An Approach to GMAT RC
I am planning to give GMAT in early April / May and chalking out a study plan for myself. I have been lurking here since long and taken up GMAT with a miserable score ( low 20's in verbal and high 30's in quant ). I never touched OG and never put in enough time to consolidate my concepts due to lack of time owing to high loads of work at office. I am planning to re take GMAT soon as mentioned above. I am a non native speaker and RC is sure a dreaded thing. I formulated an approach to improve my RC with the help of a friend ( who scored 730 ) and posting it below.
Considerations for learning RC :
We need to dive in to few things as listed here to achieve any remarkable expertise in RC .
Improve Reading Skills
Identifying Main Idea of a passage
Critical Reading and Abbreviated Note taking as you read
Identify different question types
Identify wrong answer types by observing patterns while we practice official problems.
I am posting an approach that touch-bases each of the above skill set and enhance RC learning on a whole, below.
1. Improve Reading and Taking notes on a RC passage, Identify Main idea :
How to improve Reading skills for RC :http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... ading-compHow to read a RC Passage :How to read an passage -
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passagecritical reading and taking notes -
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/12/ ... c-passageswatch the portion that deals with "How to read and annotate the passages " at
http://vimeo.com/14615312Mgmat Reading Comprehension Strategy Guide 4th edition :Read chapters 1 to 5 to understand the Types of RC passages, Short and Long passages, Components of a passage and question types.
RC Question Types and identifying main idea :http://www.platinumgmat.com/about_gmat/ ... o_approachhttp://www.platinumgmat.com/about_gmat/ ... tion_typeshttp://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehensionWatch the following " Thursdays by Ron " Videos :Long passages and Main idea portion from
http://vimeo.com/14615312Short RC Passages :
http://vimeo.com/15008481Detecting primary purpose of a passage from
http://vimeo.com/18934959http://vimeo.com/18632588Finding the point of the passage from
http://vimeo.com/14404131Practice Reading skills and taking Notes :Go to
http://mag.uchicago.edu/ ( university of chicago magazine ) , on the left hand side you can see links for " TOPICS ".
Under Economics & Business , choose any 5 Topics
Under Law policy & society , choose any 5 topics
Under Science & medicine , choose any 5 topics
Under Arts & Humanities , choose any 5 topics
Go to
http://harvardmagazine.com/ ( Harvard magazine ) , on the top you will find links namely " RESEARCH " which further has sublinks namely humanities, science, social sciences, International and " ARTS ". Choose any 5 topics from RESEARCH and another 5 topics from ARTS.
Go to
http://www.scientificamerican.com/all_topics.cfm ( Scientific American website ) and choose any 5 difficult topics
In total we have 35 topics. Choose any passage from these topics ( no need of full article, choose first few paragraphs or any as you like ). We have 35 passages now !
For every passage -
Read the passage critically and take notes
Identify main point of each individual paragraph
Identify the main idea of the entire article / passage
Identify any specific details like facts, historical dates, process, categories
Identify paragraph transistions or changes in direction using keywords such as however, two differing points of view
Identify the tone of the passage
Identify the specific details and mark in your notes indicating specific details of a particular passage. eg : P1 - war 1 date , died ppl ( means paragraph 1 has some specific details such as date of world war 1 and number of people who died in that war )
In Short, for every passage take short notes as you read the passage critically. Do it in timed conditions say 2-3 minutes for every passage. After reading through the articles, watching the videos and some reading from
Mgmat RC guide as mentioned above, you should practice critical reading and note taking with these passages.
Practice Reading Skills ( Regular practice during all months of your gmat prep ) :Use the above sources to read few topics everyday. Infact spend an hour daily by reading one or more articles and articulating the main idea of whole passage and main point of each paragraph to yourself. This indulging cultivates a good reading habbit. Remember choose an article , choose 3-6 paragraphs in it ( 200 - 400 words ) and spend 2-3 minutes in reading it and articulating the main idea along with main point of each passage.
2. Identify different question types and wrong choices
Review chapter 5 and read chapter 6 from manhattan RC guideRead the following articles :http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/02/ ... e-questionhttp://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problemhttp://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/08/ ... prehensionwatch the following " Thursdays by Ron " videos :RC-Inference :
http://vimeo.com/24788073http://vimeo.com/23228039http://vimeo.com/24618742Short passages, Techniques for other question types :
http://vimeo.com/14935687Review RC concepts :Review your notes
Read this great yet simple tutorial -
http://www.prepfortests.com/gmat/tutori ... prehension3. Practice & identifying patterns :
Practice RC passages from the following sources :Chapter 7 from Manhattan RC guide
OG 12 passages
Verbal review ( or 2nd edition ) passages
All medium level passages from RC 99 ( around 30 passages )
While practising RC passages from OG and verbal review, identify the patterns in :Wrong choices for each question type
Correct choices for each question type
when you are struck after narrowing down to two close choices for a question type, identify a pattern that determines the correct choice.
Hope this will be helpful to someone struggling in RC. I will update the post as and when possible with my new learning. Your feed backs and suggestions are welcome
Please rate this article :
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