Ultimate RC Guide for Beginners

Question

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?

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

DarkHorse2019 · Accepted Answer

I think for some of us it becomes really helpful if we can identify the type of questions before answering them - this is for those who can't understand a particular passage...

I got this below pointers from byju website

Main Idea 
Almost every passage in the GMAT has this question. The main idea is generally present in the in the opening or the last line of the first paragraph of the passage. Else, it’s found in the opening lines of the last paragraph. Rarely is the main idea present elsewhere. And on other rare occasions, the main idea is left to be inferred by the reader. It is crucial to figure out what the main idea is for the passage since this will help you to answer questions related to the same. The main idea of the passage helps you to comprehend the purpose of the passage and what the author is trying to convey.

Tone 
The author’s attitude towards 19th century feminist literature can be described as…? Now, this is a question on tone. Where do you find the answer to this? It needs a handle on the entire passage. If the author mentions two opposing views and does not state that one is what he prefers, he is unbiased. If he mentions a theory proposed by someone else and lists his apprehensions about it, he is skeptical about the validity of the theory. Remember that the answer is rarely extreme terms like dismissive or vengeful. You will have to pay close attention to all the sentences in the passage so that you are able to decipher the tone of the passage. It is certain to assist you in answering questions regarding the author’s opinions and views.

Specific data 
These are questions like ‘According to the passage, the author finds the movement to be…’. Match phrases from the question to the location in the passage where it occurs. Read a couple of lines above and a couple of lines below the data match to get the picture. That’s where your answer lies. This is the easiest kind of question in the greater scheme of GMAT Reading Comprehension passages and questions. These are the easiest questions for you to answer since the questions point at a specific part of the passage. You can practice taking notes to help you answer these types of questions so that you don’t have to refer back to the passage each time. When you are accustomed to reading long passages you automatically tend to look out for elements of the passage which define the concept which the author is trying to convey. Ensure to not spend too much time on the same since you have limited duration which you can spend for each section in the exam.

Inference 
What do you infer from the passage? What is implied in the passage? What does the author suggest? These questions are all inference based questions where you need to make use of information in the passage to arrive at a conclusion yourself. So, eliminate options that repeat what is explicitly stated what is mentioned in the passage. Another technique you can employ is to read the questions prior to reading the passage. This will help you gain a better idea of exactly what you will be looking for in the passage. You will be able to read in an objective manner since you are now aware of the particular set of information which you will be asked in the exam.

Structure 
Which of the following best describes the structure of the passage? What would be the ideal title for this passage? To answer these questions, look at the logical flow of the passage. Words like Moreover, Although and Ironically help you understand the structure of the passage. Alternatively you could also visualize the passage in your mind. This has helped candidates to relate to the passage in a better manner than reading it as just theory. This method while it may seem uncommon is actually more helpful to recall the passage and the information mentioned in it. It aids you in deciphering the content of the paragraph in a simpler manner.

Extended Scope 
These questions expect you to extrapolate ideas and data given in the passage to instances outside the passage and make a comparison. These require a logical understanding of the context of the passage. In this case, pick an option that resonates with the author’s conclusion. The option has to mirror the idea presented in the passage. Pace yourself when you are reading the passage and practice this strategy to help you to allocate sufficient time to each RC passage. Time yourself on a regular basis so that you are aware of how long you usually take to attempt this section. You can accordingly work on it to improve your efficiency. Finally do remember that even if they have asked a question in the extended scope do not make the mistake of using data which is not present in the passage. Always stick to whatever information you have within the passage and infer details only from the same.

Prashant10692 · Answer

GMATNinja  I totally agree with you on everything you said. But what if Someone has just a month left to improve on the RC.

What should be done in that case?

GMATNinja · Answer

Sadly, there really aren't any magical shortcuts, though I'm sure that somebody out there would be happy to try to sell you one for a small fee. It's possible that a month is all you need to build strong habits on RC, especially if your fundamental reading skills are already really good. But if your reading skills are the biggest thing holding you back, then a month probably won't be enough.

So you might be fine! But if your reading skills aren't good enough to achieve your goals yet, be honest with yourself about it, and consider moving your test date if you aren't in a good position to achieve your score goals.

Good luck with your studies!

jayesh99modi · Answer

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 · Answer

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!

loserunderachiever · Answer

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 ?

GMATNinja · Answer

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 !

Rocket7 · Answer

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.

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

GMATNinja · Answer

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!

gmatexam439 · Answer

Thank you GMATNinja for considering my post worthwhile

Btw how is junior ninja doing?

GMATNinja · Answer

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.

chiragjain507 · Answer

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.

GMATNinja · Answer

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!

savwildeye · Answer

hi  GMATNinja ,
Can you suggest a good book to read to improve reading comprehension skills?
I have read all the 3 non-fiction books suggested by BB in his post. I've improved my comprehension tremendously reading the books suggest by BB.
I was hoping for something challenging(similar to the 700 level passages) and relate-able to the Gmat content.

GMATNinja · Answer

Awesome question,  savwildeye . Two of our GMAT Ninja tutors are aspiring novelists and avid bookworms, and they're working on a pair of articles with a bunch of book recommendations.

