Reading Comprehension

Here is a passage

In Winters v. United States (1908), the Supreme
Court held that the right to use waters flowing through
or adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation
was reserved to American Indians by the treaty
(5) establishing the reservation. Although this treaty did
not mention water rights, the Court ruled that the
federal government, when it created the reservation,
intended to deal fairly with American Indians by
reserving for them the waters without which their
(10) lands would have been useless. Later decisions, citing
Winters, established that courts can find federal rights
to reserve water for particular purposes if (1) the land
in question lies within an enclave under exclusive
federal jurisdiction, (2) the land has been formally
(15) withdrawn from federal public lands-i.e., withdrawn
from the stock of federal lands available for private
use under federal land use laws-and set aside or
reserved, and (3) the circumstances reveal the
government intended to reserve water as well as land
(20) when establishing the reservation.
Some American Indian tribes have also established
water rights through the courts based on their
traditional diversion and use of certain waters prior to
the United States' acquisition of sovereignty. For
(25) example, the Rio Grande pueblos already existed when
the United States acquired sovereignty over New
Mexico in 1848. Although they at that time became
part of the United States, the pueblo lands never
formally constituted a part of federal public lands; in
(30) any event, no treaty, statute, or executive order has
ever designated or withdrawn the pueblos from public
lands as American Indian reservations. This fact,
however, has not barred application of the Winters
doctrine. What constitutes an American Indian
(35) reservation is a question of practice, not of legal
definition, and the pueblos have always been treated
as reservations by the United States. This pragmatic
approach is buttressed by Arizona v. California (1963),
wherein the Supreme Court indicated that the manner
(40) in which any type of federal reservation is created
does not affect the application to it of the Winters
doctrine. Therefore, the reserved water rights of
Pueblo Indians have priority over other citizens' water
rights as of 1848, the year in which pueblos must be
(45) considered to have become reservations

This totally stumped me...i want to know from other members here if they feel the same and they feel that this passage indeed is a tough one to comprehend.(BTW i happened to google this topic - you will get a wiki result,surprisingly the text in that wiki article is far lucid and simple to comprehend so i am wondering if GMAC recreated this passage.(I am non native English speaker but I have been in US for over 10 years now)I think even a native speaker will find it difficult to comprehend this passage as well...(for the fact that it is poorly written with no coherence and logical flow)

On another note,I happen to find this post on BeattheGMAT which is kind of discouraging...
does anyone have to comment on this?(essentially what it says is that if you cannot comprehend a passage like this then you shouldn't be going to BSchool or take GMAT.

"if your understanding of written english is insufficient for you to comprehend difficult OG passages, then you should take some at least a few months off studying for the test and improve your general comprehension of written english.
this section is called "reading comprehension" for a reason -- there are no quick tricks or statistical guessing methods that will allow you to circumvent the need for good reading comprehension. in other words, you need to get to a level at which you can read -- and understand -- the principal intention of each passage fairly quickly. this doesn't mean you have to be able to understand everything the moment it hits your eyes; it's ok, for instance, if you struggle with technical terms here and there. however, if a passage blows you away so much that you just don't understand it at all, then you may want to step back and ask yourself whether you're ready for this test -- or for business school -- right now.

remember that business school is going to involve A LOT of highly technical reading!
especially if you take any classes that have to do with business-related law -- such as classes dealing with antitrust law, classes dealing with international mergers and acquisitions, etc. -- you're going to have to do a lot of reading related to the law, and, believe me, that reading will be just as complicated and technical as these passages, if not more so. (this is actually the reason why there are so many passages about legislation and court decisions, by the way; once again, gmac is sneaking in skills that are quite directly related to what you'll need in business school, as well as in business itself.) "

Hi Gmat072014,

After looking at your post, I went back to OG to do this passage. I am not a native english speaker and also found this RC much difficult. So we are on same boat. I completed reading through the passage in about 6 minutes. Did I understand each and every word? Not at all.
Here's my initial comprehension of the passage:

In some case, Supreme Court ruled that the American Indians have the right to use waters flowing through blah blah.. SC based this on a treaty. But the treaty did not mention water rights when it was written. SC ruled that the federal govt intended to deal fairly with American indians by reserving water for them.
Later Quoting Winters it was decided that courts can find federal rights to reserve water in 3 scenarios. (Didnnt concentrate much on what these were. I wouldnt memorize them anyway. Will look back at them when a question pops up)
[Start of the second paragraph is quoting a general stmt] - Some American Indian tribes also established their water rights through blah blah..
"For Example" is an Indicator that the passage will now talk about some specific case in similar lines as the one above.
RGP are also in a similar situation, but their rights were never questioned.
Some stuff that reinstates that American Indian Reservation takes upper hand on everything else.
Suddenly I see "Winters Doctrine" - Tough part for me was to recognize that this doctrine is referring to the 3 points mentioned above.
Moving on, it quotes an example of Arizona vs California where the court says "Winters Doctrine" will supersede federal reservations. And concludes with RGP have priority over other citizen's water rights based on this so called "Winter Doctrine"

Much relieved that its over now. I spent more time on first paragraph. Second half of the second paragraph really troubled my comprehension.
With some idea of what the passage could be talking about, I moved over to the questions and answered the 7 questions. 4 questions were relatively easy and were based on the detail. Other 3 were inference based, which makes it difficult.

It is tough to get everything to sink in when the clock is ticking. I will leave it to the experts to comment on your query of RC vs MBA.
Personally, I would not think that RC in GMAT would decide my MBA degree. Everyone would have their strengths and weaknesses.
I do not believe that anyone would understand every word in this passage on first read. GMAT is only trying to trick us and test. Let me quote the last statement from this passage.
"Therefore, the reserved water rights of Peublo Indians Have priority over other citizens' water rights as of 1848, the year in which peublos must be considered to have become reservations"

This could have been presented in a simple way: "Therefore, Peublo Indians have priority over other citizens in matters of water rights."

