In GRE, Every Verbal section has 20 questions and out of those 10 are from Reading Comprehension (RC),4 to 6 passages of varying lengths drawn from a wide array of subjects like Humanities, Music, Art, Sculpture, Economics, Business, History, Drama, Philosophy, Sociology, and Natural Science with 1 to 4 questions per passage.
Talking about that further, the test taker has an unusual love for American or European History, evolution of Music, Dance or Drama of different forms, Astronomy or space science, Socio-economic and political changes across the globe, from giant wild animals to insects, topics on living beings to the fossils, from physics to evolution, philosophy to formation of society. Umph! That gives goosebumps.. Even the best of the well-read ones can easily get stumped.

There are 3 issues that make the task of cracking RC even more daunting –

1. The passages are drawn from deep research done by an expert of the given subject, a passage was meant for consumption by someone in the same domain. But it’s a bad news for someone not from that field. For example, a physics graduate comes across a passage from oceanography. or a student of Biological science is asked to deliberate on space science. An extremely overwhelming task as NO ONE can master such a wide array of topics

2. The passages are drawn from Socio Economic or Political changes in Europe and America, The History of the America or Europe. For a Non Native the very topic is convoluted and abstruse. Lets agree Lincoln’s Proclamation or Magna Carta, the Bolshevik movement to the Women’s suffrage rights has never been a part of our history.

3. Now comes the trickiest part, the passages are followed by 1 to 4 questions depending on length of the passage. So one has to read, comprehend and hit the correct button after reading the question. And for all this you have maximum 2 minute / question (this includes reading the passage).

NOW that I have shared the problem, WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?

1. If you want to Ace Verbal reasoning, for that you must get 100% accuracy in Reading Comprehension. YES its possible. You have to follow a process that makes you TOPIC AGNOSTIC. At IVY-GRE Verbal, I share with my students that very technique that makes the students TOPIC AGNOSTIC.

2. Loads of Timed Practice of RC. It's RC MARATHON (yes that's the name). Just sit long tight for long and solve set of 10 to 15 RC passages using only ONE FORMULA. I guarantee each and every question of RC can be solved by one formula with 100% accuracy irrespective of the topic from which its drawn.

3. Read only REAL GRE Test Material. Period! No wacky unrelated stuff.

A word of caution - PLEASE DO NOT lend your ears to hearsays that RC score can be improved by reading the Economist and the New Yorker, reading books on a wide array of topics. ALL there are PROVEN RECIPES OF DISASTER.

I have not touched upon the Critical Reasoning type passages (small RC passages), which I would love to talk about. Till then Happy READING .

Author,

Arijit Chakraborty
IVY-GRE Verbal