Today morning I answered a query where someone asked a very pertinent question that “What is test makers logic behind Reading Comprehension questions?” Well as I answered it in a very crisp fashion, later I wanted to write more on this topic. So here it is. What you are going to read in the next few paragraphs may change your approach towards reading passages altogether.

To begin with, consider the reading comprehension a conversation between you and the author. Had you two been friends and were you both be talking (I am deliberately using the word talking so that you may apply in any scenario and check for yourself) to each other about any issue, would you ever interrupt him and ask him to go back two statements and repeat what he just said? You won’t! The reasons are that one, you are actively listening since he is your friend and two, he speaks a language familiar to you since you two friends understand each other by now. So why do we tend to go back in a reading comprehension sometimes? Why do we have the urge to go back and re-read 2-3 lines above which we just read? While listening to our your friend, you never had this issue but reading his ideas suddenly seems a daunting task. There are three aspects to it which I am going to discuss in detail: active reading, unfamiliarity with the topic or the language itself, and knowing the science behind the reading comprehension.

Firstly, lets understand he science behind the reading comprehension. Why are we given reading comprehensions or long texts(to put it simply) to decipher? The lamest answer I once received was that as managers we would be reading lots of reports. As lame as it sounds, it also states the real hidden objective. When we read long reports or I would prefer to use the word long texts, what we are actually reading is a mix of two types of statements. Most of the statements would be facts in there only to arrive at a final point. So the fact statements are called premises and the main point why that report was written is called the conclusion or the claim. Let’s relate it to our RC passages here. Suppose you are reading a history passage, what is the objective of the author to write one? One of the objectives, which is mostly the case, is to share his/her interpretation of a historical event. How the author mostly begins with the history passage is by detailing the events of a particular time. Those are primarily what we call premises. Once he acquaints the readers about the event, he then throws open his opinion about that event, say about emancipation of women. He/she may agree with what happened or may disagree or may criticise or praise etc. So the job of the test taker here is to able to skim through all the evidences/premises only to reach that final point or the “claim” in order to understand the primary purpose of the passage.

Secondly, our biggest hurdle in crossing the huge mountain of reading comprehension is the unfamiliarity with the genre of the passage. This due to our bad habit of not reading. Most of the troubles go away when we start reading a book or the other. It develops our basic foundation of understanding complex statements even in unfamiliar topics. Next even if we read, we must, for the sake of the exam, expose ourselves to a wide range of texts. For instance, if I am not very comfortable with science passages, reading 4-5 articles on science would help me to familiarise myself with the key terms mostly used in science passages and the next time when I see a science passage, I won’t get scared by one. That moment when I overcame my fear of long texts because I worked hard to familiarise myself with difficult genres, takes me a long way to improving my accuracy in the reading comprehension. It is that feeling in that fraction of seconds that hits you when you see the glimpse of the passage. If you have a feeling of ‘yea, it’s just a passage!’ , believe me you are just at the right spot!

Lastly, another important element in demystifying the reading comprehension or critical reasoning or any long text is to actively read. Active reading just doesn’t happen overnight. It definitely needs familiarity of genre as its companion. Yet being familiar with the genre, we may sometimes find it difficult to reach to the main point of the passage. The reason is that there is too much of information. We burden ourselves with the expectation that we can process so much complex data only with our brains and eyes, both of which ultimately get exhausted. So here, kindly give a break to yourself and use the pen and paper to take notes. Make some kind of a crisp flow chart when you read the passage as to what information you passed through in each passage. This will help you to understand the primary purpose at one go and will also keep you from dozing off while reading the passage as you are actively engaging in understanding the passage.

These three strategies clubbed together will never fail you in reading comprehension. Remember, the answer is always hidden somewhere in the passage itself so aim for hundred percent accuracy in reading comprehension!

P.S. No one can teach you language, you have to learn it yourself, bit by bit. The road to success is a long one but the results are beautiful!