[RC - Reading Material] Newpapers, Magazines, etc. to read

Question

Hi guys,

based on the info given in gmat-club-s-reading-comprehension-strategy-guide-83101.html
I think one major aspect of RC as well as CR is getting used to the style of writing of the GMAT.

Reading ficition is nice, but what I think is even more important is to read text passages that are similar to the GMAT.

I therefore, wanna compile here a list of magazines that contain passages similar to GMAT ones. Here is what I found so far:

- Economist, https://www.economist.com/
- The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/
- Scientific America, https://www.scientificamerican.com/
- National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
- Businessweek, https://www.businessweek.com/
- Sciencedaily, https://www.sciencedaily.com/
- Phys.org, https://phys.org/
- Globalpost, https://www.globalpost.com/
- Uni. Chicago Mag., https://mag.uchicago.edu/
- Harvard Mag., https://harvardmagazine.com/

MGMAT also wrote a great article about it (I used some material from it) ... you can find it here

https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... rehension/

Please add any sources you also find helpful.

ChrisLele · Accepted Answer

That's definitely a great list. I would stress reading those articles that best approximate the level of sophistication of an actual GMAT passage. For instance, some science passages I've encountered do not go too in-depth, are oftentimes leavened with extended quotations from a scientist or scientists.

To really whip your brain into RC shape, I highly suggest reading articles from the New Yorker. For instance, the science articles written by Elizabeth Kolbert (they are printed every couple months or so) are often longer than 10 pages. Working your way through the prose, which is dense and synatically sophisticated, will make the 400-word GMAT science passage seem far less daunting.

For books relating to topics dealing with science and the like I recommend Simon Winchester. Is 400-page book, Krakatoa, nicely balances the complexity of plate tectonics with the sociocultural backdrop that accompanied what he suggest may be the loudest explosion ever heard by man: the entire volcano Krakatoa completely exploding the island it was a part of (the sound could be heard as far as a few thousand miles away). Other books such as Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond are also helpful extended works that will get you used to reading information dense writing for hundreds of pages.

Hope that helps

GMATPill · Answer

Those are all great resources. I would just add that within the Harvard Magazine site, under research tab you can find different areas like humanities, social sciences - which are great types of passages for RC.

The usual Economist, Scientific American are great resources as well.

The usual Economist, Scientific American are great resources as well.

pjolie · Answer

Great post. I am, bookmarking it for future. Wonderful suggestion Chris. Thanks... can you post links to some such articles.

glagad · Answer

Hello experts,

These are great resources, but I am finding it difficult to find articles that follow the "GMAT rules". E.g. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/07 ... eadly-toll - this article contains the following line -

The researchers were particularly interested in the effects of airborne pollutants released during the fracking process, which include volatile organic compounds and radioactive particles.

Now, if I were reading this as just another article for my knowledge, I wouldn't be bothered. However, according to SC rules, shouldn't the "which" modifier refer to "fracking process", whereas, it logically refers to "airborne pollutants".

I wonder if reading too many articles from such sources would confuse me in the long run.
Please advise!

vv65 · Answer

In fact, it's good that you have come across this sentence now. There is nothing wrong with the sentence. If this sentence were a SC answer and you eliminated it, your answer would probably be wrong.

WHICH always refers to something earlier in the sentence.
 
In most (almost all) correct answers in SC, WHICH follows a comma and refers to the word immediately before the comma.

So it is quite useful to consider this a rule. The rule works well in SC -- but not always. There are some official SC questions in which it does not.

In this sentence there are two reasons why WHICH cannot refer to  fracking process .

The first reason is what you said.
It makes no sense to say that the process includes "volatile organic compounds and radioactive particles". It makes more sense to say that pollutants include "volatile organic compounds and radioactive particles".

The second reason is grammatical.  Fracking process  is singular. The writer has written  WHICH INCLUDE ; that tells us WHICH refers to a plural noun. It cannot refer to  fracking process , which is singular. It can only refer to  pollutants .

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glagad · Answer

Thanks  vv65   GmatTutorKnight

Looking at this solely from the "SC" perspective, while I understand that "which" cannot refer to "fracking process" because of the two reasons mentioned in the above post, I would also want to understand what are some strict rules about "which nouns can be modified by the modifier "which"".

In e-gmat resource, I read, it can very well jump "prepositional phrases" - so jumping "during fracking process" seems okay to me.
In a Magoosh video, I understood the above but with a hard rule: that "which" cannot jump a verb.

So, in this sentence can it jump a verb-ed modifier like - "released"??

And what should I do if I face such a dilemma in the exam?

vv65 · Answer

The English language has very few hard rules that make something absolutely wrong. I don't know whether this is one of the hard rules, that a WHICH cannot jump over a verb. For GMAT purposes, we can consider perhaps it a hard rule -- but I'm not sure (and I wouldn't do so).

Can a WHICH jump a VERB-ed modifier as in this sentence? Well, it has done so, hasn't it? It's possible that this is considered non-standard, but (as I said earlier) I don't really know.

If you face such a dilemma in the exam, compare the answer choices. It's possible that all the others have worse problems. Alternatively, it's possible that you find another answer choice that has no problem at all and is better than this one.

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peacefulmath · Answer

Thank you for doing the work and compiling these reading naterials into one post, it is a big help. Nice!

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[RC - Reading Material] Newpapers, Magazines, etc. to read

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[RC - Reading Material] Newpapers, Magazines, etc. to read

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