Reading Comprehension

[jlee306]

I am retaking the GRE this Wednesday (the 21st) and I need advice on the reading comprehension portion. I know what you may be thinking: "That is the easiest part of the verbal because the answers are practically given to you." Well, it is not so easy for me. I am a slow reader and I think that maybe I stress out that I am wasting so much time reading that I am not even paying attention to what I am reading. Any tips or advice on how to do well on this section would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you!

[cheesethunder]

i forgot when i took it that there is a highlighting tool. i find the reading comp really hard/ scary. when i wrote the test the 1st time i had 3 reading comp articles for my last sets of questions and i had no time to read/answer them!

when i did it the 2nd time on my scratch paper i wrote the topic, what about the topic it was addressing, and a key point for each paragraph so i could make an easy reference to where each argument was coming from

the hardest questions i thought were the ones that asked you what would the next sentence be for the last question, they all sounded good to me!

[jlee306]

i forgot when i took it that there is a highlighting tool. i find the reading comp really hard/ scary. when i wrote the test the 1st time i had 3 reading comp articles for my last sets of questions and i had no time to read/answer them!

when i did it the 2nd time on my scratch paper i wrote the topic, what about the topic it was addressing, and a key point for each paragraph so i could make an easy reference to where each argument was coming from

the hardest questions i thought were the ones that asked you what would the next sentence be for the last question, they all sounded good to me!

Ohhhh, good tips. I didn't even know about the highlighting thing. That would definatly come in handy! Also, writing the topic and stuff down for each paragraph is also really good advice. Thank you!!

[socialcomm]

Also, just practice as many as you can before test day.

[a fragrant plant]

how to highlight paragraph/sentence during the test?

[jlee306]

Also, just practice as many as you can before test day.

Will do!

[peppermint.beatnik]

The Kaplan test prep method really helped me. Practice (on computer, not paper) helps too.

[pea-jay]

I signed up with 800score.com (it was cheap) and went through their reading comp lessons and found their suggestions kinda unworkable. The suggest way too much writing down as you read and that is time consuming. So for this and the math part I signed up with princeton review online to get a better feel for this section.

As for reading speed, I'm a pretty fast reader but that isnt much better cos i'll miss the teeny tiny details ETS will ask on some questions.

[Ziz]

I would just add that I found the Princeton Review's tips helpful.

[jlee306]

how to highlight paragraph/sentence during the test?

By the way, when I took the test on Wednesday, there was no highlighting feature. I looked it up in my study book the day before and it also said nothing about being able to highlight.

[a fragrant plant]

By the way, when I took the test on Wednesday, there was no highlighting feature. I looked it up in my study book the day before and it also said nothing about being able to highlight.

i know they're going to add the highlighting feature in the future but when i took it in august there was no hightlighting feature.

[ColorlessGreen]

I think that usually, the most important thing about reading comprehension is time management. I don't know how you've been doing it, but I would suggest that you NOT read the passage before reading the questions. It wastes quite a bit of time, since the passage they give you will usually be about something you have no experience with, so you won't retain the information well enough for it to be helpful. Read the question, then search for the answer in the passage. Just be sure that you double-check the context to be sure it's right.

It's different for every person, but I find that this is the easiest way for me to deal with reading comprehension passages. Practice with reading for content is also extremely important, of course.