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Reading Comprehension

The passage discusses the structure of GMAT reading passages and strategies for answering reading comprehension questions efficiently. It notes that passages typically contain 2-4 paragraphs with the first paragraph summarizing the main idea. Subsequent paragraphs then delve deeper into specific points related to the main idea. The passage recommends an initial reading strategy of focusing on the first 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph and first sentence of subsequent paragraphs to understand the overall structure and logic of the passage rather than memorizing content details. It also provides a recommended work order of carefully reading the question, finding the answer in the passage, selecting the matching response, and verifying other options are not better.

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Tirthankar Datta
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582 views5 pages

Reading Comprehension

The passage discusses the structure of GMAT reading passages and strategies for answering reading comprehension questions efficiently. It notes that passages typically contain 2-4 paragraphs with the first paragraph summarizing the main idea. Subsequent paragraphs then delve deeper into specific points related to the main idea. The passage recommends an initial reading strategy of focusing on the first 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph and first sentence of subsequent paragraphs to understand the overall structure and logic of the passage rather than memorizing content details. It also provides a recommended work order of carefully reading the question, finding the answer in the passage, selecting the matching response, and verifying other options are not better.

Uploaded by

Tirthankar Datta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reading Comprehension: Passage Structure

Reading passages are divided into paragraphs. A typical GMAT reading passage consists of
2-4 paragraphs. However, there are also reading passages that consist of only one
paragraph, and there are passages that are made up of more than four paragraphs.
Fortunately, all GMAT reading passages, whether long or short, whether they consist of two
or six paragraphs, have the same structure which is unique to them.
The first paragraph is more or less a summary of the entire passage, kind of like the abstract
of a scientific journal article.
All the other paragraphs are structured in the same way. They go into a certain point, issue
or aspect pertaining to the main idea of the passage in depth. The beginning of each
paragraph announces the topic of the paragraph and is kind of a summary of or introduction
to the rest of the paragraph.
The exception is one-paragraph passages. These passages are not divided into paragraphs.
The whole text is one long paragraph.
What would you expect to find in the last paragraph?
The Last Paragraph Misconception
While the first paragraph usually consists of the main idea of the passage, the last
paragraph is NEVER EVER a summary of the passage. On rare occasions, the last
paragraph will contain a recommendation for a plan of action, but in 95% of the cases, the
last paragraph is no different than all previous paragraphs. That is why we treat the last
paragraph as we do any other paragraph. We do not read all of it, we do not scan it, and we
definitely do not look at the last sentence, expecting it to contain valuable information.

Reading Comprehension constitutes about a third of the Verbal


section. During the 75 minutes you spend on the Verbal Section, you
should expect to be presented with 4 different reading passages. Each
passage is followed by 3-4 questions, totalling 13-15 questions (out of 41
questions in the Verbal section). The questions are presented in clusters a passage, followed by 3-4 questions.
On the GMAT, for these questions you will see a split computer screen.
The written passage will remain visible on the left side as each question
associated with that passage appears in turn on the right side. You will
see only one question at a time, however.

There

are

7 Reading

Comprehension question

types.

Some

are general, asking about the main idea of the passage or about its
structure. Others are more specific, asking about a specific detail
mentioned in the passage. You will learn how to deal with each type
quickly and efficiently.
One of the 4 reading passages, along with the questions that follow it,
is experimental. This means that the answers to the 3-4 questions asked
on that passage do not count toward your score. However, since you
cannot identify the experimental passage, you need to answer all
questions to the best of your ability.
The recommended time per Reading Comprehension passage (that is,
answering all 3-4 questions that follow the passage) is approximately 2
minutes 15 seconds per question: about 7 minutes for a passage
followed by 3 questions and 9 minutes for a passage followed by 4
questions. What it actually comes down to is about 3-4 minutes doing an
initial reading of the passage, following which the questions can be dealt
with in 1-2 minutes each.
1. Stated vs. implied
Some questions need to be answered on the basis of what is
explicitly stated in the passage. For example, "Which of the following
is mentioned in the passage?"
Other questions need to be answered on the basis of what is implied in
the passage but is not explicitly stated in it. For example, "Which of the
following can be inferred from the passage?"
2. Choosing answers based on the content of the passage vs. my
personal knowledge
Suppose you're a world expert on bird migration, and you encounter a
reading passage about this topic. In any case of disagreement between
what you know about bird migration and what the passage states about it,
the information in the passage is what you should base your answers on.
After all, that's what the test writers based the question on and how they
determined which answer choice is correct. Your goal is to choose that
answer choice because this is the only way to get the points for it, even if
you, as a world expert on the subject, know it's inaccurate or otherwise
flawed.

