WHERE TO FIND HARD TEXT

This topic has expert replies
Legendary Member
Posts: 1404
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 6:55 pm
Thanked: 18 times
Followed by:2 members

WHERE TO FIND HARD TEXT

by tanviet » Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:53 am
I am a non native speaker. I see that to read well we need to read a lot of hard text which is similar to gmat text, which contain long sentence with many prepositional modifiers, without new words.

Stacey recommends to read harvard magazine and University of Chicago magazine online. This is great. But this test is not hard enough and do not contain text relevant to humanity, history, social science which are appear frequently on gmat.

reading classic fiction book is good. but fiction books contain many new words, making our reading skill improve slowly. I wish to get classic fiction which contain long sentences without many new words

Total verbal is based on very good reading capacity. we have to summurize dificult text with long sentences with many prepositional phrases. Verbal do not test new words and it is quite possible to improve reading skill and verbal with 2 or 3 months if we have good reading reader.

please, give your idea on this

where to find hard text

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 905
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 1:38 am
Thanked: 378 times
Followed by:123 members
GMAT Score:760

by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:44 am
You can subscribe to a few key publications available online: The NY times, Washington post, Scientific American, Businessweek all have online subscriptions, and probably offer a month's free trial. Focus on the 'opinion/editorial' section, as the people who write articles for these publications usually use a language level on par with the GMAT RC passages, and the articles are approximately of the required length. When reading an article, focus on finding the main idea of the article, the author's position, and the structure of the argument (e.g. two opposing sides Vs. one sided, informational Vs. author's opinion).

Good luck!
Geva
Senior Instructor
Master GMAT
1-888-780-GMAT
https://www.mastergmat.com

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 1035
Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:13 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Thanked: 474 times
Followed by:365 members

by VivianKerr » Fri Mar 11, 2011 10:15 am
Here's a few suggestions:

- NY Times book review (I really like this article's description of how to use these articles for practice: https://smartestprep.wordpress.com/2010/ ... rehension/)

- Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/

- The Economist: https://www.economist.com/

- The Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/

- Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/

Keep in mind that the GMAT RC is not "hard" because of it's incredibly advanced language. Most of it is readily comprehensible, although it may occasionally use unfamiliar scientific or business terminology. The challenge of RC lies in breaking down the rhetoric of the passage, and grasping not only what the author's argument is, but HOW he/she makes it. Absolutely seek out tougher study materials, but make sure to apply your RC method to new passages as well! :)
Vivian Kerr
GMAT Rockstar, Tutor
https://www.GMATrockstar.com
https://www.yelp.com/biz/gmat-rockstar-los-angeles

Former Kaplan and Grockit instructor, freelance GMAT content creator, now offering affordable, effective, Skype-tutoring for the GMAT at $150/hr. Contact: [email protected]

Thank you for all the "thanks" and "follows"! :-)

Legendary Member
Posts: 1404
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 6:55 pm
Thanked: 18 times
Followed by:2 members

by tanviet » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:48 am
Thank you all very much. I am a non natve and for me reading is of course different from for you. I read opinion pages of newyork time aready.

none of the sourses offers hard text which is similar to the THIRD PASSAGE on the gmat. take a look at gmatprep. For some passage I spend 2 minutes reading (quite new passages), other I spend 10 minute doing so. There is really monsterous passages. We do not realize the monstrousness because we reread the hard passages.

I mean, to be able to read the "third passage" on the test day, the testtaker has to read many hundreds pages of similar hard text. We have to read many thousand pages from the sources you mention or we have to read a few hundred pages of the hard text. Of course, the second choice is more effective but where you find the source of hard text.

Tell me the sourse of the hard text and one month, I can read the third passage on the test day and get 40/50 on verbal

help please.