Reading Comprehension Notes
Goals for Reading Comprehension
1. To NOT have to re-read the entire passage. This often happens to students and
can result in several minutes of lost time.
2. To be able to answer universal questions – such as main idea questions - which
often require an understanding of the passage as a whole.
3. To know where in the text to go to find the answer to specific questions.
Approaching Passages
1) Read the first paragraph at one-half of your normal speed. This will aid in your
understanding of this unfamiliar subject.
2) At the end of the first paragraph stop and ask yourself what the paragraph means.
Write down a few words (6-12) giving the main idea of the paragraph.
3) You can then read the remaining paragraphs at closer to your normal speed since
you will begin to understand the subject matter. Again, do not move on until you
know the main idea of each paragraph.
Taking Notes: Try writing a few words about each paragraph. I have found that
writing no more than 6 -12 words about each paragraph can be very helpful.
Remember only write the main idea of each paragraph. Do not try to take enough
notes to answer specific questions. You must return to the actual text for these. The
only goals for your notes are to help you identify the paragraph to return to for rereading and to provide the answer to a main idea question.
Techniques
Process of Elimination – About 1/6 of the total
Use this technique on all Universal questions.
With some GMAT questions, such as primary purpose questions, the answer is based on
your knowledge of the entire passage. For these questions the best technique is to use
your knowledge of the passage to eliminate answer choices.

Must use process of Elimination! Like Sentence Correction do not settle on one
choice rather rule out the other four.

Tip: For the Main Idea questions look to the first sentence of the passage, as well
as the entire last paragraph.
Copyright 2010 David Newland
Re-read the Text; Find the Paraphrase – About 1/2 of the total
Use on all specific questions and on many inference questions (those that provide
enough info. in the question stem to know which portion of the text to re-read).
With most reading comprehension questions the correct answers are in the text itself. The
proper way to approach these questions is to find the right portion of the text and re-read
that portion thereby finding the answer. The key is to know which paragraph contains the
information that answers the question.

The question stem will be a paraphrase of a certain portion of the text. The answer
choice will then be a paraphrase of the adjacent text.

Do not use process of elimination as the primary means to solve these
questions. Process of elimination will often give you the wrong answer. Rather,
as in problem solving on the quantitative side, you should have an idea of what
the answer is and simply find the correct answer choice.
The EXCEPTION is Exception questions (8/ 139 12th edition so less than 10%):
These questions will say, “All of the following Except:”
 For these questions find the WRONG answers in the text and eliminate them.
 You are then left with the right answer
 Do not try to prove that a particular term is missing, this is hard to do, much
easier to find the ones that are there: The wrong ones.
Combination of Techniques – About 1/3 of the total
Re-read, then eliminate
Function and Other Critical Reasoning and Next Step
For Function and Other Critical Reasoning questions, the best approach is to re-read the
paragraph or sentence indicated and then use process of elimination to eliminate the
incorrect answers. Unlike specific questions, the correct answer will not be a paraphrase
instead it will be a description of the function or an additional premise.
Eliminate, then re-read
Inference questions with a very general question stem
This technique should be used with those inference questions that do not provide enough
information in the question stem to allow you to focus on a specific paragraph. When the
question stem is very general, such as, “the author would most likely agree with which of
the following?” the answer choices could be from any part of the passage making it
inefficient to try to re-read and paraphrase. Instead, use process of elimination first and
eliminate those answers that you know are false. Hopefully you will be left with just one
answer. If you are left with two or, at most, three possible answers, return to the text
using the remaining possible answers as a guide to what parts of the text you should reread.
Copyright 2010 David Newland