GMAT Ninja's RC Guide for Beginners Back when we used to do regular Wednesday chat-room sessions (archives are available here ), one of the most common questions was always short and blunt: “How can I improve on reading comprehension?” I wish that there was a quick, easy answer to that question, but as is often the case on the GMAT, there are no magic bullets. Instead, here’s an honest, long(!), BS-free guide to getting started with GMAT RC. Read for structure and purpose Unless you’re totally new to the GMAT, you’ve probably noticed that the GMAT always asks contextual questions about each RC passage. You’ll always see main idea or primary purpose questions on your actual exam, and if you’re scoring at a relatively high level, even the “detail questions” aren’t solely about details on the GMAT. GMAT RC questions won’t, for example, ask you to repeat what line 27 says, but you might have to explain the role that line 27 plays in the author’s overall argument. So what’s your first job when you read an RC passage? Understand the structure of the author’s overall argument, and WHY the author has written each part of the passage. Here’s the basic structure that we recommend: stop at the end of each paragraph, and ask yourself WHY the author has written the paragraph. Your focus should be on the big picture: each paragraph’s purpose and how each paragraph connects with the previous paragraphs. If you’re crystal-clear about WHY the author has written every paragraph – and how they fit together – you’ll be in great shape for the contextual questions that you’ll inevitably see next. Don’t obsess over details Here’s one of the worst tactical errors you can make on RC: if you’re trying to memorize all of the facts, you’re both wasting your time and missing the point of reading comprehension. Or, to paraphrase Ron Purewal (see this thread ), if you’re reading “as though the passages were just factfactfactfact”, you’re not going to succeed on RC. Again: GMAT RC questions will always ask you to synthesize the author’s overall argument. You’ll rarely be asked to just regurgitate facts. Just as importantly: the facts will always be on the screen when you need them. There’s no reason to memorize all of them, or obsess over them, or write them all down. And it’s completely fine if you miss a few details, as long as you can still comprehend the overall purpose behind each paragraph. If you struggle to understand a few sentences here or there, check to see if you still understand how the paragraph connects with the author’s overall argument. If you still understand WHY the author wrote that paragraph – and how it fits in with the rest of the passage – then there’s no reason to obsess over a few difficult phrases or sentences. In other words: if you can understand the purpose of the paragraph without catching every single detail of the nastiest sentences, you win. Get engaged But here’s the thing: no matter what, you have to be engaged and alert and attentive when you read. Many of you have solved thousands of algebra questions in your lives, and you might be able to solve a basic equation while literally half-asleep. That’s not how reading works: if you’re not awake, engaged, and conscious ALL of the time when you do RC, you’ll miss something important. Many of you have heard this advice already: pretend that you’re interested whenever you read an RC passage. If that works for you, awesome. Or maybe this one will work better: whenever you read an RC passage, pretend that a beautiful man or woman (whichever you prefer!) is reading the passage to you in a dimly lit bar. If that does the trick for you, great. And if not? Well, maybe note-taking will help. So what about note-taking? I wish that I could tell you that there’s ONE correct way to take notes on GMAT RC. Unfortunately, that would be a lie. Everybody is different. Some people are much better at reading when they take tons of notes, because the physical act of writing something down helps them engage in the material (“kinesthetic learners”, if you like jargon). Other people disengage when they start taking notes, and they actually get worse at reading. So there’s no one-size-fits-all answer here. Different strokes for different folks. The thing that matters: if you’re going to take notes, make sure that they’re rooted in the big picture of the passage. If you’re just writing "factfactfactfactfact" on your page, you’re probably missing the important things: WHY the has author written each paragraph, and how those paragraphs connect. Mindless, detail-oriented notes are probably not going to help you. Most of my students end up taking minimal notes – roughly 8-12 words per paragraph – just to remind them to engage in the purpose of each paragraph. If you do better without taking notes, that’s great: just make sure that you’re focused on WHY the author has written each paragraph, and how the paragraphs connect. And if you want to take more notes on RC, that’s OK, too. Just keep asking yourself: are these notes helping you comprehend the structure and purpose of the passage, or are you falling into the abyss of writing “factfactfactfactfactfactfact”? No skimming, no gimmicks There's some great test-taking advice out there for RC (see the links below), but please beware of silly, oversimplified RC “tricks.” Some people will suggest that you should skim the passages, or at least some parts of them. Please don’t do this. It’s true that you don't need to understand every single detail in the passage, but you’ll get absolutely nowhere if you skip random pieces of the passage. You won’t know which sections are important until you actually try to read them. So here’s the bad news: yes, you really do have to read the whole passage. You don't have to understand every single detail, but skipping random pieces of the passage definitely won’t help. I’ve also heard that it’s a good idea to read the question before reading the passage, and I don’t think that’s going to help much, either: each