Revised GRE Reading Comprehension (RC) Section is the toughest of all GRE verbal Sections. With just a minimal GRE preparation, Students can’t answer Reading Comprehension (RC) in GRE Exam as they do Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. It requires lot of preparation, practice, skills, Tips, Care. Let me tell you some reading Comprehension strategies.
More Knowledge, Easy to understand the Reading Comprehension(RC) Topic
Revised GRE Reading Comprehension topics will be taken from variety of topics like History, Space, Biology, Archeology, Technology, Education etc. If you have strong founda
tion in these topics, it will be very easy to understand the content of the topic and answering the questions based on the reading comprehension passage in the exam.
Let us assume the Reading comprehension passage is about – Asteroids. Having prior knowledge on the ‘Asteroids’ Topic will make you familiar with the Terminology used in the reading passage and helps you understand the context of the passage. Students from Technology majors might have idea on topics from History and the vocabulary in those history topics could be tough. And this is same with students from all areas.
Answering the unknown, unfamiliar topics in the GRE Reading Comprehension will take longer to read and understand which consumes much of your test time. So, Get familiar with all kinds of topics on Arts, Science and Technology. You can improve your knowledge by being a regular reader of Websites like Discovery, Wired, Scientificamerican, and Economist.
Read the Question First and then passage
Reading the Question in the Reading Comprehension(RC) section will always be a benefit to the test taker. When you read the question first and then by going to the passage, you can find the answer to the question while reading the passage for the first time. This would save time.
Skip Hard Passages and Questions
When you do not understand the passage at the first sight and it is taking long time, just skip it and go to next questions or passage. Remember you have only 35 minutes to complete GRE verbal section which includes two other sections apart from reading comprehension. Practicing real time tests will help you learn what to skip and what not to. At the end of exam you can come back and answer them.
Some techniques to skip –
1) Skip the Reading Comprehension Topics with longer passages and just one question.
2) Skip the RC Passages that you are not at all understanding. Just move forward by giving some random answers.
3) You time is expiring and you have just 5 minutes, but you have other questions to answer
Watch Keywords in Passage While reading
Keywords like Although, Even Though, But, Moreover. They will indicate the line followed by them is related to the previous line and suddenly the passage context is changing. Most of the GRE Reading Comprehension Questions will be based on these ones.
Improve Fast Reading with Retention
You have to read fast, understand while you are reading, should remember what you read and understood till you complete answering all questions.
Answer only after looking at all options
Some answers might be misleading. They might appear as the correct answers dominating the correct answer. Usually Option A and B will cause the problem. Generally, we don’t visit later options if we feel the right answer is within them. Sometimes, Test makers will trap you with interesting option at the beginning. So don’t forget to go through all the option. This way you can eliminate the wrong answers too.
