Reading Comprehension

The material here is designed to help you break this old habit (at least long enough to take your exam) and to develop a highly active (even interactive) approach towards the passages. But the only way to break old reading habits and to develop new and better ones is through practice. Therefore, in addition to reading techniques, you should also use the practice sets in this book to experiment with the techniques discussed here.

Every Reading Comprehension question is designed to measure one of two basic abilities:

• Your ability to remember what you read.
• Your ability to understand or comprehend what you read.

The second skill is a higher one in that it requires independent thinking on your part. More important, you'll find that the majority of the questions are comprehension questions, not memory questions; and it's this fact that should drive your approach in reading the passages. In order to understand (Comprehend) a passage, you must be able to:

• Identify the thesis (or main idea) and the author’s primary purpose.
• Follow the author's line of reasoning from paragraph to paragraph.

Common Reading Problems and their solutions

Problem:
You are slow reader, so cannot finish in time.

Solution:
Focus on main Ideas and overall structure instead of details.

Problem:
You cannot concentrate because you feel that ideas are scattered and terminologies used in the passage are unfamiliar to you. You waste a lot of time searching the passage for information needed to respond to question.

Solution:
Ask yourself “Why the writer has written this passage?”. Dialogue with the writer each idea given in the passage.

Problem:
You feel difficulties in narrowing your answer choices down to one clear best answer.

Solution:
Keep in mind the overall theme of the passage and think like test maker.

Problem:
Does the subject knowledge or knowledge about the topic contained in the passage important?

Solution:
In reading comprehension, you are presented with a reading passage (in an area of business, social science, biological science, or physical science), and then asked 3 or 4 questions about that text. You are not expected to be familiar with any topic beforehand. All the information is contained in the text in front of you. In fact, if you happen to have some previous knowledge about a given topic, it is important that you not let that knowledge affect your answers. You must concentrate on what is given in the passage.

Problem:
Should I memorize every detail given in the passage?

Solution:
Don’t feel that you have to memorize or understand every little thing as you read. You can always refer to the passage to clarify the meaning of a specific detail.