RC passage has three or four questions, but you can only see the first one. I’ve never really understood how reading just ONE of the questions can possibly make you more accurate at comprehending the passage. There’s a seemingly endless supply of these RC gimmicks. One test-prep company once claimed that (D) is much more likely to be the answer than other answer choices. Sorry, that’s not true. I occasionally meet people who think that they can read just the first and last sentences of each paragraph. Sorry, that’s not going to work, either. The bottom line: if an RC “trick” sounds too good to be true, it certainly is. Don’t fall in love Whenever you do anything on the GMAT verbal section, you should always look for four wrong answers – not one right answer. If you try to take shortcuts with this process, I can promise that you’ll make mistakes, especially on relatively difficult questions. The easiest mistake to make on GMAT RC (or CR!) is this: you read the question, and an answer pops into your head. You immediately notice that, say, answer choice (B) sounds an awful lot like what you were thinking. So you choose (B), and you don’t really read (C), (D), or (E). Meanwhile, there’s some little tiny modifier in (B) that makes it wrong. One word can completely change the meaning of an answer choice, right? But if you fall in love with (B) immediately – and fail to use process of elimination – you can easily make a careless error. And careless errors on easy questions can quickly ruin your day on an adaptive test. So don’t fall in love. Instead, always make sure that you’ve found four wrong answers, not one right answer. Unfortunately, this means that you’ll have to read every answer choice if you want to eliminate four of them. But on an adaptive test, that’s an investment that you absolutely need to make, on every single verbal question. Stick with official RC passages We have endless respect for our friends in the test-prep world who do their very best to write good, “non-official” questions, but we strongly recommend relying primarily on official questions for your RC practice. Many of you have heard this already, but the GMAT spends between $1500 and $3000 developing each official GMAT question, and even the very best test-prep companies can’t compete. (Including, of course, the two-man empire known as GMAT Ninja. We write our own questions, too. We think we’re good at it. You still shouldn't rely on them too heavily.) On RC, official passages are loaded with subtle little twists of language, and your task is to get used to catching those subtleties. Non-official passages simply aren’t the same thing. So use the official GMAT materials wisely, and if you need extra RC practice, you might consider trying some LSAT questions . Improving your fundamental reading skills So you might be thinking: “Um, Ninja guy, I’m already doing basically everything you recommend. It’s not helping. I’m still unhappy with my scores. What should I do?” The bad news: the real reason you’re struggling MIGHT be that your reading skills simply aren’t as strong as you’d like them to be. You can follow every test-prep guru in the world and execute on every strategy that we have to offer. But if you’re struggling to understand the precise meaning of the passages and answer choices, all of the strategy guides in the world might not help. If this applies to you, that’s OK: turn your attention to improving your fundamental reading skills in English. The best way to do that is to read challenging stuff. Every day. This article will get you started with some general approaches to leisure reading and some nonfiction recommendations , and this one explains why reading fiction is a good idea . But almost any high-quality reading material is fine, as long as the language is sophisticated enough to push your boundaries as a reader – so no comic books, I guess. The other piece of bad news is that doing a lot of reading is a long-run strategy: if you’re 10 days away from your GMAT exam, reading a few magazines at night isn’t going to immediately cure your problems. But over the long haul, the best way to get better at reading is to read more. If it helps, think of it this way: college-educated native speakers have generally had at least 14 years of formal reading and literature instruction (in the U.S., English coursework is required from Kindergarten through 12th grade, and generally in the first year of university). So if you need six months or a year to improve your reading skills, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Extra hope for non-native speakers! I know: spending months or years improving your reading skills isn’t easy. But for whatever it’s worth, if you haven’t been exposed to many GMAT-style texts in English, you probably have some room to improve relatively quickly. I’m the first to admit that it can be really difficult to improve on the GMAT verbal section, but I’ve met countless test-takers over the years who have managed to gain 10+ points on the verbal section. And the overwhelming majority of them are non-native speakers. And that’s the silver lining to taking this nasty exam in a foreign language: you might still have plenty of room to improve. So keep at it! And if you need more resources, GMAT Club has your back. Want more? All GMAT Ninja LIVE YouTube videos by topic (including RC) GMAT Ninja’s Guide to Leisure Reading, Part 1: How Nonfiction Can Help Your GMAT Score GMAT Ninja’s Guide to Leisure Reading, Part 2: The Benefits of Reading Fiction to Improve Your GMAT Score Carcass’s verbal question bank and directories What to do about timing on GMAT verbal Compilation of RC tips & strategies by BB One of my all-time favorite posts on RC, courtesy of Carcass and Ron Using LSAT materials for extra practice on CR and RC BB’s long-running thread about the best books to read A short and interesting post about gmatexam439 's efforts to improve his reading skills Carcass's list of favorite magazines and periodicals

