Reading comprehension is one of the most
challenging section on the GMAT. It is not just about reading a dense passage
to answer a few questions; it is particularly challenging when you do that
under exam pressure, given that you cannot skip a passage. In the following
article I have tried to summarize the strategies employed by me and a few
others I know who have done really well on this section of the test that is-
scored in excess of 700 on the test. In addition to that I have tried to
incorporate expert views on reading actively, primarily sourced from
"MyCollegeSuccessStory.com" and from the works of
Katharine Hansen.
To quote her on active reading,
"Experts agree that active reading techniques result in improved
comprehension and retention. If you are not actively engaged in reading, you
won't learn or retain as much.
It's natural to simply read a chapter from
beginning to end, but it's not the most effective way to read, learn, and
understand the content you're reading.
Most experts recommend active or critical reading.
If you're not doing something to be actively engaged in your reading, you will
probably find that you have to re-read before the test, maybe even multiple
times. You won't learn or retain much if you simply read."
The
first and the foremost thing to understand about the RC section is that the
questions are of limited genre and can be neatly classified as follows
a) Detail Questions - or as Byju's classes call it-
Data based Questions: These are the simplest types of questions and is based on
the passage with little or no inference required.
For Example, the questions staring with ,
"According to the author,…."
"According to the passage…"
b. Detail cum Inference Questions
- These questions require you to make an inference about an issue raised in the
passage. But the questions are localized- they are from a particular line in
the passage or may be more than one line but all from a specific paragraph and
not the passage on the whole.
For Example, the questions staring with,
"What
does the author suggest when……”
"What can you infer from…"
"What does the author mean/imply in the…"
Two things worth noting here are-
1.
The question is
not from the passage on the whole but must be answered based on the context of
a particular paragraph within the passage. Let me elaborate on this point a
little. It may happen that the author introduces an idea in the first
paragraph, gives an opinion supporting the idea in the second and ends up
negating the idea and comes up with a new idea in the fourth. A inference
question may be asked from the second paragraph in which the author actually
writes in favor of the original idea. In the answer choices, choices that
oppose the idea is wrong. You can easily eliminate those answers.
2.
There is a
difference between what the author implies and what you infer in terms of
scope. The author's implications are severely limited to the scope of the
passage or the paragraph, while your implications enjoy the freedom of a
broader scope.
c)
Pure Inference
Questions- These are the most difficult types yet not so frequently asked on
the GMAT. But if you are raking in scores above 40-41 in VA, be prepared. These
questions cover broader scopes and are not limited to a particular line on the
passage. In fact you must clearly understand what the author intends to imply
in the passage and make an inference based on that trail of idea or opinion.
For Example, the questions
staring with,
"What
can be the Topic of the passage…."
"What can be the author's response to a
situation in which…
d) Structure questions - Based on how the passage is structured.
e) Tone questions
- These are the easier ones on the GMAT
RC sections and you can always expect to find one in the 12 odd questions that
are devoted to test the reading skills of
a test taker. I have covered this section in one of my blogs and will
post a blog in the tone question soon.
f) Main theme/central idea - This is the most
important of all the questions as you are sure to get one or two main idea
questions from each RC passage.
Surprisingly all the questions that you can ever
expect to find on the GMAT comes under one of these categories. This is one of
the benefits of standardised test you may say. Further, you can have a strategy
to deal with each of the types separately and efficiently. My own experience
and the experiences of those who have taken the tests using these strategies
indicate that you can gain an accuracy in excess of 80% with these highly
mathematical approach to RC. However this is a topic for another day and
probably the third and final step to solving a RC passage based questions. The
first and the foremost step is to actually read the passage. Now to be able to
read a 3-4 paragraph passage and answer these 5 different types of questions
using a separate methodology for each of them, all in under 7 minutes, requires
not only skill but practice to be comfortable with them. And the process starts
with reading the material in such a way that you achieve the following
objectives-
1. Understand the overall gist of the passage
2. Understand the flow of the passage
3. Be able to go to the exact section of the passage
from which a question is asked- remember you cannot underline and you, in all
probability, will have to reread the section from which the question has been
asked.
