How to CRUSH Reading Comprehension: 3 Effective Strategies to Ace RC [+worked example!]
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2019
- The first thing you must know about reading comprehension is that the real battle starts in your mind. Well, as someone fortunate enough to have gotten the perfect score in Verbal for both the GRE and the GMAT, I have three simple methods for getting around this problem.
I offer private RC / GRE / GMAT tutoring online at a fixed rate of $140/hr. Please get in touch via the email below, or through my tutoring website: www.gretutorlondon.com/
Enquiries: philip@gretutorlondon.com
My advice is different from what I have seen elsewhere, and the second and third methods might be a little controversial, but what can I say? They have worked perfectly for me.
First things first, you have to dismiss the negative thoughts immediately if you want to really succeed on reading comprehension and understand passages more intuitively.
If your brain suspects that you hate the text you are looking at and regard the information as useless, it will skim over the information and delete most of it before it can be stored in memory.
That is why you can come to the end of a passage and feel like you haven’t remembered anything.
Has that happened to you?
So many students have said this to me over the years and asked me how I can ace so many ‘boring’ passages, science passages, or history texts.
The truth is that you must convince yourself that the passages are not boring. When that thought comes into your brain intercept it and say ‘NO! I really want to learn about this topic so I can be an informed person. Forget the exam, I actually want to know.’
The same applies for reading articles, essays and books in real life.
Reading is not a chore, it is an opportunity to learn something new, maybe something that can change your perspective on life.
If I trace back the origin of many of the key turning points in my life, I can usually find an article, an essay or a book.
So, you are not lying to your brain when you say ‘this text could be really important.’
For exams, use your imagination to make the words stick. Create dialogue in your head to help yourself stay interested. Things like ‘Oh wow, I never knew that’ or ‘That’s so weird, who knew?’.
Yes, it does sound kind of crazy, but it really works.
This encourages your brain to retain the information. I will do a full example at the end of the video to demonstrate the technique.
A fancy way of naming this technique is to call it critical engagement with the text. Argue with what’s being said, agree with it, disagree with it, reply to it and predict where it is going.
All of this counts as critical engagement, and all of it helps your brain to digest the information into memory.
2. Read more slowly. More slowly than you read Twitter, WhatApp messages or RUclips comments.
Read … at … a … calm … and … careful … speed.
I sometimes say to students that I aim to be the slowest person in the room to read the passage and the fastest person to answer the questions. People ask me whether you should read the question first or the passage but I have done both and I don’t think it matters much. How deliberately you read is much more important.
In Reading Comprehension tests, the brain takes time to process unfamiliar nouns, so especially slow down when you get to the denser portions of the text.
I also don’t take notes, which saves some time. I know some students do, and other organisations recommend it, but I feel the passages are short enough that if I read slowly, I retain the core ideas in my head.
Writing often takes a fair bit of time and people rarely look back at their notes. If it works for you and you can do it within the time allowed, awesome.
For those for whom English is not a first language, reading slower may mean saving time elsewhere in the Verbal exam, such as guessing the hardest Sentence Equivalence or Sentence Correction sections. But answering most passages thoughtfully is more important than answering all of them badly.
Method 3. Stop and summarise. If you can’t quickly summarise the sentence you have just read, you haven’t really understood it. That’s why I always stop at the end of every sentence or two and ask myself if I understand what’s going on. If not, I re-read.
For tests, the creators of the question know which sentences are most confusing, and often test topics discussed in those sentences.
Yes, it takes time, but this is time we can buy back by answering the questions more confidently.
Some of you are probably thinking ‘but what if I just can’t understand a sentence, even with re-reading?’.
This could be because the syntax, or structure, of the sentence is just super-baffling or badly written,
or because you don’t understand a keyword or two.
I offer private GRE / GMAT tutoring online at a fixed rate of $140/hr. Please get in touch via the email below, or through my tutoring website: www.gretutorlondon.com/
Enquiries: philip@gretutorlondon.com
Literally baffled by how well this has worked for me, especially the advice regarding reading the passage slowly and comprehending it as i progress. Took a 6 question test in RC right after this, applying every advice with the addition of POE (Process of Elimination), got a perfect 6 in about 8 minutes. Although they were medium difficulty questions, Iam gonna ride this wave to a 320+ GRE score. Highly appreciate what you are doing here, carefully dissecting each conspicuous problem and coming up with ingenuous solutions.