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Ultimate RC Guide for Beginners

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GMATNinja

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02 Nov 2017, 10:46

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verma90

Can somebdy share the secrrt to improve sc

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

There are no "secrets" or shortcuts on GMAT verbal. Just hard work, like this guy.

Here's a good starting point for SC, though: https://gmatclub.com/forum/ultimate-sc- ... 44623.html

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26 Nov 2017, 04:54

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Thank you for these Golden lines GMATNinja sir.
My queries:
Are the questions on an RC passage fixed? (Is the RC as a whole easy/hard depending on our performance on the previous questions?)
If YES, then how is the next question after that RC chose ? (Out of 4 questions if I get first question correct and the remaining three incorrect in RC.
Or first three incorrect and the last one correct, then how is the next question decided?)

GMATNinja

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28 Nov 2017, 21:51

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jayesh99modi

My queries:
Are the questions on an RC passage fixed? (Is the RC as a whole easy/hard depending on our performance on the previous questions?)
If YES, then how is the next question after that RC chose ? (Out of 4 questions if I get first question correct and the remaining three incorrect in RC.
Or first three incorrect and the last one correct, then how is the next question decided?)

Thank you for the kind words, jayesh99modi!

The question about RC is a good one, and I'm not 100% sure about the answer -- and as far as I know, GMAC has not publicly told us the answer to your question either, but maybe somebody can correct me on that.

There are two ways that the GMAT could, in theory, handle selection of your RC passages. The first is something called a "testlet": basically, the set of three or four RC questions is "fixed" for each passage in this scenario, so your answer to the first RC question does not impact the difficulty of the subsequent two or three questions on that passage. (And for whatever it's worth: in most cases, you'll see three RC passages with three questions each, and a fourth passage with four questions.) So if the GMAT uses "testlets" on RC, the difficulty of your entire passage would be based on your performance BEFORE you see that RC passage, because the RC questions for that passage would not "adapt" based on your performance within that passage.

The second possibility is that each RC passage actually has MORE than three or four possible questions. If this is the case, then each question after the first can be selected based on your performance WITHIN that passage.

Again, I don't have any inside information, but I suspect strongly that the second possibility is correct, since many of the RC passages in the OG (and GMATPrep Question Pack and Verbal Review) have more than three or four questions associated with them. Plus, some psychometricians (the statistician types who design standardized tests) aren't crazy about "testlets" (the first possibility, above) -- but that's a longer and much less interesting story. (Not-so-fun-fact: I spent two and a half years in a PhD program in psychometrics and education policy before I came to my senses and returned to teaching. So if anybody out there is having a hard time sleeping, I can tell you all about the three-parameter logistic model in computer adaptive testing, and you'll be knocked out instantly.)

In any case, there really isn't a big difference between those two ways of handling RC passages in terms of how they affect your score in the end. On an adaptive test, questions are selected based on your ENTIRE performance on the section up to that point -- so the difference between the two ways of handling RC would be very, very tiny in the grand scheme of things.

