Get Ready to Rumble: GMAT RC Start to Finish - Part 1
Weve done a lot of RC over the years, but a passage contains so much text that I rarely do a full passage with all of its questions.
Were going to remedy that, starting today! First, well talk about the passage below (from the free problem set that comes with GMATPrep). Then, well tackle the series of questions that comes with it.
Give yourself approximately 2.5 to 3 minutes to read the below and make yourself a light Passage Map.
* The modern multinational corporation is described as having originated when the owner-managers of nineteenth-century British firms carrying on international trade were replaced by teams of salaried managers organized into hierarchies. Increases in the volume of transactions in such firms are commonly believed to have necessitated this structural change. Nineteenth-century inventions like the steamship and the telegraph, by facilitating coordination of managerial activities, are described as key factors. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chartered trading companies, despite the international scope of their activities, are usually considered irrelevant to this discussion: the volume of their transactions is assumed to have been too low and the communications and transport of their day too primitive to make comparisons with modern multinationals interesting.
In reality, however, early trading companies successfully purchased and outfitted ships, built and operated offices and warehouses, manufactured trade goods for use abroad, maintained trading posts and production facilities overseas, procured goods for import, and sold those goods both at home and in other countries. The large volume of transactions associated with these activities seems to have necessitated hierarchical management structures well before the advent of modern communications and transportation. For example, in the Hudsons Bay Company, each far-flung trading outpost was managed by a salaried agent, who carried out the trade with the Native Americans, managed day-to-day operations, and oversaw the posts workers and servants. One chief agent, answerable to the Court of Directors in London through the correspondence committee, was appointed with control over all of the agents on the bay.The early trading companies did differ strikingly from modern multinationals in many respects. They depended heavily on the national governments of their home countries and thus characteristically acted abroad to promote national interests. Their top managers were typically owners with a substantial minority share, whereas senior managers holdings in modern multinationals are usually insignificant. They operated in a preindustrial world, grafting a system of capitalist international trade onto a premodern system of artisan and peasant production. Despite these differences, however, early trading companies organized effectively in remarkably modern ways and merit further study as analogues of more modern structures.
What did you get out of the passage? My thoughts (by paragraph) are on the left and my notes are on the right:
I included the info on the left so that youd see how I was thinking about the passage as I read. Note that I focused on the big picture as well as contrasts. I paid attention to language that foreshadowed where the author might be going with her message.
I didnt write much about the detailsbecause I didnt think much about the details. I did read all of the sentences, but as I was reading the example about the Hudson Bay Company, for instance, I was just thinking, Okay, this is an example of an early company that still had a lot of hierarchy going on. I dont care exactly how that hierarchy functioned. I care only that this example is used to support the big idea that early companies did, indeed, have a hierarchy.
Thats your goal on the initial read-through: understand the big ideas and leave the details for later.
We (Manhattan Prep) call the notes a Passage Map because theyre designed to help you figure out where to go when answering a specific question. The goal is not to write down all of the detailsits an open book test! You can go find and re-read the details any time you want! The trick is to be able to find the relevant details quickly.
Okay, if you feel comfortable with all of that, then click here to answer your first question (you can skip down the article until you get to the problem). Keep this page open, though, so that you have the full passage text.
If you want more practice reading and taking effective notes, Ive got another article for you.
Join me next time, when well dive into more questions from this passage.
Key Takeaways for Reading Comprehension
(1) Your first read-through is designed to get the big picture, not all of the nitty-gritty details. Worry about those later (and only when you actually get a question about that detail!).
(2) Do create a Passage Map to help you navigate around the passage while answering questions. Some people are able to keep this Map in their heads, but most of us have to jot down at least a few words.
(3) If you hit something that throws you for a loop, assess: is it the first sentence of a paragraph? Does it seem like a big-picture message? If so, read that sentence again and try to pick it apart to get to the core message, using your SC skills. If, on the other hand, the sentence is just detail, skip it for now (and possibly forever).
* GMATPrepquestions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.