It is effective! Thank you for the comment and keep riding the wave across both Quant and Verbal!
Ingenious you mean!
well I did pretty much the same on a test. And it works for me as well. I have no idea what kinda sorcery is this ?
Also did you mean ingenious ?
@@lancelotvictor6013 your sharp!
@@afropunk9141 you're you mean
"Slowest to read, fastest to answer" was exactly what I needed to hear out loud! This was stupendous! 👌
Haha
ya true
I’m a 9th grader and I watched this on the bus to school to take my Language Arts Final Exam. I am done with the exam now and I got 100 for the first time everrr,🎉🎉
Nice!
Omg congratulations 🎉👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 how exciting. You will go very far in life
It has taken me 38 years to admit that I needed this video
And that's perfectly okay! We're all at different paces and end up in similar places. I'm turning 27 and have struggled my whole life academically because of reading comprehension that was never caught by my teachers.
"Slowest to read, Fastest to answer" is probably my go-to strategy from now on. Works like a charm.
Those who ask "Should I read the question first or the passage?".
My advice is - read the passage first.
Why? Because if you read the question you will be focusing on finding the answer within the package throughout your read. The problem with that is that you will not be focusing on the passage itself, just on finding that one specific answer. Your brain will be not be retaining all details from the package, just the details specific to that one question... Yes this may help you increase your chances of answering ONE question correctly, but in my opinion it is not a viable strategy to answer ALL questions.
Great advice.
Thank you so much. This is the answer to my question.
immagine how long he had to write this
@@newnini8389 OMG LOL!!!!!
what about skimming the passage first, and then moving on to questions before reading the passage carefully?
Just gave my GRE and scored 156 in Verbal. Thanks to your RC and paragraph argument videos, I went from 148 in my first mock to 156 in the main exam! Thank you for explaining the concepts so well :)
I am so happy and proud Garima!
I have just started preparing myself up for GRE exam, this is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you so much for bringing video.
Solid advice. I've gone through many of your videos and they have always enriched my preparation in significant leaps. Thanks for putting out your work.
This video never gets old for me. Am always getting back to it to boost myself before I do a reading passage. Still working on the same strategies for abstract passages. It's kinda hard for me to be interested in passages that revolve around very abstract jargon.
I was scoring so low and then I saw your video and I improved so much!! Seriously this was very helpful
"Slowest to read, Fastest to answer" is exactly what I wanted. I got 9/11 questions correct. Thank you so much. Keep rocking
Well done Sujitha!
@@TheTestedTutor bro i have an gre exam on march 3rd week......date hasn't finalized......i am scoring only 5 marks out of 40 in verbal........please help to score atleast 20 marks in verbal session......i will be waiting for your help
@@manoharreddyalla7371 How much did you score ?
that’s a very tragic score
@@manoharreddyalla7371 bro did you manage?
Man you are a real saviour!! You are such a profound tutor who gives us canny insights and makes cumbersome tasks rudimentary!! You are a real saviour
I just want to say thank you; your videos help me get a decent score. Your reading comp strategy will help me tremendously in grad school for the mountain high list of readings I'll have to do in grad school.
Thank You, You have helped me alot as a 6th grader and because we have a cold read and the highest grade in my class was a C and I wasn't there for it. So thank you.
Wow! Just worked for me magically! It takes me only a small portion of time I actually used to spend re-reading the passage. To add to that, answering questions is now significantly easier!!!!
I liked how you addressed mindset! It's so important in accomplishing anything well. Thank you.
Enjoy Verbal and you are half there -
1. 'We learn from everything - wow! this is interesting' mindset.