In order to deal with Reading Comprehension questions quickly and


efficiently, you need to know the following:
1. Passage Content Categories
2. Passage Structure
3. Logic over Content
4. Initial Reading
5. Work Order

1. Passage Content Categories

All reading passages are academic and scientific. They discuss topics from
the social sciences, humanities, the physical or biological sciences, and
such business related fields as marketing, economics and human resource
management.
Neither the passages nor the questions assume prior knowledge of the
topics discussed.

2. Passage Structure
A typical GMAT reading passage consists of 2-4 paragraphs. Few reading
passages
consist
of
only
one paragraph or
of
more
than
four paragraphs.
All GMAT reading passages share the same structure:
The first paragraph is more or less a summary of the entire passage,
similar to the abstract of a scientific journal article.
The other paragraphs are structured in the following way: they go
deeper into a certain point, issue or aspect pertaining to the main idea of
the passage in depth. The beginning of the paragraph announces the
exact topic of the paragraph and is kind of a summary of or introduction
to the rest of the paragraph.
The exception is one-paragraph passages. These passages are not
divided into paragraphs. The whole text is one long paragraph.

3. Logic over Content


A very important Reading Comprehension skill is focusing on
the structure and logic of the passage and not on its content.
The content is the shell, the cover. The logical relations between the
passage's paragraphs and within paragraphs are the main thing and
what most questions deal with.
For example, it doesn't matter so much whether the passage is about the
way our brain works, paleontology or the solar system. What matters a lot
more is how the different paragraphs relate to each other, what
each paragraph does (as opposed to the content of each paragraph):
introduce a theory, support the point made in the previous paragraph,
etc., whether the passage deals with theories, research findings or a
chronological review of a phenomenon, etc.
GMAC deliberately writes passages from various scientific disciplines. It
does so to minimize chances that any test taker will be familiar with all
the topics of the passages he or she encounters on the GMAT.
Therefore, if you see a passage that deals with microbiology, which
happens to be a field you know nothing about, have no fear. The questions
that will follow it won't test your understanding of microbiology. They'll
deal with structural elements and logic, a much safer ground for most
GMAT students.

4. Initial Reading

The first thing we do when we see a reading passage, before even


looking at the question that appears next to it on the screen, is
called Initial
Reading,
a
technique
for
extracting
the main
idea and structure of the passage with minimum effort and time.
Initial Reading involves reading the first 2-3 sentences of the first
paragraph and the first sentence in each of the other paragraphs.
Note that just like in Sentence Correction and Critical Reasoning, we work
at the sentence level: we never read more than one sentence at a time.

Working at the sentence level is the key to practicing conscious reading:


since we do not read the entire passage off the bat (more on this later),
this is a way to make sure we really understand what little we do read. We
don't just read - we do something with the information: we summarize it in
our head, or on paper; we ask ourselves after each sentence "What have I
just learned?" "How does this relate to what I've read so far?"

5. Work Order (after the Initial Reading)

1. Read the question carefully.


2. Find the answer to the question either by thinking about it or by looking
for it in the passage.
3. Go over the answer choices, looking for one that is similar to the one
you found.
4. Go over the remaining answer choices to make sure they're not better.

To sum up, Reading Comprehension questions are made up to make us


lose time and steer us away from the correct answer. To avoid that, we
must:
1) Focus on logic, structure and function rather than on content
2)
Focus
on meaning of
similar wording

expressions

rather

than

That's it. Just remember these two, and you will not be easily fooled!

on

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