About gmat exam 7 pps

Write down the main idea of each paragraph in the text so you can form a rough outline of the passage.. Notes on the utilitarianism passage from the pretest, for example, might look like

In business school, you will be expected to read quite a lot—and much of what you read will be quite sophis-ticated But the skills you need to comprehend these texts are the same skills you have been using for years This section will review those essential reading comprehension skills and discuss how you can apply them to the GMAT® Verbal section

 A c t i v e R e a d i n g

Strong reading skills begin with how you read People often think that reading is a passive activity—after all,

you are just sitting there, looking at words on a page But reading should actually be a highly active exercise

in which you interact with the text Whenever you read—for the GMAT exam, for class, or for pleasure—these

active reading strategies can dramatically increase your comprehension of texts

Preview and Review

Although it only takes a few seconds to preview a reading-comprehension passage, it can make a tremendous

difference in how much you understand from the text Before you begin reading, quickly scan the text As you

C H A P T E R

Reading Comprehension

5

Learn a Word a Day

Want to build your vocabulary? Try setting your Internet browser homepage to one of these word-a-day websites:

• www.mywordaday.com

• www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/

• www.oed.com/cgi/display/wotd

• www.nytimes.com/learning/students/wordofday/

• www.wordsmith.org/awad

skim through the passage, you will see how the text is broken up and get a sense of what the passage is about You will get a feel for how the writer has organized his or her ideas and the main point that will be developed

in the text You will notice key words and ideas, especially those that are boldfaced, bulleted, boxed, or oth-erwise highlighted in the text

Previewing works by planting context and comprehension clues in your mind If you have a rough sense

of what is ahead, you will be more prepared to absorb and understand the text when you return for a more careful read The same principle is true for just about any discipline or skill If you know what to expect, you will be more comfortable and alert when you take on that task—and that means you will perform it better When you finish a careful reading, quickly skim through the text once more This review will help you get a better sense of the whole—the controlling idea of the passage, the overall organization, and the con-nections between ideas in the text You can see the emphasis of the passage and the writer’s tone A quick review will also help you better understand and remember key terms and ideas in the text

Expand Your Vocabulary

Although the GMAT exam does not directly test your vocabulary, it does use texts that include sophisticated

terms Thus, the stronger your command of English words, the easier it will be to comprehend what you read After all, you need to know what all the words in a sentence mean to fully understand what someone is say-ing, and understanding a key word or phrase can change your understanding of a whole passage

One of the best ways to build your vocabulary is to always look up words you do not know Whenever

possible, have a dictionary with you when you read Circle and look up any unfamiliar words right away (Cir-cling them makes them easier to find if you lose your place.) Write the meaning of the word in the margin

so you will not have to look up the meaning again if you forget it; it will always be there for you to refer to

If you do not own the book, write the vocabulary word and its definition in a notebook Keep your own vocabulary log and review it periodically to seal those words and their meanings in your memory

If you do not have a dictionary with you, try to figure out what the word means from its context What

clues does the author provide in the sentence and surrounding sentences? At a minimum, you should usually

be able to determine whether the word is positive or negative (For example, in the sentence The negotiations

were stymied by the union’s refusal to consider an alternate benefits package, you can tell that stymie is not a good

thing, even if you do not know exactly what the word means.) Mark the page or write down the word some-where so you can look it up later See how closely you were able to guess its meaning The more you practice determining meaning from the context, the more accurately you will be able to guess at those meanings and understand material at test time

Mark Up the Text

As you read, mark up the text (or notepaper if the text does not belong to you) This includes the following three strategies:

■ Highlight or underline key words and ideas

■ Take notes

■ Make notes

See pages 138–139 to review these important active reading strategies

Of course, on the GMAT CAT, you cannot mark up the computer screen, but you can take effective notes

on scratch paper Take notes as you read, marking down key words and ideas as you go Write down the main idea of each paragraph in the text so you can form a rough outline of the passage This will help you see its structure and the relationship of ideas in the essay Notes on the utilitarianism passage from the pretest, for example, might look like the following:

■ Omelas: child sacrificed 4 happiness of others

a few reject this society

■ Utilit’ism: happiness ultimate good

right  greatest happiness 4 greatest #

only consequences matter

■ Probs: happiness subjective, how to measure

people as means to end burden of happiness on few who must suffer

Notice how these notes outline the passage, highlighting the main points of each paragraph This makes

it much easier (and faster) to find the correct answer

As you read passages on the GMAT exam, you can make notes about your own reactions to the text, but

be sure to use these notes only as a means of deepening your understanding of the material On the GMAT exam, the reading comprehension questions are strictly limited to your understanding of the material in the

passage You will not be asked your opinion of the ideas in the text Do not let your personal reaction to the

material influence your answer choice Use only what is written in the passage to determine the correct answer.

For example, if you reacted to the story of Omelas by thinking “I feel sorry for the child, but if no one else suffers, that is a sacrifice worth making,” don’t let your positive view of utilitarianism cloud your

under-standing of the author’s view of utilitarianism The questions are about what the author thinks and conveys

in the passage

– R E A D I N G C O M P R E H E N S I O N –

 F i n d i n g t h e M a i n I d e a

Standardized reading comprehension tests always have questions about the main idea of the passage, and for good reason: The main idea is the key concept or thought that the writer wants to convey in the text

People often confuse the main idea of a passage with its topic, but they are two very different things The topic or subject of a passage is what the passage is about The main idea, on the other hand, is what the writer

wants to say about that subject For example, take a look at this paragraph from the pretest:

Although many social policies and much legislation is founded on this “greatest good”

phi-losophy, there are several problems with utilitarianism as a basis for morality First,

happi-ness is not so easy to quantify, and any measurement is bound to be subjective Second, in a

theory that treats everything except happiness as instrumentally rather than intrinsically valu-able, anything—or, more importantly, anyone—can (and should) be treated as a means to an

end, if it means greater happiness This rejects the notion that human beings have their own intrinsic value Further, utilitarianism puts the burden of the happiness of the masses on the suffering of the few Is the happiness of many worth the suffering of a few? Why do those few deserve to suffer? Isn’t this burden of suffering morally irresponsible? This is the dilemma so brilliantly illustrated in LeGuin’s story

This paragraph is about “problems with utilitarianism,” but that does not adequately convey the main idea.

The main idea must say something more and make a specific assertion about that subject You could say a lot about this topic: “There are not any problems with utilitarianism,” for example, or “The problems with utili-tarianism are an acceptable tradeoff for happiness,” or “The problem with utiliutili-tarianism is its mathematical approach to happiness.” In this paragraph, the writer makes her assertion (the main point) in the first sentence:

Although many social policies and much legislation is founded on this “greatest good”

phi-losophy, there are several problems with utilitarianism as a basis for morality.

A sentence like this—one that clearly expresses the main idea of a paragraph—is the topic sentence A sentence that expresses the main idea of a longer text (an essay) is the thesis statement Of course, main ideas

are not always stated in topic sentences or thesis statements, and in much of what you read, main ideas will

be inferred That scenario will be dealt with in a moment

Whether explicit or implied, a main idea must be sufficiently general to hold together all of the ideas

in the passage Indeed, everything in the passage should work to explain, illustrate, or otherwise support the main idea Thus, you can think of the main ideas as an umbrella that covers (encompasses) all of the other ideas in the passage For example, look at the following choices for the main idea of the utilitarianism paragraph:

a Utilitarianism is problematic because it treats people as a means to an end.

b Utilitarianism requires that a few suffer so that many can be happy.

– R E A D I N G C O M P R E H E N S I O N –

• The topic/subject is what the passage is about.

• The main idea is the overall fact, feeling, or thought a writer wants to convey about his or her subject

Topic vs Main Idea

c Utilitarianism is flawed as a foundation for moral action.

d Utilitarianism is often used to determine social policy.

The only answer that can be correct is c, because it is the only idea that is general enough to hold together all of the information in the paragraph Choices a and b are both too specific to be the main idea;

they are not broad enough to cover all of the ideas in the passage, which discusses three different problems

with utilitarianism, including the problems cited in choices a and b Choice d is a contrasting idea used to

introduce the main idea of the sentence, and how utilitarianism is used to determine social policy is not even

discussed in this paragraph, so the idea expressed in d certainly does not hold together the entire paragraph Only choice c is general enough to cover every sentence in the paragraph It makes a general statement that

all of the sentences in the paragraph work to support

The kind of texts you will see on the GMAT exam—and, in fact, most of the texts you will read in

grad-uate school—will follow this basic pattern of general idea → specific support That is, the writer will state

the main idea he or she wants to convey about the topic and then provide support for that idea, usually in the form of specific facts and details This works on both the paragraph and essay level That is, in an essay, each paragraph should work to support the overall main idea (thesis) of the text But each paragraph should also have its own main idea (in support of the thesis), and each sentence within that paragraph should work

to support that main idea This can be outlined as follows:

Thesis: overall main idea (general assertion about subject)

Paragraph 1

Main idea (general assertion in support of thesis)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)

Paragraph 2

Main idea (general assertion in support of thesis)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)

Supporting sentence (specific fact or detail supporting main idea)