Introduction to Reading Comprehension Strategies

The reading-comprehension questions do a fine job at testing (surprise!) your reading comprehension. Bear in mind that the texts are often discussions of ideas. Theories, predictions, approaches, systems, or categories may be contrasted in order to show

• how one is better than the other,

• how they may be reconciled, or

• how a third addresses the conflict between two.

Alternatively, the article may indicate that there is not enough information to resolve the conflict. To answer the questions correctly, you must fully understand the ideas presented and the relationships between them. Key words that signal a major idea include maintain, claim, propose, suggest, argue, theorize, hypothesize, think, believe, according to, hold, offer and predict.

Your goal while preparing for the exam should be to become a reader focused enough and fast enough to read through the whole text and record the main ideas and texts structure. Even in a worst-case scenario in which you are behind, you need to extract the ideas presented from supporting content; the latter you may read more lightly and quickly, but you can never gloss over a main idea.

Here are the steps to extracting the main ideas presented and determining how they relate to each other:

1. Read the first paragraph carefully to get comfortable and familiar with the subject matter and fully process the first main idea presented. You cannot move forward or read strategically without understanding what you are reading, so you have to start on stable turf.

Note: If you did not understand fully understand the idea presented in the opening paragraph, do not move forward! Reread the idea until you comprehend it. Reading more does not result in comprehension. Reading better does.

2. Move on to the next main idea, which is often located toward the beginning of the next paragraph. Make a note of how the second idea relates to the preceding idea. As you continue to read note the purpose of the subsequent sentences: do they elaborate on an idea? Provide an example? Give an explanation? Suggest a counter-explanation? Offer an objection? Your goal is to understand where information is located and what its purpose is.

3. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

Note: Take notes that help process main ideas and their relationships, but do not try to summarize the entire text. Your notes should not exceed three or four sentences / diagrams.

Major Question Types and Strategies:

Question Type: Detail Question
Strategy: Paraphrase the question to yourself before paraphrasing the information in the text that pertains to the specific detail about which the question asks.

Question Type: Purpose Question
Strategy: Identify the relationship between the information cited and the idea that immediately precedes it.

Question Type: Main Idea/Purpose/Structure Question
Strategy: Decide on the topic covered by at least two thirds of the text. Information from just one or two sentences is not a main idea or purpose.

Question Type: Inference Question
Strategy: Use key word/s from the question to locate the information about which the question asks. Then paraphrase to yourself the relevant information presented in the text.

 Further suggestions:

1. Study vocabulary words (particularly verbs and descriptive words) that were new to you.

2. If a text was especially challenging, search for the key words or word roots (e.g., solar/lunar/ocean/civil rights/geo/neuro/small business/minority/etc.) in relevant sites, such as sciam.com or nationalgeographic.com. You can also search for these words and roots in online forums. Read several articles on the same topic to familiarize yourself with a particular pool of vocabulary and obtain a knowledge base that you lack.

3. Regardless of whether there are four paragraphs or one, understand the main ideas and distinguish them from details and explanations.

4. The biggest mistake you can make is to think that if you just read more, you'll understand better.  If you read a sentence and either blanked-out or just did not understand what was written, do not read further in the hopes that the ensuing context will clarify for you the sentence that did not sink in.  If you do not have a good grip on a sentence, read it again.  In other words, do not move forward in a text until you already have something in your pocket.  Otherwise you will end up digging yourself into a hole, piling information you did not fully grasp onto more information that you did not fully grasp.