GMAT Reading Comprehension Tips: Top 8 DOs and DON’Ts
Reading Comprehension (RC) questions make up roughly one-third of the questions you’ll see on the Verbal section of the GMAT, so knowing how to do well on GMAT Reading Comprehension is an important part of earning a good Verbal score.
Furthermore, although the GMAT Verbal section is composed of about the same number of Reading Comprehension, Sentence Correction, and Critical Reasoning questions, you’ll likely spend a larger portion of your total time on the Verbal section answering RC questions than you will answering other types of Verbal questions.
Thus, without a solid GMAT RC strategy, you may find yourself without enough time to complete the Verbal section without guessing on a number of questions at the end.
In this article, I give you my top 8 GMAT Reading Comprehension tips, including essential dos and don’ts, and strategies for pacing yourself and taking notes when tackling RC questions. But first, let’s review some key facts about GMAT RC and learn about the various RC question types.
The ABCs of GMAT Reading Comprehension
GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed to test how carefully you’ve read a passage, whether you understand what you’ve read and can accurately interpret the information given, and whether you can identify relationships between the ideas that are presented in the passage. You can view a sample Reading Comprehension passage and question at the bottom of this page.
With that in mind, let’s review some key facts about Reading Comprehension on the GMAT.
How Many Reading Comprehension Questions Are on the GMAT?
As you may know, the GMAT Verbal section consists of a total of 36 multiple-choice questions that you have 65 minutes to complete. Those questions are a mix of Reading Comprehension, Sentence Correction (SC), and Critical Reasoning (CR) that can appear in any sequence and in a roughly even split. So, each of those 3 types of questions will make up about a third of the questions you see in the Verbal section. For RC, that means you’re likely to see 4 passages, each of which typically has 3 or 4 questions associated with it. Thus, on the Verbal Section of the GMAT, you’ll likely see 12 to 14 Reading Comprehension questions.
How Are GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions Presented on the Test?
The GMAT presents Reading Comprehension questions in a split-screen format, with the passage presented in its entirety on the left side of the screen and the questions about the passage presented one at a time on the right side. So, while you will be able to see the passage at all times as you answer Reading Comprehension questions, you will see the questions associated with the passage one at a time. Even though multiple questions are associated with a single RC passage, the same rules that apply to other GMAT question types apply to RC questions: You cannot view the next question until you’ve submitted an answer to the question in front of you, and you cannot go back to a previous question, even if it’s associated with a passage you’re still working on.
How Long Are GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions?
RC passages are classified as either “short” or “long.” Short passages are generally made up of 2 to 3 paragraphs and fewer than 50 lines, for a total of about 200 to 250 words, although occasionally a short passage may be just 1 paragraph. Typically, short passages are accompanied by 3 questions. Long passages are generally made up of 3 to 4 paragraphs and more than 50 lines, for a total of more than 300 words, although occasionally a long passage may be 2 paragraphs. Typically, long passages are accompanied by 4 questions.
What Are GMAT Reading Comprehension Passages About?
The subject matter of RC passages encompasses the humanities, social sciences, business, and the physical and biological sciences. So, you may see passages discussing art, music, film, literature, human rights, international law, history, economics, politics, sociology, medicine, health care, astronomy, technology, philosophy, physics, biology, or chemistry, to name a few topics.
Fortunately, you do not need to have any specialized subject knowledge in order to understand RC passages or answer RC questions. In other words, you don’t need to be Socrates to interpret an RC passage discussing philosophy, or have a background in international law to answer questions about an RC passage discussing that topic, or have taken an astronomy course in college to be able to answer questions on a passage about astronomy just as accurately as you could answer questions on a passage about the subject that was your college major. All of the information you need to answer RC questions is contained within the passage that is presented to you. No outside facts or figures, unprovided dates, or expertise in a particular area is required. RC passages are NOT subject tests; they’re tests of your ability to understand and interpret what you read.
Now that we’ve covered the “ABCs” of GMAT Reading Comprehension, let’s learn how to identify the 6 types of RC questions and what each question asks you to do.
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