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READINGCOMPREHENSION

IntroductionFeared by students more than Mondays, Reading comprehension is a test of

your ability to read and understand unfamiliar materials and to answer

questions about them. In reading comprehension, you will be given a

passage (or let us say a set of passages) to read, which will be like an excerpt

from a serious discussion of a topic from the natural sciences, the social

sciences, or a businessrelated field. Youll then have to answer a group of

questions about the passage, testing how well youve understood its content.

So far so good!

Reading Comprehension (RC) makes one of the major testareas in almost all

entrance tests. In the CAT the weightage RC is roughly 50% of the Verbal

Ability section. Even in the English Usage Section, more than half the

questions (for example, theme based questions) can be solved fast and

correctly only if one is good at RC. The weightage and the toughness level of

RC vary from test to test. RC in the CAT is the stiffest ordeal. Earlier there

generally were 5 6 passages with the average length of a passage being 600800 words. Now the number of passages has come down to four, but the

passages are abstract and most of the questions are inference based. Also the

passages are from very diverse fields of interest. It is generally seen that

students who are voracious readers (fiction/non fiction/general/specific

etc.) always have an edge over others who are not given to extensive

reading.

Why this Ordeal of Reading Comprehension in CAT?Reading comprehension, as they say, is designed to measure your ability to

handle the varied kinds of sophisticated, complex, and subtle reading that

graduate business students are called upon to do. You wont right now

believe the amount of material you would have to go through as a manager.

Reading Comprehension prepares you for just that. But work is work! To top it

all, in order to answer the questions its not enough to understand the basic

facts presented in the passage; you also need to notice the more elusive

inferences in the passage (that is, ideas that are suggested rather than directly

stated) as well as the form, structure, and style of the passage (that is, how

the author has chosen to present his/her ideas).

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Reading Practice

You are not expected to use any information other than the ideas explicit or

implicit of the passage. You should confine yourself only to the passage. In

the long run, the best approach would be to read books widely and

extensively and articles of all kinds. Reading the editorials in standard

newspapers will be of good support. Speed, stamina and the power to

comprehend the printed word will consequently improve.

READ, READ & READ!!!!

You will have to develop the skill to read the passage fast and with

concentration so as to intuitively spot the main theme or thrust of the

passage, supporting facts and arguments. This can come only with a good

knowledge of English, and a critical approach with sustained practice. While

examining the answer choices, you will have to pay attention to the language

as well as their import.

The Purpose of Reading: The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas in

the passage to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a

subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into

your hand. You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers:

7516324 This is hard to read and remember.

7516324 This is easier because of chunking.

1234567 This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and

structure.

Similarly, if you like sport, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a

framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information.

NittyGritties of Reading ComprehensionThere are three elements of Reading Comprehension to be considered:

(A) Comprehension or Understanding

(B) Speed

(C) Application/Correlation

Key Point: Good reading means building frameworks for connecting

words to thoughts.

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Improving ComprehensionTry talking to a person who is relatively good at RC. More often than not it

will turn out that s/he has been fond of reading and has possibly read

hundreds of good books other than the normally prescribed text books for

routine studies. Avid readers invariably turn out to be inherently good at

cracking RC this applies even to those that might have been reading

basically fiction. What could explain this? The most likely reasons are that

such persons are not put off by lengthy and even abstract reading, have

better and longer concentration and have also learnt to read speedily with

good retention. Besides the general awareness level of such persons is also

higher as they have gained a lot of awareness through reading.

You can also increase our comprehension, retention and speed the same way.

Diversified reading, i.e. reading of diversified topics will help you in at least

three ways

It will improve your RC as stated and also increase your comfort

level with different RC topics.

It will improve your vocabulary, as different subjects use different

vocabulary

It will enrich your oral and written expression through the

storehouse of ideas gained through such reading.

Quite an arduous task but that is the way it goes!!! And it is never too late to

get started.

Sticking to the Purpose of ReadingAnother point to be kept in mind is that the reading of an RC passage is for aspecific purpose that is to answer the questions correctly. When you go

through an RC passage, you have to keep two things in mind, viz. the main

point of discussion (what the author is driving at) and any ancillary

information that will help answer specific questions. So within the limited

time available, you ought to be looking for the grain rather than the chaff.