2. Read calmly and carefully
3. Summarize sentences
Hey,
I'm truly glad that I came across this video while preparing for GRE. The usual advice given by many other coaching institutes to skim through the passage, reading the questions first, never truly helps in improving the score! However, everything you said I believe was out of the experience, which is why it worked great for me too! I would get confused when a single passage contained controversial ideas in different paragraphs. However, by summarizing each and every passage, it became clearer to me!
Thank you again for this wonderful video!
Regards from India.
Thanks , I got straight 5/5 in the rc I solved after watching this. Thanks again.
By far the most detailed, precise, relatable and legitimate video on GRE RCs. Wish I'd come across your channel earlier.
I took your advice on being excited to read and taking my time, summarizing each sentence, and boy i tell ya, i took a practice test and got every answer from one passage correct. It made me feel so good. Thanks so much! Going to continue to approach it in that way.
Amazing to hear Jazzlin!
Some of the best advice I have heard on Reading Comprehension. Thank you so much!
This approach does makes sense, tutors asking us to skim the passage and use it as a strategy doesn’t work initially, it develops through the process. Thank you for making this video:)
Great advice. It pays to always take the advise of experts, like those who score GRE 339 and 340, I subscribed to Gregmat channel as well. Great work man & keep up the good work.
This is my first video by this guy and absolutely fell in love with this channel.
Hey thank you so much for this technique. What I’ve noticed is what works best for you is what only you can decide. I tried this method and after doing a few passages I understood this technique works best for if the passage is small or a critical reasoning question because there are many subtleties hidden in such passages. And when I scan and read I get the medium and long passages correct. So I guess the best way to decide is to practice properly and see which one is comfortable. And the best part about learning two strategies is you always apply either one if one fails. So practice guys that’s the only way 💯
Came back to this video, just to say how much this helped me. I used to struggle at RC and always used to chase time, but after this I went slow, took few days and now am much confident than before. Thanks for everything!
Glad it helped Tapori!
I'm almost 27 and struggled to get my bachelors degree until this upcoming month because of reading comprehension issues. Thank you for this video. I've resonated with your tips from previous experience of learning how to cope and will take the new information and apply it to the remainder of the semester for my final exams.
Glad they resonated solitude.
I am looking forward to applying these techniques to my personal reading. Thank you for these suggestions.
i dont usually comment on youtube videos but man ! you just changed the game. I thank my lucky stars i found this video. RC was really hampering my verbal score. This video is the ray of hope i needed. Thank you so much
Thanks so much Sayuj
This really helped me to remember how I did well on the writing portion and reading portion of the ACT. Thanks!
Stupefied by how well this worked for me. Thanks a ton!!
"I must warn you that my advice might be different from you'd read elsewhere",... GOOD. Nothing I've read elsewhere works longterm, and not for all subjects.
Haha hope it helps
This is great advice for the LSAT as well! The RC section is notoriously difficult to improve in. In my experience, your advice, these understated fundamentals, can really take you far. I tried various different methods to approach RC, and this method works by far the best for me.
Awesome!
Wow!...your method is absolutely working for me. Before watching your video i could not answer the GMAT RC questions in a proper way. I used to read the passage and did not understand a word after reading it quickly. After learning from your video, there is drastic change. I read the passage in the ways you mentioned....IT WORKED!!!....thank you very much!!!...
This video made me fall in love with this man... anyone else? No? Just me? Alright 😂😂😂
Too kind, Cassie :)
Having exam in three days , just watching ur videos , they are helping me a lot
I really liked the way you taught the lesson it was insightful, especially the tips on how to
1) Deal with the negative mindset of the reading.
2) And how to get through the reading comprehension understanding and gathering in chunks with out just skimming.
Finally great advice, I always use to think about why people are advising on speed reading and skimming. Our main job is not to read the passage fast but to answer questions correctly on time.
Exactly!
Woo hoo! I score much higher in Verbal than on Quant in the GMAT, so I have not been spending so much time practicing verbal even though there are some more points I could score there. This is such a helpful perspective on absorbing information not just to take a test, but to be fully present and process all the lessons life has to give us. I practiced on two hard Reading Comprehension passages after watching this video, and got 5/6 correct-- and then understood why I got the one wrong (surprise: I rushed, even when I was trying to take my time!) Thanks for the really practical advice here.
