Preliminary Reading and RC
One of the most important aspects of preparing for reading comprehension in the GMAT is preliminary reading – that is, reading to be done before you start tackling GMAT RC passages in order to prepare you for the challenges that those passages will throw up.
One challenge that you will face on Reading Comprehension passages is that they tend to be about unfamiliar topics and concepts; and talk about unfamiliar terms and fields. They use difficult phrasing and vocabulary, and complicated sentence structure. The only way to get used to the level of complexity you will find in GMAT passages is to read widely.
Another challenge is the fact that reading passages on screen means that you may not be able to see the whole passage at a time, and may have to scroll up and down to read the rest of the passage. This is very different from reading on paper, where you can usually see the whole passage on screen at a glance. The fact that you can’t see the whole of the passage at once when you read long passages onscreen, makes comprehending the passage much more difficult.
Reading widely both on paper and onscreen will help you build up the skills that you need to meet the challenges presented by reading comprehension passages in the GMAT. The reading material suggested here is arranged, and should be read, in the following order:
Plan for Preliminary Reading (Overview)
- General Reading on Paper
- General Reading on Screen
- Easy RC
Once you have completed the preparatory reading you can go on to actual GMAT RC practice (see below):
Plan for Going Through Practice Material (Overview)
- Medium-level GMAT RC
- Hard GMAT RC
- GMAC Material on mba.com
Going through the material in the order given will help you to get to the required competence in reading skills and tackling questions in easy stages.
General Reading on Paper – Newspaper Editorials
Newspaper editorials are short and have language that is fairly close to what you find in GMAT RC passages in terms of both vocabulary and complexity of sentence structure. Unlike GMAT passages, however, they deal with topics that are familiar and so can be easily understood. The familiarity of the subject matter will help you deal with, and get used to, the complex language and high-level vocabulary in GMAT reading comprehension passages.
Approach
When you read, summarize the editorials (or any other articles, essays or passages that you read) as if explaining to a 5th Std. student. This will force you to be brief, clear and simple. If you can read and discuss editorials in groups of 2 or 3, then you can get greater clarity about the main idea of the editorial and how to present it. Apply this approach to all other passages that you read.
General Reading on Screen – Websites
As explained above, reading RC passages is more difficult when the passage is on the computer screen. To prepare for practice with reading onscreen which is required to take computer-based tests therefore, read websites like
- aldaily.com
- thebrowser.com
Note: the articles on the websites mentioned above are very long so, if you are not used to reading very much, read only a little at a time – may be just 5-10 lines at a time. Gradually increase the amount you read (to 15 or 20 lines and over time to 30-40 lines) and increase your stamina.
Reading such articles will also expose you to a broad range of topics and to concepts and vocabulary outside the scope of your usual reading. Other useful sites include:
- sciencenews.org (good explanations of terms you may have forgotten in the children’s articles)
- the-scientist.com (life science)
- sciencedaily.com
Read these websites in conjunction with:
- dictionary.com – for explanations of unfamiliar words
- Wikipedia – for explanations of unfamiliar terms, concepts, fields, people etc. that you encounter in your reading.
Easy RC – TOEFL® Reading Comprehension Passages
TOEFL RC passages are easier than those in the GMAT, but (unlike the editorials and websites) they contain Reading Comprehension questions. Since the passages and questions are easier than those in the GMAT, TOEFL RC passages provide a good ‘warm up’ which will prepare you to move from articles and editorials to actual GMAT RC passages.
Going Through the Practice Material (Details)
The Oak’s Academy RC material contains 150 passages and 1,000 questions, providing excellent graded practice. It will take you about two months to cover the material if you do 3 passages a day. After you have gone through all that material you can go through the material on mba.com, the Official GMAT website.
- Medium-level GMAT RC (Oak’s Material)
- RC 11-20 (easy practice – over 50 passages with over 400 questions)
- RC 1-10 (medium-level practice – 50 passages + over 300 questions, some of which are covered in class)
- Hard GMAT RC (Oaks Material)
- GMAT Reading Comprehension Homework (over 40 passages and 240 questions)
- GMAT Reading Comprehension Classwork (10 passages, 40 questions – cover passages that have not been done in class)
- GMAC Material (on mba.com) – some interesting preparation materials available online have been listed below:
- Free GMAT Prep software (listed about halfway down the page – an ‘extension pack’ (called GMATPrep Question Pack 1) with about 400 extra questions is also available)
- Official Guide (OG) 13th Edition, includes over 1,000 questions:
- 900 real GMAT questions, 200 of which have not been published before
- IR section + 50 IR questions online
- Diagnostic exam with 100 questions
- Grammar and Quantitative concept reviews
- Quantitative Review Book
- 300 Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency questions arranged in order of difficulty
- Verbal Review Books
- 300 Critical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension and Sentence Completion questions arranged in order of difficulty
- GMAT Paper Tests – 3 sets of tests, each containing 3 paper-based tests making a total of 9 tests (no answer explanations are provided though).