer. This seems like information technology would take more time, simply, when yous practice this skill and get efficient at it, it actually saves time.

On the real GMAT, you will get a erasable packet and dry-erase pens. Many folks find this helpful for calculations on the Quantitative section, and the principal employ on the Verbal section is for taking notes on Reading Comprehension questions.

Here's an fantabulous style to meet how expert your notes are. Read a passage, taking notes. Then, without fifty-fifty looking at the questions, put that passage bated. The next twenty-four hours, with only your notes, and without rereading the passage, try to reply the questions: you probably won't be able to answer detail questions, simply, if your notes are whatsoever good, principal idea questions should be easy.

Strategy #four: Read the commencement question outset

One suggested strategy is: before your read the passage, read the first question —- not the reply choices, good god! — but just the question. That way, you will accept it on your radar. In particular, if the beginning question is a detail question, you will take your antennae upward for that detail as y'all read.

Not everyone finds this helpful. Experiment and run into what works best for you.

Strategy #5: Read!

Read every day, especially if RC is not your matter. Read difficult textile even outside your GMAT prep. The Economist (Reading for the GMAT—The Economist) is, for a diversity of reasons, probably the best weekly journal to read regularly.

For science reading, both Scientific American and National Geographic are excellent sources. If yous have a friend who majored in a discipline different from yours, ask to infringe a couple textbooks and ask for their recommendations of good capacity to read. Later you lot read it, your friend may fifty-fifty be willing to quiz you on the text.

Wikipedia is another virtually inexhaustible source of challenging reading. Pick a famous scientist (eastward.g. Linus Pauling, Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock, etc.), follow the link to one of their discoveries or theories, and read the article thoroughly. Or option a famous historical figure whose proper noun you've heard simply nearly whom you know nothing (e.g. Cardinal Richelieu, Suleiman the Magnificent, Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc.) and read thoroughly most their role in history. Or option a discipline about which you lot know nothing, follow a link to one of the important ideas in that subject field, and read about it thoroughly. There's no terminate of cool new stuff to learn!!