Well done Chandler. I agree. Good luck in the future
I have never been great at reading comprehension. After watching this and applying these strategies, I am doing a lot better now. Thank you for this video!
Great job Rex!
Thanks, man! I liked your style of doing the video - it felt quite candid and, yet, professional enough.
You have done your explanation so sincerely clear that sparked my brain to continue reading even though I am a slow reader. Thank you so much. From Canada with love and respect 🙏
I really appreciate this advise. There are some key character attributes to take away for myself. I need to approach reading with more excitement, be patient, calm, and engaged with the content. I've often assumed I understood something instead of summarizing between reading passages.. I really enjoy doing math a lot more and I can see that almost all these characteristics I lack(had lacked :)..) while reading English, I possess while doing Math. Reading Math questions and text, I automatically feel exited and engaged. I see the pictures forming in my mind, and I play with the ideas and discover.. I would say more but my wife is intruding now.. THANKS!
Thanks boss. I saw this video a day before my gre and it really helped me a lot. 🙏🏼
I really needed this video for my sociology reading but I’ll be using these techniques for the LSAT! Thanks 🙏🏼!!
I have enjoyed this video. I have always struggled with comprehension an I always thought as a child if you read fast it means you are a good reader. So thank you for saying reading slower will have you attain what you read.
When I am watching this video, you already have 544 who subscribed to your channel. Congratulations! I am usually good at reading comprehension, so I agree with you about your strategy. Your suggestions reminds me of another great teacher's teacher on setting up for LSAT logic game. When you take the time to understand /setting up, it saves you time and effort trying to answer your questions correctly.
Thank you JisforJoy. I agree completely. Do you have any new video suggestions?
@@TheTestedTutor Wow, your video popped up on my feed 3 years later. Congratulations on having so many subscribers now! Right before I watched you again, I just watched a video on LSAT reading. I read the LSAT essay once with comfortable pace and answered all three questions correctly from memory. So again I do read like you when it comes to tests. But LSAT essays are much longer and more difficult, if I read them at my comfortable speed, I won't be able to finish them. I'm thinking of start reading more. What else could you suggest on improving my reading speed? BTW, I self studied GMAT for 3 weeks a few years ago and scored 97%, so I had no problem with GMAT reading comprehension.
@@jisforjoy3314 what do you mean by LSAT
@@ryankoech Law School Admission Test
Incredible video, using this to get advice for my reading comprehension exam and it has helped tremendously
This gave me tons of confidence, thank you so much.
Excellent!
Most helpful video on reading comprehension for me so far!! Love his approach.
Thanks Patti!
a perfect teacher in the world.
Thank you so. MUCH! I am taking a high school test in a few months and this really boosted me.
Nice Sophia!
im preparing to take the shsat exam, and i struggle majorly on the reading comprehension questions, this was a wonderful video
Thank you!! :) You gave me the required confidence.
And thank you for the comment! :)
WoW!, it's working. Thank you so much, Tutor. This is far better than paid version.
Tysm! I've watched this video twice and it's made me get better
These tips are very helpful. Every test takers should know this. Thank you
Make a video about precise, please. You're the best and you've explained everything in detail. Thank you !!
Great content! The advice is simple and straightforward but really works if you are struggling with reading compeprehension.
This video is awesome bro! Going into my Grade 12 Diploma exam tomorrow (kind of like the reading comp part of the GRE except I'm from canada), and I've never felt more ready for a reading comp! Thank you very much for all the advice, Slowest to Read, Fastest to Answer is such a good strategy!!!!
Perrfect advice man! All this time I was worried about finishing first in my class but now I’m great !!
Thank you so so much for your help !!! You really changed the game ! All love from Saudi Arabia
Thank you so much Al!!
this video helped me lot to think from different perspective & deal with the complicated thing.Thank you,Brother..
This was a good view. I loved how you detailed reading slowly and answering quickly. Plus, your method does help. Engaging with the text helps you retain and recall more. Thank you.
I’m only ten but this really helped me out! I only got around 4/10 last time and now I can get 8/10 thank you so much!!