Sorry, that was probably a much longer answer than you bargained for!

The short short version: I think the test adapts after EVERY question -- even RC. But it doesn't really matter much, one way or another!

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29 Nov 2017, 00:47

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GMATNinja

(Not-so-fun-fact: I spent two and a half years in a PhD program in psychometrics and education policy before I came to my senses and returned to teaching. So if anybody out there is having a hard time sleeping, I can tell you all about the three-parameter logistic model in computer adaptive testing, and you'll be knocked out instantly.)

GMATNinja

Cracked me up

Helps with the prep

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jayesh99modi

The short short version: I think the test adapts after EVERY question -- even RC. But it doesn't really matter much, one way or another!

This query came up when I read it on Veritas Prep Material that the questions in an RC passage are fixed.
But after reading your explanation I'm clear that there isn't much scope for them to be fixed.
Thank you GMATNinja Sir for clearing my doubt.

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15 Feb 2018, 23:16

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GMATNinja

Thank you so much for this article. This would help me a long way towards my Prep as RC is my weakest area.

Also all of your articles and tips are invaluable. Thanks much.

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Ninja ,
Thanks alot.
Do you prefer starting up with RC in verbal preparation ? , I'll be just starting off with my verbal now . Do you also run a thread for Critical Reasoning for beginners ?? Could you recommend few resources to count on for CR ?

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loserunderachiever

CR for beginners is here, and SC for beginners is here. Both have links to resources for both question types.

In general, I'd recommend starting with RC and CR, and when you're pretty close to achieving the results you want on those two question types, you can add in SC. It can take quite a while to build your skills in RC and CR -- depending, of course, on how good your skills are to begin with -- but SC is relatively finite, and there's a limited number of high-quality, official SC questions available. So it's generally best to start working on SC only after you've made some significant headway on everything else, unless you're already close to your goals on RC and CR.

Welcome to GMAT Club, loserunderachiever!

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05 Mar 2018, 19:33

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loserunderachiever

sir, Are there any sources to practice RC. Recent test takers have enumerated that level of RC is tougher in real exam than those in official guides and Question packs.
And since we expect something around 3-4 passages , we need to wire our mind for the same during preparation. Many suggest LSAT RC but its very different as compared to Gmat RC. So kindly suggest something in this regard.

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20 Mar 2018, 15:23

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GMATNinja

I have setup a spreadsheet in which I will start noting down the main idea, structure, tone and purpose of each item I read.
For the structure/flow, could you clarify whether there is a difference between the purpose of the passage and WHY the author wrote the passage?

Thanks.

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08 May 2018, 14:14

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GMATNinja Charles any chance you or anyone in your team had a chance to create fake tests on the new GMAT Prep software. It lets the user hide the menu up top but the downside is that once the user hides the menu he/she can not see the question numbers. Any way out to hide the clock but still be able to see the question number.

As always I appreciate your excellence and help to this global GMAT community.

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11 May 2018, 14:53

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Rocket7

Ooh, great question -- I hadn't actually played with the new GMATPrep online system until I saw your post.

(And for anybody who isn't sure what Rocket7 means by "fake tests", the full story is here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 44293.html. At the moment, the post still refers to the old, non-online software, but we'll post an update at some point.)

As far as I know, there's no way to show the question number while hiding the timer. So here's what I'd recommend: go ahead and hide that menu at the top that shows the time and the question number. And then just keep track of the question number on your scratch paper. If you're using process of elimination on all of the verbal questions -- and everybody should do that! -- then you're probably writing "A B C D E" on your page, anyway. And as long as you stick the question number in front of the "A B C D E", you should be able to keep track adequately.

And if that doesn't work perfectly, it's not the end of the world to occasionally unhide the menu so you can see the question number.

I hope this helps!

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14 Jul 2018, 19:01

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Great post GMATNinja..!!

I am quoting you verbatim
for the part which struck me most.

" Don’t fall in love

Whenever you do anything on the GMAT verbal section, you should always look for four wrong answers – not one right answer. If you try to take shortcuts with this process, I can promise that you’ll make mistakes, especially on relatively difficult questions.

