How to develop Interest in Reading?

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How to develop Interest in Reading?

by nishant1309 » Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:49 am
Hi Friends!

I heard about this forum from a friend and he told me that folks here are GODLY GREAT! If it is GMAT, they guide and help for anything to everything! Just as they say about a famous priest or a sage in every corner of the world when you land up in a problem and look for advice. You must have known someone around you..right?

Alright...let me begin my story to the "Sages of GMAT" on BTG -

I am an Electrical Engineer and in my profession and I deal with technical stuffs mostly. Though I do read newspaper columns regularly, but my interest is limited to the articles related to Politics, Current Affairs & Sports. In my life so far, that's the best association I have had with qualified written English. Though in office we exchange hundreds of e-mail but they hardly add value to my knowledge because they are more focused on correctness of technical stuffs instead of purity in language & grammar. Besides, I really don't find articles related to Arts, History, Literature, High-Tech, Life Style, Finance e.t.c. interesting and therefore I mostly overlook them in the newspapers. Moreover, I have never read any literature or novel except for the fictions & dramas in my school English books. (That too with lots of efforts to get the passing grades but ended up reasonably well!)

With this real premise from my troubled affair with English, I want to start preparation for GMAT - RC section. This means not only I've to change my hostile attitude towards English Literature but also I have to get accustomed to American English rather GMAT English (For the fact that at times even American English is at conflict with GMAT). Given that I've to score the best on GMAT, I don't have a choice as well.

So my request to the experts here is to suggest me on following:

1. How to Start Loving English Literature? Especially in the areas I am not interested. I will appreciate references to few good American English Literature stuffs for starters, professionals & experts respectively. This will help me gradually mature in the language and get a hang of it. I would prefer to start reading in hard because reading in soft on PC is another hurdle for me. However, once the interest and speed develops, I hope reading on PC won't be a problem.

2. How to comprehend phrases, rhetorical & idiomatic constructions?

3. How to enhance reading speed & master a reasonable balance in comprehension & reading speed? My current speed is awfully - 175 WPS avg on straight constructions. With complex construction it falls drastically because I just can't skip a sentence and move on unless I understand it.

By now you must have felt, this guy is not fit...he must go back to school. Right?
My Answer: I don't mind going back to school if it helps me score min. 45 in verbal!

Can you please help me make it possible? I take GMAT on 31st Jan '12 and I want to be confident on RC by 31st Dec '11.

I eagerly look forward to your valuable suggestions.

Thanks,

Nishant
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by AbhiJ » Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:02 am
Reading habits are developed over years and this is not something that you can drastically improve in a month or two. Having said that, your target is scoring high on the verbal section, and this can be done without reading lot and lots of books now . 3 month is not a lot of time for the GMAT and you would be better of practising GMAT stuff and reading newspapers on a daily basis. Improve timing on CR/SC and use that to nail the RC.

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by tpr-becky » Wed Nov 02, 2011 11:28 am
a love of reading is certainly something that most people develop over years and is certainly not needed to score well on the GMAT. However, learning to read for content regardless of whether you are I would recommend a reading strategy that can help any reader to better understand and integrate what they are reading.

It is a summary strategy. You can start off with sentences - first read the entire sentence, then think about it and then summarize the main issue in just a few words. You may find it helps to write this summary down. then read the next sentence and so on. when you ahve finished reading a paragraph summarize the whole paragraph in one short sentence about 5-7 words. This is similar to the technical reading you are used to doing. Look for the important information, learn to ignore the examples and other extraneous information.

This will also help you to increase your reading speed as you learn to read concepts and restate them to yourself in a way that is meaningful to you. if you run into vocabulary or idioms that you don't understand try to summarize without looking it up. After you have finished the reading them look it up to help understand.

the magazines I most often recommend for reading at a gmat level are Time and Newsweek. Those magazines also have the benefit of having shorter articles on a wide array of topics.

Hope that helps.
Becky
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by nishant1309 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:39 am
tpr-becky & AbhiJ:

Thanks for your valuable advice.

"I don't have time to learn from the first principles. I should rather approach strategically.

@ tpr-becky - Hope that's the right summary I've drawn.

:)