Always confused between last two ans choices in Reading Comprehension?

Let me solve this never ending dilemma for you!

There are students who say that reading comprehension is their weakest area in GMAT. Now as a trainer, I always argue that once you have achieved your comfort in areas such as critical reasoning and sentence correction, reading comprehension should be a cake walk. But it seldom happens in real life, as I am told. Nevermind! Lets address the elephant in the room.

Problems in reading comprehension stem from the fact that one is not comfortable in reading all kinds of texts and genres. Now this is one bad habit which needs to be corrected. For this you may refer to my previous blogs titled “What is reading?”, “What to do if I am not a reader?” and “What is the whole fuss around reading comprehension?” Coming to the topic of what to do when confused between last two answer choices; I am going to take you through the whole process of selection/rejection of answer choices which will make your life easy overnight! I bet!

Psychologically we are wired to read the question and look for the correct answer choice. This is what GMAC plays with and lays down traps for the test taker into which the test taker eventually falls. So, to overcome this situation and beat the GMAT at its own game, lets learn a strategy. Instead of looking for the correct answer, do the opposite! Do not look for the correct answer and try to spot the wrong answers. Wrong answers always follow a pattern and so does the correct answer. Only once you understand the pattern of the wrong answers, you will be able to understand how to spot the correct one. Here goes the secret for you. Listing the wrong answers to begin with:

Firstly, GMAT is very fond of recycled answers. As the name suggests, recycled means reused. Now here, GMAT understands that most of us haven’t understood the text fully, so they know that students are going to match words in the answer with the passage (since it is very convenient). So an answer choice that looks so much like the passage is very tempting . For instance, the passage talks about Einstein, Newton and Theory of Relativity. Now, an answer choice says that ‘according to the author, Newton found the theory of relativity which inspired Einstein’. Factually this is wrong and opposite. Now a student who is in a hurry will match the words(Newton/Einstein/Theory of relativity) and not really care for the gist of the answer choice and fall into this trap. Such type of answers are called recycled answers. These are words and phrases mentioned in the passage but rearranged in such a way that the essence gets lost. They will always flash words/phrases that you will be tempted to pick. Whenever you see yourself matching words, stop and check. It could be due to the fact that you haven’t understood the text. Please work on the text first and then move ahead.

Another category of wrong answer types is called the Extreme answer. As the name suggests, they are usually superlatives or strong answers. For example the passage says that Einstein was a good scientist. An answer choice suggesting that Einstein was the ‘best’ is called as a superlative answer. Another example: the passage says that ‘A lot of women travel in Delhi metro these days.’ The answer choice suggesting that ‘all women travel in Delhi metro’ is an extreme answer. As you can make out how these wrong answers are designed. They change the text subtly yet the meaning is changed drastically. Some people or websites would suggest you that whenever you spot a superlative answer or extreme answer, immediately eliminate it. My suggestion would be to check with the passage once. I believe they are wrong 99 percent of the times, but there may be a chance that an author is really making an extreme remark on the topic. However, in a certain situation when you are really left with no time and you have to click an answer choice, you may eliminate it right away.

Third category of wrong answer choice is called Wrong comparison. You may spot the comparison in an answer choice by actively looking for words such as better than/more than/less than/as/like/unlike etc. For instance, the passage discusses about two things say A and B. The answer choice states that according to the author, A is better than B. There may be a case that the author mentions A and B and discusses the positives of only A. Until, the author criticizes B, we are in no position to claim that the author suggests that A is better than B. For example, the author talks about Einstein and Newton, and an answer choice says that ‘According to the author Einstein is better than Newton.’ The passage nowhere compared them at all so this makes it wrong. Please check once before picking it or eliminating it. 90 percent of the times the comparison answer is wrong. There are 10 percent chances that the passage is really comparing. So doing enough practice on this concept shall make you confident.

Fourthly, most of us find it convenient to eliminate most of the answers stating it as ‘out of scope’. Now lets develop a good habit to clearly segregate the wrong answers into the categories(which you just learned). And lets understand what out of scope really means. An answer is out of scope if it mentions something beyond the scope of the passage. Lets take a very simple example. Suppose the passage talks about green house gases. An answer choice mentions that ‘human beings are responsible for green house gases’. Now it seems a perfect answer because human being are really responsible, right? But we must check whether the passage is really talking about who is responsible. May be the passage is only talking about the composition of green house gases. So here, we got biased and used our so called ‘outside knowledge’. We thought that its factually correct that human beings are responsible for green house gases. But until the passage says so, we cannot take it as true. We may be a mechanical engineer or an IT engineer, yet if the article comes on the topic we already know, we are not allowed to use our background knowledge. Staying unbiased is very important because our objective is to understand the opinion of the author. Our hero is the author. So stick to his opinion on the topic.

Last but not the least, the most confusing answer choice is called the Reversal or the Opposite. As easy as it sounds, it really eats up most of your brain cells when deciding whether to keep it or remove it. As the name suggests, it’s the opposite of either the main idea of the passage or any specific fact mentioned in the passage. It may also be opposite to the tone followed in the passage. For example, an author is criticising a theory in a passage, remember that any answer choice even remotely implying that the author likes that theory or that the author is okay with the theory is wrong. Most of the times these answers will be accompanied by twisted Nos and NOTs. So again, go by the gist and not the words will help here. Try to understand what the answer is really saying in terms of tone. Once you spot the nature of opposition, remove it right away.

After having understood the wrong answer choices, you will be able to spot the right one. The process you should follow is that start eliminating the wrong answers and that shall lead you to the correct one. Remember that the correct answer is always hidden in plain sight. It’s like the hero but not at all glamorous. The right answer will seldom use the exact words from the passage. Some of the words will be substituted to deviate your attention. Again, do not go by the words, go by the meaning and the tone. The right answer will fulfil all the parameters of a ‘Not wrong answer’. Sometimes it may not be the perfect answer as you had thought of in your head but most importantly, it is correct. It cannot be put into any of the five wrong answer categories mentioned above.

Lastly, coming to the problem of the two answer choices. Whenever stuck between two answers, ask yourself a few questions: is there an extreme word in either of these? Is there any comparison word in either of these? Does any one of these sound too much like that passage because the words match? Then go ahead and remove those and I am sure you will get most of your answers correct.

P.S. There is no shortcut to solving RCs. This technique is really helpful when followed hand in hand with the good habit of reading!

Sonal Darra
GMAT Verbal Expert