How to read an RC Passage? Reading strategies and practice.

I am writing this post as almost daily i receive PMs from members and they ask the same thing, how to read an RC Passage? effective reading strategies and from where to practice after completing Official questions?. I am not pretty sure this post will help all the members who read it but surely will help some members in some way. I went through all the posts in RC Forum and found a few posts rich of reading strategies.

Reading strategies.

Below is the links of all hand picked posts mentioned above

How to Read a Reading Comp Passage by Rhyme (Very Popular!)

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-destr ... 30247.html

Ultimate RC Guide for Beginners by GMAT Ninja

https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 41004.html

How to efficiently solve RC questions by e-GMAT

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-effic ... 42305.html

Learn to destroy reading comp by Empower GMAT

https://gmatclub.com/forum/verbal-advan ... 02403.html

How to Read a Reading Comp Passage by PrepScholar

https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-imp ... prehension

How to Read an RC Passage by GMAT Pill

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-read- ... fl=similar

Most important step in RC

https://gmatclub.com/forum/most-importa ... 79954.html

5 RC Rules and Principles.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/5-rc-rules-a ... 99602.html

How to Read a Reading Comp Passage by Manhattan GMAT

Note: Personally i didn't like Manhattan strategy but here it is what they said. Why i don't like it as in Manhattan RC guide, they suggests to write down summary and critical information, i tried this strategy many time but failed. I was only successful when i didn't time my practice with this strategy. In my case, if i wrote down things it took a longer time and i was not able to complete within time.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-read- ... 35346.html

My reading strategy

Read the first paragraph carefully (very very carefully). comprehend it as maximum as you can, non natives should translate meanings (in mind) into his/her native language to better comprehend. Almost in 80-90% cases first para provide main purpose or introduction to topic at hand. After reading first paragraph find the twist in the story and read 2-3 lines of 2nd paragraph to find the same. After that just read and skim through the passage and don't bother for technical or any other details.

Read last paragraph very carefully as in most cases it provides conclusion to the topic. The information in last paragraph normally connects with the first paragraph. Try to link the information in the last paragraph with the first paragraph. Spend maximum 3 minutes on reading the passage. In the real test if passage is short (a passage is short when it didn't have a scroll bar) it will normally followed by 3 questions for a short passage spend 2 to 2.5 minutes for reading and for a long paragraph, which is normally followed by 4 questions, spend 3 minutes to read the passage.

After reading completely make a gist of the whole passage in your mind (shouldn't it take more than 15-20 seconds) and then continue to the question. For a main purpose question you shouldn't go back to read the passage again ( if you have need to go back to read it again it means you didn't follow the strategy or your reading is flawed). For a main purpose question just link the information in the first and last paragraph (some time a twist/contrast is given in the second paragraph, take care of that too). For all other specific purpose question go back and read the related lines again to get it completely, normally it requires to read minimum 2 to 4 lines maximum. This is how i tackle an RC Passage.

Note: This is my reading strategy it will be helpful for some members and not for others so exceptions are always there.


Best question to practice for RC.

The first choice to practice RC questions should be Official questions. There are more than 100 passages available for practice, if you have practiced more than 100 passage and still your accuracy has not been improved you probably should change your RC Strategy. 100 passages for practice are more than enough.

Here is the preferences for practicing RC Passages

1. Official GMAC Questions
2. Official GRE/LSAT Questions
3. Manhattan GMAT/Veritas GMAT

Note: The recommended source to practice is only Official Questions but if someone ran out of Official questions then these sources are best to practice for.

If you are preparing for GMAT, RC butler project will be helpful, if you preparing GMAT but not RC Section still you can follow RC Butler project for daily practice as It will take approx 20 minutes per day.

For RC Butler project: Click here

Use GMAT Club tag to search questions, below is the link - All of the RC questions are available here

https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?s ... mit=Search

All Manhattan RC Passages are available here

https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?s ... mit=Search

All of the Veritas RC Passages are available here

https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?s ... mit=Search

All of the GRE Official passage are available here (This is newly added tag, so at the moment it contains lesser number of passages, i am updating it as i found questions on the forum)

https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?s ... mit=Search

All of the LSAT Passages are available here

https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?s ... mit=Search