Reading comprehension passages can be tedious task for some candidates which involve questions related to main idea, structures, inferences, details, tone and so on. Candidates find it difficult because these passages are lengthy and candidates have less time to answer the questions.
Technique for approaching the Reading Comprehension passages:
- Prefer to read questions first, so that you are aware of what you have to answer.
- Understand the meaning and demand of the question in the language you are comfortable
- Summarize the paragraphs (Each paragraph)
- Read every option in the question
- Select the best suitable option.
How to read passages effectively
Visualize: Visualization is one of the great strategies to understand what you are reading which helps to remember the things for a long time and chances of marking wrong answer decreases. This method is suitable for those passages which have lots of descriptive words or strong sense of place which will make it easier to recall these images.
Selective Reading: Always the first and last two sentences of a paragraph are important to read because first two sentences are introductory sentences of the paragraph and last two sentences are the concluding sentences.
Be careful of transition words: Transition words signal the shift in the passage, a new argument, the direction of author’s next thought, or a piece of evidence that might be important to answer the questions. Please be careful regarding the purpose of these words and the way they are used.
- Similarity (just like, likewise)
- Expansion (also, additionally)
- Contrast/exception (despite, conversely)
- Emphasis (in fact, particularly)
- Cause and effect (accordingly, hence)
- Conclusion (finally, in summary)
All these words will help you to predict what will come next in the passage.
Feign Interest: As it is generally considered that having interest in a particular topic is crucial to understand any of the passages but in the GMAT test, always having a passage of interest is not there so fake interest in reading the passage is the strategy here that will help you to understand the content. For better comprehension skills you can try reading some journals and articles at least one a day.
Always remember that hard work always pays off!