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GRE-Best Approach for Medium-Length RC Passages
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27 Sep 2022, 05:18
27 Sep 2022, 05:18
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Part of the project GRE-The DEFINITIVE Strategy to Torpedo Reading Comprehension
The medium-short passage on the GRE, more often than not, is nasty. A piece of pure cyanide.
There are two main reasons:
- the passage is short, and as a result, it is denser than a long passage, with more twists and shifts along the argument.
- It DOES NOT have a regular structure, I would say from head to toe, like the long passages usually have. I.E. they do not have a canonical frame. Therefore, for the students is more difficult to interpret.
In more details:
Peculiarities of the long passages are:
1) Regular structure.
- Intro Paragraph -- Summary IMPORTANT
- Body Paragraphs:
- - Topic sentence IMPORTANT
- - Details that support the topic sentence
How much of the structure above or the advice for the long passage strategy applies to the short passage?+
The answer is quite simple: facts about STRUCTURE of the passage are no longer true
1) Many times there is some sort of topic sentence at the beginning BUT not all the time!
2) Many times there will be transition words -- see the link above for those words -- BUT not always!
The lack of a CLEAR structure means that YOU CAN NO LONGER RELY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CERTAIN PLACES OR ANCHOR POINTS IN THE PASSAGE
Also, the last sentence of a passage may involve a change in the direction of the passage when the author reports or supports a view contrary to the topic sentence.
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CAVEAT TO HAVE IN MIND WHEN YOU ARE DEALING WITH A MEDIUM/SHORT PASSAGE ON THE GRE
ALL the advice about how to answer SPECIFIC QUESTION TYPES is the same for the short passage as for the long passage.
How to attack a Short Passage+
The absence of a coherent structure means that you cannot read the passage selectively. You cannot skip parts of the passage anymore. No part of the passage is more important than the others, and so you cannot ignore any part of the passage. You have to go through the whole passage.
But don’t get swallowed by the facts. How do we achieve this?
The best strategy to attack a short passage is to look at it as a Critical Reasoning Passage. Clearly, the author of the passage has not thrown a collection of facts at us for our reading pleasure. There is a purpose for all those details and facts to existing. The purpose is to support the main point of the passage. Therefore, you need to read the passage, looking for the point the author is trying to make. When you read through all the details and facts, realize that they are there to make a point. Your task is to find that point. You need to find the argument that these facts and details support or refute. As you read the passage, ask the question “what are these facts doing here?”, “What is the argument they are supporting or refuting?”
One important strategy to find the argument in the passage is to focus on road-sign words which signal a change in the direction of the ideas in the passage. Road-sign words such as “however”, “but”, “yet”, “also” indicate a transition in the ideas. You need to read every word and sentence in the passage. The short passage has a lot fewer words, but the trade-off is you have to read each one of them. You cannot deem any sentence as less important than others.
Time Management+
It is important to determine the amount of time to allocate for reading a Short Passage and answering the questions that follow. The rule is, ideally, to allocate 1.5 minutes for every question in the GRE Verbal Section. Therefore, you have 3 minutes to read and understand a Short Passage that has two questions based off it, and answer the questions that follow. You should spend 1.5 minutes reading through the passage and understanding it - this includes taking notes - and after you’re done with it, you should move on to the questions. You now have 1.5 minutes for the two questions that follow. You should spend around 30 seconds answering a general question because your notes would already give you the answer if you have taken it properly. You can take up to 60 seconds for answering a fetch-detail question because it requires you to go back to the passage and re-read parts of it. If you get two fetch-detail questions, then you will be forced to answer both of it in 45 seconds each. So, ideally, you should prepare for these scenarios and demonstrate your ability to do this to yourself.
However, in the actual GRE Test, you might end up finishing the Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence type questions much faster, and you might then give yourself more time for the Reading Comprehension questions.
For a deep understanding of the Time Management Strategy for the Verbal Reasoning part of the test -- and not only -- see our guide GRE Time Management - The Definitive Guide
Taking Notes+
To enhance your comprehension of the short passage and answer the questions that follow in a short period, you need to deploy some tools. One is note-taking, with the express intent of understanding the passage. Our aim is not to take notes so that we can refer to them and answer the questions, though we may do that as well. On the contrary, the purpose of note-taking is to force ourselves to engage with the passage with a greater degree of attention.
Writing down key ideas of the passage will force you to read actively instead of passively. Active reading involves understanding not only what we are reading but also anticipating the next set of ideas you are likely to encounter. In other words, active reading enables anticipatory reading. When you read actively, you are linking together ideas, both the previous ones as well the ones you anticipate with the present idea you are engaging with. In this way, you build up a picture of the passage in your mind, enabling holistic comprehension.
When you take notes, keep it to a minimum. You don’t want to end up reproducing the whole paragraph in short form. Just note down the key ideas and the relationship between them. This should also give you the structure of the passage, which can be useful while answering General Questions. Frequently, an old idea is first propounded, followed by a new idea and the author’s position towards both. Or a problem is mentioned, and a solution is provided. Or an old idea/situation changes, giving rise to a new idea/situation. Your notes should reflect these transitions.
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Re: GRE-Best Approach for Medium-Length RC Passages
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23 Jun 2024, 10:58
23 Jun 2024, 10:58
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Thanks to another GRE Prep Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).
Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.
gmatclubot
Re: GRE-Best Approach for Medium-Length RC Passages [#permalink]
23 Jun 2024, 10:58
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