Half the passage or more may be irrelevant for your purpose. If you cannot

skip it totally, try to speed through it with minimum fuss.

Key Point: Please do not try to enjoy a passage or gain knowledge out ofit in an exam. You have the rest of your lives to do that and there are

better ways of committing suicide.

Toolkit

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Use a combination of all these points to choose the passage(s) for

yourself.

4. Should we attempt all the passages/all the questions?Related with the above question is a set of others. Should weattempt?All Questions of All the Passages (AQAP)

All Questions of Some Passages (AQSP)

Some Questions of All Passages (SQAP)

Some Questions of Some Passages (SQSP)

Before we answer this set of questions, we ought to know that CAT is a

Test of accuracy and speed. RCs are essentially time taking. Even after

devoting a lot of time, students are not sure whether they got the right

answers. In any case, time is a precious resource in the CAT

examination. So the students should

attempt all the questions of all the passages (AQAP) only where

they find Easy Passages Easy Questions (EPEQ)

attempt some questions of all/some passages, where they find

Easy Passages Difficult Questions (EPDQ)

attempt all questions of some (easy) passages (AQSP) if they face

an odd very difficult passage

5. Should we read the passage first or the other wayround?Ways to Tackle the Questions.

I. Reading pattern passage followed by questions: Reading the passage

first and then attacking the questions.

PassageQuestions

Tips & Traps:

Sometimes in the process, you might spend a lot of time

comprehending those parts of passage which arent important i.e. on

which no questions are asked so beware.

II. Questions followed by passage: Reading the questions followed by

reading the passage.

Questions Passage

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Tips & Traps:

The pitfall here might be that you read Q1 and look for the answer in

the passage. Then you read Q2 and search for its answer and so on.

Very human to do so! So, for 6 questions you might end up reading the

passage at least 4 times if not more. This means wastage of time.

III. Passage and Questions simultaneously

Reading two paragraphs and attempting the questions pertaining to

them and so on.

PassageQuestions

Tips & Traps:

This may not lead you anywhere.

IV So, a little safer strategy is.

Question stems

Passage Reading

Question solving

The above strategy works!

P.S.: Attempting a passage is a very relative process. Therefore, try

working on all these strategies and see what suits you the best.

6. Should we underline while we read?Although we advise students to avoid use of a pen or pencil that runs

alongside words, for it hinders speed, a pen/pencil is handy for

marking the important points in the passage. While the students areskimming the passage, they should make it a point to underline if and

when they come across any phrase/point that they consider very

important. This is true particularly where the students have gone

through the questions and have a fair idea of what is required of them.

Later on, while answering the questions, the students will not need to

go through the detail, and can the required information from the

underlined part(s) only.

A word of caution! Care should be taken to avoid underlining each

and everything in the passage. Everything important means nothing is

important. As a thumb rule, the number of words underlined should

never exceed 5% of the total number of words in the passage. Also

what are to be underlined are the ideas in the form of short phrases,

not the detailed statements.

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7. When do we know that we have the right answer?The Best Strategy is to arrive at the correct answer through a Process

of Elimination (POE) of the wrong answers based on the traps that the

examiner has set for you.

8. Can we answer the questions based on our priorknowledge of the topic?Strictly,NO. Prior knowledge may help you to get a grip of the topic.

But this should not come in way of the requirement to answer the

questions based entirely on the information furnished in the passage.

Be sure to work within the context of the passage. Your own views or

opinions may sometimes conflict with the views expressed in the

passage.

However, you will often be able to eliminate some of the answer

choices simply on the basis of commonsense, which you will be called

upon to use in ample measure.

TIP

A number of different reading strategies are tested by multiplechoice

questions. Some are straightforward comprehension questions where you

are expected to identify stated information. Others require you to read

between the lines and infer the writers meaning, which may be expressed

indirectly. Yet others ask you to identify and interpret opinions and thewriters attitude. The final questions in the series are often designed to test

understanding of overall meaning.

The multiplechoice question may therefore be more complex than it appears

and in all cases requires a close reading of the text. The incorrect options or

distracters in the multiplechoice question can be of several types.

untrue or contrary to what is stated in the text

not mentioned in the text (although they may be true)

only partially true

true but irrelevant to the question

The correct option will be the only one which is entirely true for a given text

and relevant to the question.