I'll post both articles here on GMAT Club once they're polished up, but in the meantime, here are a few of our favorites from their lists:

Nonfiction:
   Thinking, Fast and Slow  by Danial Kahneman 
  The Best American Science and Nature Writing  -- an anthology of articles, great for test-takers who get freaked out by science passages.

Fiction: 
   An Unnecessary Woman  by Rabih Alameddine 
  Beloved  by Toni Morrison

We'll post some much longer lists -- with descriptions of the books -- later this spring.

I hope this helps a bit!

GMATNinja · Answer

Thank you so much for the kind words, garimamadas10 ! I'm glad that our explanations have been helping.

You can do a forum search with "GMATNinja" in the "Search for author" field and "Reading Comprehension (RC)" in the "Search in forums" field. That should give you plenty of options (500+ results, holy ****!). Here are few good ones to get you started: https://gmatclub.com/forum/firms-traditionally-claim-that-they-downsize-i-e-make-permanent-per-219516.html#p1843728 https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-idea-of-the-brain-as-an-information-processor-a-machine-manipulati-149975.html#p1867890 https://gmatclub.com/forum/ethnohistoric-documents-from-sixteenth-century-mexico-suggesting-that-176259.html#p1989101 I hope that helps a bit, and have fun reading!

IN2MBB2PE · Answer

GMATNinja  : I am a non-native and thus I started with RC first as I knew approx. 40% of the questions are RC. I started with LSAT and right now I write a full LSAT RC set in about 1.5 Hours, I am focusing on Accuracy first over the timing. But for last several sets (I usually do a full set of 27 questions) I am stuck between 75%-80%. I am usually getting LSAT Level 4 or 5 Questions wrong.

Everyday I am also doing Fast Reading exercise using SwiftRead Chrome Extension, this is a game changer as I have raised by speed from 200 Words Per Minute (WPM) to 350 WPM, I usually do this 3x/day and write down the summary of whatever I read in a notebook.

I also do focus exercise, randomly pick an object and keep my thoughts revolving around it for 3-5 minutes, also do it when no one is around as well as when I am in public (being the weirdo) or when I am in the living area (Freaking out my gf).

Plus, I read around 5000 Words as a part of my bedtime routine.

I finished reading LSAT Superprep I RC strategy guides (These were very helpful) + Your RC Videos (Got most questions right in your videos) + I did all Khan Academy Free LSAT resources (These are gem!)

Anyways, long story short, How to take my LSAT accuracy from 80% to 90-100%? At present, I get around 21/27 (-6) per LSAT RC Set.

Thanks.

GMATNinja · Answer

Apologies for our slowness on this! Sadly, it's really hard to diagnose what, exactly, is going wrong with your RC based just on forum threads or emails. It's always possible that you've bumped into the limits of your reading skills, and further improvements to your process won't necessarily help. But I'm going to cheat a little bit, and quote your post from another thread: First of all, your reading routine is really, really impressive! And so is the general improvement from ~40% to 70-80%. Seriously: that's one heck of an achievement already, and I'm not just saying that to be nice.

Now for some bad news: frankly, I don't think there's a ton of value in obsessing over specific question types on RC. When we work with our private tutoring students, we teach them a general approach to reading passages more effectively (basically, a personalized version of the ideas found in our beginner's guide to RC here on GMAT Club , and also in our RC videos ). Once a student puts those ideas into practice effectively, we very rarely see any disproportionately weak performances by question type, other than maybe inferences -- and any disproportionate struggles on inference questions are usually easy to fix (more on that in this video ). Other than that, if you're disproportionately missing a particular question type, odds are decent that it's a problem with how you're reading the passage itself. And that's even more true if you're struggling disproportionately with main idea questions. I can't generally give a granular, accurate diagnosis without actually watching you work through a passage, but here's my hunch: when you say that you're "summarizing" each paragraph, I'd bet that you're not quite fully digging into WHY the author wrote each paragraph. There's a really subtle distinction between understanding the topic or main points or key facts of each paragraph, and REALLY understanding their purpose, and how the author has constructed his or her overall argument. Again, I can't be sure, but everything you're saying suggests that the disconnect has something to do with the fact that you're probably still too engaged in the facts, and you're not quite driving to the heart of the author's purpose. So then you're very likely to miss the big-picture questions a bit more often. If my hunch is right, then your lack of a grasp of the author's purpose and structure probably hurts you a bit on some of the other questions, too. This is a really tough thing to improve on. I say quite a bit about it in some of those RC videos, but I know that it's really, really hard to feel the difference between deeply engaged reading -- in which you're thoroughly grasping the author's overall purpose -- and reading that's basically accurate, but is still operating at the "fact fact fact fact fact" level. I have no idea if that makes any sense, and I don't know if it helps at all. But I'm pretty sure that I'm barking up the right general tree, for whatever little that's worth.

KabxW · Answer

Hey Charles! You guys at GMAT Ninja are my favourite and so damn amazing. Your lectures are out of the world awesome

I just had one little doubt. Since you mentioned read for purpose and other gimmicks to avoid in note-making. what exactly should be an ideal note-making approach? I remember you saying that it is personalized and the explanation of disengaged reading but as per you how to go about taking notes? Like the one where you just write the big picture or anything else? I hope you got my question and apart from this, you're just pure amazing! Cheers!

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From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards