How to Solve Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning. In addition, RCs are aimed at testing a candidates knowledge of two elements i.e. Vocabulary and Text Comprehension.

The most common method is: -

First read the entire passage and then answer the questions that follow.   

Instead of reading the entire passage, read critically the first and last paragraph. 

Whenever a question is asked on a phrase given in the passage, just read the three lines above and below that phrase to frame your answer.

Generally, there are two ways to solve the unseen passages: -

1. PQ Approach (Passage first and Questions next)

         (i)         Read the entire passage thoroughly first and then  
                      read the questions.

        (ii)        Skim & Scan through the passage and keep         
                     going back and forth with questions and passage

       (iii)        Read the first two paragraphs, scan all the questions
                     and see which questions have their answers there,      
                     then read paragraph three and four, scan the questions
                     and see which other questions can be answered, then
                     read paragraph five and six.

2. QP approach (Questions first and Passage next)

         (i)         Read all the questions with the answer options first
                     and then read the passage

        (ii)        Read question one with all the options, then go
                     through the entire passage to look for its answer.  
                     Then read the second question, again go through the 
                     entire passage to for its answer. Then question three 
                     and so on and so forth.

       (iii)        Just read all questions. Don’t look at the options. 
                     Now, read the passage and try answering the questions              by reading the question with its options.

Remember:

1. Eliminate and not select: In most cases, elimination of choices works better than selection of choices. Here is an approach to eliminate. Eliminate choices that are too broad, too narrow, that are not known to you and too extreme.

2. Never apply your own knowledge to the given passage. Keep your understanding limited to the given passage only.