This actually made me Lol. love it! I will apply these strategies in my exam tomorrow!! Thanks for a great and engaging video!
Glad it was helpful!
This was a brilliant video sir. Gave me a lot of clarity .
Thank you sir! I never quite thought of this like that. Thanks for the information. Wish me luck.
Saw this video today , I was searching for something which can help me out to ace RCs in my exam (CLAT) it has more LSAT like composure . Spent good 20 minutes In understanding what you said . After that I attempted 10 RCs in a row and was perplexed to see how this worked out for me and time was also managed good . I took 32 minutes and I usually take this much or sometimes even more than that , but the thing which made me amazed was accuracy and I was able to grasp every thing which passage was trying to say . Thankyou very much , a good tutor , a good technique , follow religiously and you are gonna do good .
"Slowest in room to read and fastest to answer "....🔥
So glad it helped! It really works for me too...
Man thank you soo much!! You have no ideia how you helped me!!! Love your videos!!! Love from Austria
It is very helpful when we can see the entire text of what you are talking about👍
Thanks Daniel!
Thank you for your pragmatic ideas. It really helped me alot.
Your video is one of the most helpful that I have thus far encountered. Thank you very much. I am studying for the FL Teaching GK Exam (again).
You're very welcome!
Thank you! I'm studying for the SAT and I will aplly your tips on my study. I am Brazilian and now you got one more subscription
Awesome! Thank you!
This video is one of the best tips I have received thus far. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful Aya!
Omg your words works like magic!
changed my insight on reding composition totally
i totally agree with method 2...it works a lot
Sir you are just Awesome
Lots of love from India......
I have negative thoughts when it comes to reading comprehension perhaps you are correct I sure will implement this tomorrow, thank you.🙇
I am so lucky to come across your videos.. Thank you!
Welcome!
Thank you soo much, I am having my comprehension+vocab end of term exam tomorrow and I got to admit, I really needed that
Glad I could help Malek!
I'm watching this at night the day before the HSPT, because I've always been much less proficient in reading comprehension than in any other subject. I will use these strategies tomorrows, and come back later when I get my score.
Excellent start!
I came across your video and I’m glad I found it. I have a really hard time reading. I am trying to join the police and the written exam is what worries me. I’ve never really been a fan of reading and the vocabulary words I’m. We pjs for that too. I appreciate your video and I have started to have a different look on reading to see if this will help me out.
Thank you for your advice. I will be applying this to the accuplacer test. For the first time I dont feel so discouraged.
I watched this video twice! Thanks for the tips. Taking the exam tmr and I feel (almost) fully prepared ! Thank you ❕
Hope it went well Sojeong!
I learned in my late twenties that i struggle with this. I don’t like how it makes me feel and I know that I have to conquer it. I have to take two writing intensive courses and I’m kind of dreading it. I suck at writing and I don’t really care to read because I feel like I’m not comprehending anything that I’m looking at. I will try your approach and see how well I do. Thank you for amazing advice. 🙏🏽
This is a well thought out video. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it Alice!
wow really helped me to even motivate to read those texts
Wow! Thank you for this. This is really really helpful.
Wow! This was an amazing learning video! When I had attempted an RC before I was about to start the prep, I scored a low 1-2 correct out of 5-6 but as you were guiding through while reading the RC it felt waaayyyyyy more EASIER than what I was doing!
If you'll drop a few more of these RCs for us it would be really helpful.
Overall video :- 10/10 :D
Thanks Aditya!
You are a great teacher ❤
thanks so much, this is so helpful I keep returning to rewatch this video
Great to hear Imade!
You are really effective, after watching your videos I'm 2x interested in learning more thank you so much
Thanks so much Rajat. I just made a new RC video for you!
Surely sir 🙏
Thank you so much! This helped me a lot!
thank you so much for these amazing strategies and positive mindset !!! such a refreshing video for all of us
grade 12 English final today watched ur video, I hope I get that 💯
谢谢你的阅读技巧,无论是先读文章还是先读问题,但是读的时候要敞开心扉,积极吸收文章的观点,非常感谢您