All that 1848 stuff was already stated at the top of the second para. By using passive voice and some unnecessary details, they are trying to confuse and slow us down. Real world Passages would not do that. I cant speak for Business school passages.

Just Keep practicing the way you are doing. Over a period of time you will get used to Gmat's tricks. All the best!!

thanks for taking time to read and reply to my post.
you got a valid point that after all GMAT is a 'Test' and the test makers are trying to trick us in various ways some of which you mentioned.
I would be surprised if such convoluted language would be used in the real world of business management

BTW-you wrote your version of comprehension in the post which makes me believe you seem to be able to tackle RC quite strategically and therefore leads me to ask you - how are you approaching RC?
I have tried the following but have had limited to no success so far.

1)Read and analyze first and last lines of each para carefully and then revisit the passage for the questions. - time consuming
2)Read the entire passage carefully - time consuming and i invariably end up revisiting the passage for questions.
3)Read the passage with an intent of understanding the tone and structure of the passage(looking for keywords and what is where kind of thing)- seems to workd 50% of the time

where am i going wrong?Any advice?

gmat072014 wrote:thanks for taking time to read and reply to my post.
you got a valid point that after all GMAT is a 'Test' and the test makers are trying to trick us in various ways some of which you mentioned.
I would be surprised if such convoluted language would be used in the real world of business management

BTW-you wrote your version of comprehension in the post which makes me believe you seem to be able to tackle RC quite strategically and therefore leads me to ask you - how are you approaching RC?
I have tried the following but have had limited to no success so far.

1)Read and analyze first and last lines of each para carefully and then revisit the passage for the questions. - time consuming
2)Read the entire passage carefully - time consuming and i invariably end up revisiting the passage for questions.
3)Read the passage with an intent of understanding the tone and structure of the passage(looking for keywords and what is where kind of thing)- seems to workd 50% of the time

where am i going wrong?Any advice?

Hey gmat072014, There is no fool-proof strategy to attack RC. You can choose the best one that suits your skills.
Some say that you can skim through the passage, read the questions and then look back at the passage.
That did not work for me.

So, I take my time to read through the passage and understand the author's main point and the various shifting terms (however, therefore, But etc) he uses. I try to skim through the detail part and come back to it when there is a question related to it. I take about 5 minutes to go through a hard passage. You can try this approach, if that works for you. Dont rush yourself in the beginning. After about 10 passages, you can start timing yourself to see how long you take. Try to cut that down slowly. Overall 9 minutes for a long passage with 4 questions is not bad.

In the end, Nothing can beat practice. So stick to one approach and practice all your RCs with that. You will get used to the pattern.

I tried to get a quick read and times myself at under 4 mns. One thing I noticed was that we could easily break this long stretch in some key pointers essentially referring to the same story line.

My thinking is, if the first few lines of the RC becomes overwhelming, then the best idea would be to take a quick look at the 3 or 4 Qns that follows. This should give you a fair idea of what you are looking for within the huge paragraph.

Now if time is really an issue, then this should work, as you can then jump directly to the concerned paragraph by using the skim technique and thru t guesstimate the best solution. Hope this helps, and would have been good to have those questions too.

In (some case)Winters v. United States(1908), the Supreme
Court held that the right to use waters flowing through
or adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation
was reserved to American Indians by the treaty
(5) establishing the reservation. Although this treaty did
not mention water rights, the Court ruled that the
federal government , when it created the reservation,
intended to deal fairly with American Indians by
reserving for them the waters without which their
(10) lands would have been useless. Later decisions, citing
Winters, established that courts can find federal rights
to reserve water for particular purposes if (1) the land
in question lies within an enclave under exclusive
federal jurisdiction, (2) the land has been formally
(15) withdrawn from federal public lands-i.e., withdrawn
from the stock of federal lands available for private
use under federal land use laws-and set aside or
reserved, and (3) the circumstances reveal the
government intended to reserve water as well as land
(20) when establishing the reservation.(If I see a question on what later decisions established, I will come back to this)
Some American Indian tribes have also established
water rights through the courts based on their
traditional diversion and the use of certain waters prior to
the United States' acquisition of sovereignty.
(25)For example, the Rio Grande pueblos already existed when
the United States acquired sovereignty over New
Mexico in 1848. Although they at that time became
part of the United States, the pueblo lands never
formally constituted a part of federal public lands; in
(30) any event, no treaty, statute, or executive order has
ever designated or withdrawn the pueblos from public
lands as American Indian reservations. This fact,
however, has not barred application of the Winters
doctrine. What constitutes an American Indian
(35) reservation is a question of practice, not of legal
definition, and the pueblos have always been treated
as reservations by the United States. This pragmatic
approach is buttressed by Arizona v. California (1963),
wherein the Supreme Court indicated that the manner
(40) in which any type of federal reservation is created
does not affect the application to it of the Winters
doctrine. Therefore, the reserved water rights of
Pueblo Indians have priority over other citizens' water
rights as of 1848, the year in which pueblos must be
(45) considered to have become reservations

The highlighted words(In red) helped me connect the dots as I read the passage. For example, the word Also was begging for me to start connecting the dots; I asked myself:"Also, In addition to what?"

The bolded and the highlighted parts were the only things I paid attention to on my first read. This helps me save time and is relatively effective because it forces me to go back to the passage if I get a detail question.

Hope this helps.