GMAT Wings

Today we will look at tips and tricks to crack the Reading Comprehension (RC) part of the Verbal Section. Typically, you will come across 4 passages on the GMAT. The passages revolve around General Science, Social Science and Business Science. General Science passages are dense with scientific details. Social Science passages normally trace developments in social welfare related issues. Business Science passages revolve around strategy and results.

Normally, you get your first passage within the first 12 questions and the next passage within the next 12 questions. These passages will normally have 4 questions per passage. The first 2 passages actually determine the overall score level you will reach at the end of the Verbal Section. (Not to forget that the questions here on SC and CR will also determine your score). Roughly you have 2 minutes per question on Verbal translating to 8 minutes per passage for the first 2 passages. Of this, 4 minutes should be reserved for going through the passage and the balance to answer the questions.

Never ever let your personal knowledge about a subject interfere with your unerstanding of the passage. Treat the passage as text to read and analyze. Never go too much into the details as you don't get scores for that. You need to quickly comprehend the passage and attack the questions. I quite like the approach suggested by Princeton Review and Kaplan. A passage map definitely helps crack the RC part very well. Even before you start reading the passage, you should have a template in place with the following details to be filled in....

Purpose of the Essay, Scope of Topics/Subjects used and Paragraph structure. One way is to have the following format ready on your rough working sheets.

Purpose

Scope

Style

P1 (Outline of Para1)

P2 (Outline of Para2)

P3 (Outline of Para3) so on and so forth.

As you red through the passage, put down the outline as soon as you finish a paragraph. After going through the entire passage, make a brief summary of summaries and plug in the purpose, scope and style. Style basically helps you eliminate some of the options on General Questions.

For general questions, you should not have to go back to the passage again. Your passage map itself should help you eliminate wrong answer choices. For detail questions, your passage map should help you locate the context quickly. Again use passage maps to your advantage by eliminating wrong options. Always read the line before and after the detail question so that you are very clear about the context. These methods do need some practice. However, if you follow these patterns, you will definitely raise your scores signifantly.

Many people dread RC but the fact is that RC can be a very high scoring part. The questions are not varied in terms of difficulty level. The system is not computing your score after each question. You enter the RC passage based on where you stand vis a vis other questions. The system classifies entire passages into easy, medium, difficult levels etc. If you have entered the first passage with a good strike rate on the other questions, your scores are bound to increase. As with SC and CR, go through all the options before you select your answer.

With these tips, I think I have covered the Verbal Practice tips. The next post on Ace the GMAT will focus on AWA and some tips regarding Quantitative section.