Therefore
the onus is on us to really read the passage quickly and maximise your
understanding of it. With this background let us try and understand what makes
an efficient reading strategy.
1. Active reading- this is one of most important rule to reading a passage. As Dr
Katherine Hansen points out, it improves comprehension and retention. But
another hidden advantage is that it actually improves your reading speed. This
observation may be contrary to what most of us may have come to understand. But
it is in fact true. Reading actively involves engaging with the passage. The
first step to reading actively is that you consciously tell yourself
that-"Hey this is a wonderful passage and I am going to understand
this" instead of saying, "What the hell, why am I supposed to read
about some obscure scientific discovery in the neuron activity". You might
say that this is bound to increase your words per minute. Well here is the
thing. By the time you are done with first passage you will be able to predict
what the next passage may be or the way a passage is structured. Take for instance
a passage that begins the following lines
"For long neuroscientists have hypothesised
that … ".
If you are engaged with the passage or reading
actively, this line should immediately trigger the following response from you-
Oh the author is talking about something that has been understood in a form
that has stood for a long time. Probably he is going to present the reasons for
the hypothesis. Then the argument may move towards negating the findings or the
inference of the finding followed by proposing a new idea or supporting the
idea with fresh evidence. Believe me most of the time a typical GMAT passage
falls into the structure outlined. (It should be clear even from the first
para that the tone of the passage is analytical/argumentative). Now that you
know the flow you can read faster by expecting what is going to come next. What
if the passage doesn’t follow the pattern. Well no problem. You again see
clearly that the author is deviating from what you were expecting. This will
help you decode the twists and turns of the passage. If you can understand the
flow, the deviations, and figure out where the author says what, believe me
half the battle is won.
This, in my humble opinion, is the essence of good
reading skills. You must anticipate what comes next. If you can do that your
speed will increase and comprehension will be improved.
2.
Knowing what
you can skim through - This is
covered extensively in the Byju's reading principles by the brilliant, and
effervescent Santosh derived largely from the seminal work of Norman Levis in
his famous book "Reading faster and better". I recommend anyone
starting with his or her preparations for the test to go through that book at
least once. It is bound to be a truly transformational experience. Let me provide
the gist of the book for completeness of this blog. Understand what the
author intends to say , don’t worry about the background details. For
example, in the passage introduced above, what the neuroscientists have
hypothesised from long isn't as important as what the author wants to conclude.
The main theme is the most important part, arriving quickly at it is the most
important objective of reading a passage in question. Now how is that connected
with better reading principles, don’t we know that already? To answer that let
us put on the author's shoes. If you wanted to present an idea, how will you go
about it? The most obvious choices are- you state your idea and then go
on to justify it or you start with background information, state existing
theory and then arrive at your point. So by concentrating on the author's main
idea you can skim through the rest of the passage.
3. Philosophical Passages - But this is not an easy strategy especially when
you are dealing with difficult passages with intricate logic such as those in
philosophical passages. Although they follow the same overall idea,
understanding the trail of thought in itself is a challenge. But there is
something really interesting about the philosophy passages. The whole idea of a
paragraph in a philosophical passage is, more often than not, written in pain
simple English! Concentrating on reading principles elucidated in the norman
lewis books and/or following Byju's reading strategy, you can start loving the
philosophical passages. The most important tenets of the principles are-
a) In a cause an effect sentences - concentrate on
the effect, forget the cause (see how we just ignored a good part of the
sentence in favor of the crux)
b) Look for the structure words such as However,
Hence, Yet, but, so, etc. You normally expect the author to make a serious
point there. These words are there for a reason and they indicate either emphasis
(So, Hence) or change of track (but,yet,etc)
So, the idea that you should get from the
discussion is that the whole passage can be treated mathematically. The way to
answer the questions is once again very methodical and mathematical. However
that is a topic for another day. Cheers!
