{"id":2938,"date":"2010-04-20T10:23:35","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T18:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=2938"},"modified":"2010-04-20T10:25:40","modified_gmt":"2010-04-20T18:25:40","slug":"veritas-prep-gmat-tips-a-blueprint-for-reading-comprehension-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/veritas-prep-gmat-tips-a-blueprint-for-reading-comprehension-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Veritas Prep GMAT Tips: A Blueprint for Reading Comprehension Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s GMAT preparation courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Admit it: you have reached that point during a practice test <\/a>or study session at which the Reading Comprehension passage in front of you might as well be written in a foreign language.\u00a0 The subject matter - botany, history, poetry, whatever \u2013 doesn\u2019t appeal to you; the language seems technical and involved; the rest of the questions, or day\u2019s events, are so entrenched in the forefront of your mind that you are only looking at the words on the screen, but you are certainly not reading them.\u00a0 Athletes call this a bonk \u2013 your body has involuntarily shut down, and you\u2019re helpless against it.\u00a0 Correct?<\/p>\n

The biggest mistake that GMAT test takers make in these situations is that they try to understand the entire passage at once, which can often be a colossal task.\u00a0 When you are at your most tired \u2013 Reading Comprehension passages come at various times of the verbal section, after you\u2019ve been testing in some cases for over three hours already \u2013 it can be almost impossible to process and understand a new, technical subject.\u00a0 How can you combat this?\u00a0 By reading for a blueprint, giving yourself an architectural understanding of the passage before you get to the subject-matter \u201cdecoration\u201d that rests upon it.<\/p>\n

Consider this paragraph of a dense, technical passage:<\/p>\n

The encounter hypothesis explained the phenomenon sufficiently enough that it allowed scientists to focus on more immediately rewarding topics in physics and astronomy for most of the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Closer investigation, however, found several significant problems with the encounter hypothesis, most notably that the hot gas pulled from the sun would not condense to form dense planets, but rather would expand in the absence of a central, gravitational force.\u00a0 Furthermore, the statistical unlikelihood of a star passing in the (astronomically speaking) short time of the sun\u2019s existence required scientists to abandon the encounter hypothesis in search of a new explanation.\u00a0 Soon after, astronomers formed a second theory, the nebular hypothesis, which submits that the solar system began as a large cloud of gas containing the matter that would form the sun and its orbiting planets.\u00a0 The nebular hypothesis suggests that when the cloud reached a critical mass, it collapsed under its own gravity. The resulting angular momentum would have morphed the nebula into a protoplanetary disc, with a dense center that generated intense heat and pressure, and a cooler, thinner mass that revolved around it.\u00a0 The central mass would have continued to build in density and heat, forming the sun, while the centrifugal force around the disc\u2019s edge kept smaller masses from being pulled in to the sun; those masses, upon cooling, would break off to become planets held in orbit by the competing gravitational force of the sun and centrifugal force of their orbital inertia.<\/em><\/p>\n

On its own, this paragraph is dreadfully detailed, complete with at least a handful of words so scientifically technical that Microsoft Word\u2019s spell check won\u2019t recognize them.\u00a0 Business schools aren\u2019t too concerned, however, with your ability to outwit Carl Sagan regarding the origins of the solar system; they would much rather know that you can analyze the way that someone like Sagan constructs an argument.\u00a0 Accordingly, you are much better served to pay no attention to the scientific jargon when it starts to confuse, intimidate, or fatigue you, and focus on GMAT jargon instead:<\/p>\n

The encounter hypothesis explained the phenomenon sufficiently enough that it allowed scientists to focus on more immediately rewarding topics in physics and astronomy for most of the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Closer investigation, however<\/strong>, found several significant problems with the encounter hypothesis, most notably that the hot gas pulled from the sun would not condense to form dense planets, but rather would expand in the absence of a central, gravitational force.\u00a0 Furthermore<\/strong>, the statistical unlikelihood of a star passing in the (astronomically speaking) short time of the sun\u2019s existence required scientists to abandon the encounter hypothesis in search of a new explanation.\u00a0 Soon after, astronomers formed a second<\/strong> theory, the nebular hypothesis, which submits that the solar system began as a large cloud of gas containing the matter that would form the sun and its orbiting planets.\u00a0 The nebular hypothesis suggests that when the cloud reached a critical mass, it collapsed under its own gravity. The resulting angular momentum would have morphed the nebula into a protoplanetary disc, with a dense center that generated intense heat and pressure, and a cooler, thinner mass that revolved around it.\u00a0 The central mass would have continued to build in density and heat, forming the sun, while the centrifugal force around the disc\u2019s edge kept smaller masses from being pulled in to the sun; those masses, upon cooling, would break off to become planets held in orbit by the competing gravitational force of the sun and centrifugal force of their orbital inertia.<\/em><\/p>\n

Just by highlighting the keywords above \u2013 however, furthermore, and second \u2013 you can give yourself a powerful blueprint of the paragraph:<\/p>\n

\u201chowever\u201d means that the paragraph transitions away from the first sentence<\/p>\n

\u201cfurthermore\u201d means that the paragraph continues along the path set up in the previous sentence<\/p>\n

\u201csecond\u201d notes that another theory was constructed to complement the initial one<\/p>\n

Just by looking at that layout, you can get a solid understanding of what this paragraph does.\u00a0 The first sentence lays out the existence of a theory, the \u201cencounter hypothesis\u201d.\u00a0 However, as the transition says, there were some problems with it. Furthermore, there were even more significant problems, which means that a second theory had to be established. The rest of the paragraph describes some of the specifics behind that theory.<\/p>\n

Note that, in our rudimentary breakdown of the paragraph above, we don\u2019t use any technical terms or highlight any details, yet we know quite a bit to prepare us for the passage.\u00a0 If a question asks about any problems with the initial theory, we know we will find them here; similarly, if a question asks about any of the specifics with the second theory \u2013 the \u201cnebular hypothesis\u201d \u2013 we know we will find that in this paragraph, as well.\u00a0 And any answer choice about the primary purpose of the passage as a whole that only mentions one theory is wrong; the passage clearly details at least these two theories.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, this demonstrates that you can focus on keywords \u2013 those that signal the organization of the passage \u2013 and then construct your understanding of the details around that structure.\u00a0 For your preparation, this means two things:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Train yourself to pay particular attention to these structural clues, as they are typically the most important words in the entire passage.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If all else fails and you just can\u2019t focus on the passage, you can just skim for those types of words and use them as your anchors so that you\u2019re only responsible for small chunks of information at any\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 given time.<\/p>\n

The authors of the GMAT will rely a great deal on technical terms, dense writing, and intimidating or boring topics to impede your ability to focus.\u00a0 Their failing?\u00a0 They always leave you a blueprint of the passage with these structural terms. Learn to embrace those, and you can much more quickly and efficiently get to the heart of the matter.<\/p>\n

Read more GMAT advice on the Veritas Prep blog<\/a>. Ready to sign up for a GMAT course<\/a>? Enroll through GMAT Club and save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10)!<\/p>\n

\"Veritas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s GMAT preparation courses. Admit it: you have reached that point during a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2938","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2941,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2938\/revisions\/2941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}