Reading comprehension

[A.Kiran]

I was thinking about the easy method of solving RCs.

I was in search of the holy grail to the RCs for long long time.

I think i have found something interesting things ( may be this is new to me alone, not sure though)


My views:

1. There are mainly 5 types of sentences with the intended meaning of :


a. Adding information
b. Opposite meaning
c. Conclusions
d. Reasoning
e. Comparisions


When ever you read a complete sentence, it will convey any one of the 5 above.

1. We can just highlight with the mouse the whole sentence and that should make easier

2. What our main stress is to be at first read emphasize on the C. Conclusions , i.e what the author concludes
and leaving without much stress or leaving the part of the A. (Addition of information)

3. One more peculiar thing is that, keeping a track of the subjects that are presented on the Exam in order to be more
efficient on the exam. ( knowing what can be expected like, subjectivity vs objectivity ...etc)


I have only this much for now.


There are experts who insists to write on the paragraph in short and sweet form of the meaning of the paragraphs.
I think this is just an extension to the experts opinion.





Can you please share your views on this.

[Stuart@KaplanGMAT]

Sounds incredibly time consuming and complicated to me.

For most reading comp passages, the vast majority of the material will be irrelevant when it comes time to answer the question. Of course, since we only see 1 question at a time, we can't predict exactly what will turn out to be relevant.

However, certain types of information are far more likely to be tested than others. For example, opinion and ideas are far more likely to be worth points than details and examples. Details prefaced by an emphasis keyword or phrase are far more likely to be tested than those without. For example, if paragraph 3 contains the sentence:

There are 3 reasons for XXX: firstly, YYY; secondly ZZZ; and thirdly and most importanly, AAA.

An expert reader picks up on "most importantly" and realizes that if we get asked a question about this part of the passage, AAA is most likely to appear as the correct answer.

An expert reader also jots down in his roadmap for paragraph 3 a very brief description, such as:

"3 reasons for XXX, emph. on 3rd one"

so that if a question does come up, he can quickly go back and relocate the correct answer.

People who pay too much attention to details as they read almost always have big timing trouble in RC.

[A.Kiran]

hi stuart.

thats all correct.

When we emphasize on details we will land in troubles. That's what i have said in A. ( adding information).

what have u said is true.





My opinions/method is too complex and time consuming, on the other hand how can we know that the sentences in that paragraph is adding details without reading.

So we have to read even for skimming. When we read i thought that it would be best to classify to which type it belong and move on to other sentence and emphasize on the results (c).


I cant better way to do this RC without taking time.

Because RC contains so much junk for example 50 sentences may contain 50 clauses of junk and in the exam they ask less than 70 % direct question ( the rest the inference/application qns ones).




I think this one is again one of my garbage thought useful for nothing.

[Testluv]

hi stuart.

thats all correct.

When we emphasize on details we will land in troubles. That's what i have said in A. ( adding information).

what have u said is true.





My opinions/method is too complex and time consuming, on the other hand how can we know that the sentences in that paragraph is adding details without reading.

So we have to read even for skimming. When we read i thought that it would be best to classify to which type it belong and move on to other sentence and emphasize on the results (c).


I cant better way to do this RC without taking time.

Because RC contains so much junk for example 50 sentences may contain 50 clauses of junk and in the exam they ask less than 70 % direct question ( the rest the inference/application qns ones).




I think this one is again one of my garbage thought useful for nothing.

If we get good at tracking what the author is diong by using keywords, we can tell a sentence is adding details without drowning in those details. For example, if the author writes: "xxx. For example, yyy.", then you can use "for example" to infer that yyy is illustrating the preceding idea ("xxx") without even knowing the content of "yyy".

[A.Kiran]

Testlv : Yes. thats right as well. Thanks for the tip .

[lunarpower]

interestingly, i think your "sentence classification" method is going to be a lot more likely to bear fruit on critical reasoning than on reading comp. as stuart said above, there is just no way that you're going to have enough time to do this for an entire passage.

especially on LONG PASSAGES, one of the biggest keys to your success will be your ability to IGNORE THE RIGHT PARTS OF THE PASSAGES.
with this, your "adding information" classification will help - almost all "added information" will, in the main, be irrelevant to the main point of the whole passage (as stuart has said above).

here's something that might help:

when you annotate the BODY PARAGRAPHS of the long passage, pretend that you're making a TABLE OF CONTENTS.
as you know, tables of contents are (to say the least) not detailed.
in fact, you could get away with something like 5 WORDS OF NOTES for an entire paragraph. this may sound extreme, but, you'll find that IF you can pare the essence of the body paragraphs down to 5 words each, you'll have a much easier time coming up with the main idea of the passage.

here are some examples of notes i've taken for ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS, all of which are 5 words or less:
* examples of evolutionary adaptations
* advantages of this method
* how to test M theory
* 5 ways SM use intuition

etc.

again, this probably sounds extreme ... but give it a shot. you might like it.

[tanviet]

I really do not know how to improve RC.

When I read, I try to look for idea sentences and structural words and skim the detail. Kanlan book is great for advising us this.