The easiest mistake to make on GMAT RC (or CR!) is this: you read the question, and an answer pops into your head. You immediately notice that, say, answer choice (B) sounds an awful lot like what you were thinking. So you choose (B), and you don’t really read (C), (D), or (E).

Meanwhile, there’s some little tiny modifier in (B) that makes it wrong. One word can completely change the meaning of an answer choice, right? But if you fall in love with (B) immediately – and fail to use process of elimination – you can easily make a careless error. And careless errors on easy questions can quickly ruin your day on an adaptive test.

So don’t fall in love. Instead, always make sure that you’ve found four wrong answers, not one right answer. Unfortunately, this means that you’ll have to read every answer choice if you want to eliminate four of them. But on an adaptive test, that’s an investment that you absolutely need to make, on every single verbal question."

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23 Jul 2018, 11:56

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Thank you GMATNinja for considering my post worthwhile

Btw how is junior ninja doing?

GMATNinja

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25 Jul 2018, 20:59

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gmatexam439

Thank you GMATNinja for considering my post worthwhile

Btw how is junior ninja doing?

In case anybody is wondering about the post mentioned above, gmatexam439 wrote a great post about his approach to improving at RC. If you're struggling on RC, I think that it can be incredibly valuable to read about the experiences of a test-taker who suffered through RC recently, and had to work pretty darned hard to improve. The post is available here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/preparing-fo ... 69893.html.

And thank you for asking about the junior ninja, gmatexam439! She's doing well. Seven and a half months old already, and already showing ninja-like eating skills. Her command of quadratics and parallelism still need some work, but that's cool.

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26 Jul 2018, 15:01

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GMATNinja

gmatexam439

Thank you GMATNinja for considering my post worthwhile

Btw how is junior ninja doing?

haha ... I wish that she grows to be a super ninja like her dad!
Now is the time to concentrate on bhindi masala perhaps .... parallelism can wait though

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02 Dec 2018, 13:00

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This article is very useful and it actually works. But there is a big problem here. If I want to completely comprehend the passage, read all answer choices for all questions, this will take me around 20 mins for a long passage and 15 mins for a short one. This is really the case for non-native students. You know it can''t be acceptable because you have no time. How can you solve this problem? Thank you.

chiragjain507

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25 Jun 2019, 22:33

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GMATNinja, What could be the approach for longer passages of around 600-650 words? The above mentioned approach has been really helpful to me in shorter passages, but for longer passages, my accuracy dips down. Also, if a passage contains mostly data based questions, does looking for structure helps, or is there a different approach that can be taken?

Thank you.

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27 Jun 2019, 08:25

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Awesome, appreciate it! I found trying to force yourself to read it "for fun" is extremely helpful as well.

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27 Jun 2019, 13:39

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chiragjain507

I'd argue that the framework laid out in this article probably becomes MORE necessary on longer passages. If the passage is longer, then it's even easier to lose track of the big picture (i.e., the structure of the overall argument and the author's purpose), and let the passage turn into "factfactfactfactfactfactfact."

I'd bet anything that the dip you're seeing on longer passages is mostly because you're not able to keep up with the overall point of the passage -- maybe that's just a general concentration problem, but it's also possible that you're just not paying enough attention to WHY the author is writing the post, and that's likely to cause trouble.

Unless you're seeing really, really easy questions, it's incredibly unlikely that you'll see a passage that doesn't ask you -- in some way -- about the overall point of the passage. The overwhelming majority of passages will explicitly ask you a main idea or primary purpose question. And once you get to, say, 700-level questions, nearly all of the questions themselves require you to understand the overall point of the passage.

For example: at the highest levels, you won't get asked to just regurgitate what the author says in, say, line 17; instead, you'll be asked to analyze the author's statement in line 17 in the context of the overall passage.

So unfortunately, there's really no way to avoid understanding the big picture of the passage if you want to achieve a super-high score. There might be other frameworks for understanding that big picture, but understanding the facts alone -- without grasping the broader context -- can only hurt you. And that might be especially true on longer passages.

I hope this helps a bit!

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