{"id":14799,"date":"2012-10-17T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T16:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=14799"},"modified":"2012-10-12T15:58:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T22:58:31","slug":"gmat-reading-comprehension-technique-read-carefully-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/gmat-reading-comprehension-technique-read-carefully-once\/","title":{"rendered":"GMAT Reading Comprehension Technique: Read Carefully Once"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"GMAT test takers have a variety of ideas and suggestions about how to tackle the challenge of GMAT Reading Comprehension.\u00a0 Some like to skim, or to speed read, or to read the first paragraph carefully and skim the rest.\u00a0 Perhaps there are individual test takers for whom each of those is a valid approach.\u00a0 For most people, though, I think there are three words that summarize the core of the RC strategy that will be the most successful for the widest variety of test takers.\u00a0 At Magoosh, we recommend: read carefully once.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Basics of GMAT Reading Comprehension<\/h2>\n

Just as a reminder.\u00a0 Your GMAT Verbal section will have 41 questions, which will be split approximately equally into the three question types:\u00a0Sentence Correction<\/a>,\u00a0Critical Reasoning<\/a>, and Reading Comprehension ---- about 13-14 of each.\u00a0 The RC questions, obviously, will be \"clumped\" around passages.\u00a0 A \"short\" passage (200-250 words) typically has 3 questions, and a \"long\" passage (300-350 words) typically has 4 questions.\u00a0 On your GMAT section, you most likely will see three \"short\" RC passages and one \"long\" passage, although you could see two of each.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reading the RC passage<\/h2>\n

What we recommend at Magoosh is: take time to read the passage --- actually to read it.\u00a0 This would be 2.5 minutes for a short passage and 3.5 minutes for a long passage.\u00a0 From now on, in all your GMAT RC practice, set a timer when you read to convince yourself that these times are, in fact, ample for digesting a passage.\u00a0 GMAT RC is not about speed reading.\u00a0 It is not about a mad rush through a passage.\u00a0 It is about actually reading in precisely the way you will have to read articles and memos once you have your MBA and are out working in some management position.\u00a0 You want to be able to read it once and get what you need.\u00a0 Yes, you may have to go back and re-read a specific part to answer a detail question, but your first reading is enough to give you the layout of the whole passage.<\/p>\n

You goal is in reading is to follow the argument and understand it, but not to memorize.\u00a0 Map, don't memorize!\u00a0 This is where note-taking is an absolutely crucial skill. \u00a0For some reading, students resist this, thinking it will take more time, but in the long run, mastering the skill of note-taking is one of the biggest time-savings on the entire GMAT.<\/p>\n

What notes do you take?\u00a0 Write down the main idea, preferably in ten words or fewer.\u00a0 Feel free to use arrows, symbols, any shorthand code that makes sense to you.\u00a0 Write down the main idea of the passage very briefly, and write down just as briefly what each paragraph is about.\u00a0 This is your \"map\" of the passage.\u00a0 This is extremely important to practice: DO NOT plan on doing this the first time on test day.\u00a0 Practice note-taking every time you read a GMAT RC passage.<\/p>\n

Here is one excellent test of your note-taking ability. One day, read a passage, at the relaxed speed we recommend, and take notes on it.\u00a0 Put those aside.\u00a0 A day, or a couple days, later pull out just those notes, not the passage itself, and try to answer the question from the notes.\u00a0 Of course, you will not be able to answer every question, but from your notes, you should be able to answer any \"main idea\" question easily, and for detail questions, you should have a good idea about where you would re-read in the passage to find that specific information.\u00a0 Practice with the notes, and you will become someone who dispatches batches of RC question with lightning efficiency.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/h2>\n

Read the GMAT RC passage once.\u00a0 Read it carefully, for understanding.\u00a0 Take notes, to extract a main idea and create a map of the flow of the passage, and use your map to locate details you need.\u00a0 You can practice right now on this free question.<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0https:\/\/gmat.magoosh.com\/questions\/740<\/a><\/p>\n

This post was written by Mike McGarry, GMAT expert at\u00a0Magoosh<\/a>, and originally posted\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GMAT test takers have a variety of ideas and suggestions about how to tackle the challenge of GMAT Reading Comprehension.\u00a0 Some like to skim, or to speed read, or to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,783,243,720,735],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-magoosh-blog","category-blog","category-reading-comprehension-gmat","category-verbal-gmat-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14802,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14799\/revisions\/14802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}