How to develop structured reading skills for GMAT RC
Why is it better to grasp the structure than details when reading an RC passage for the first time?
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- Grasping the structure prevents you from forgetting earlier parts as you read on.
- Successfully predicting the structure allows you to read subsequent content faster.
- You won’t be intimidated by one or two difficult details or have your understanding of the main idea hindered.
- When answering questions, you can quickly and accurately locate the necessary information.
- When encountering long passages, you won’t be slowed down and can quickly grasp the main idea.
What are the common structures in RC?
How to apply this in your first read-through during the exam?
What if you find it difficult to grasp the passage structure during practice?
1. Continuously practice “fundamental reading skills.”
This goes without saying: it’s the most fundamental skill, active reading, which involves extracting the author’s underlying thoughts as they write. To practice this, remember to start “early” and practice a small amount consistently every day without interruption.Some students have reported significant and rapid improvement in their reading skills with consistent daily practice.
2. Memorize all “transition words.”
Transition words are adverbs and adverbial phrases commonly used to connect sentences and indicate their semantic relationship. In reality, there are fewer transition words than you might think, and they are not difficult vocabulary, making them easy to understand and remember.Search “transition words” on Google, and any webpage you click on will have them; they are largely similar.
Understanding all transition words will help you grasp the logical relationship between sentences: where the tone shifts, where support is provided, where explanations are given, where evidence is presented, and so on.
3. Understand the “500 high-frequency academic writing style words“
Academic writing vocabulary is why RC passages often seem veiled. We often assume that specialized terms from difficult fields prevent us from understanding the text.But in reality, that’s just a psychological barrier. Those who score high don’t care about astronomy, geography, biology, or history; they can still answer the questions correctly.Are they really polymaths? Of course not. The specialized terms from various disciplines are not the main point. What truly affects our reading are these precise descriptive words specific to academic writing.
The 500 words listed are high-frequency terms derived from statistical analysis after a computer collected three thousand academic papers from various fields. Since these words span across different papers, they are naturally not obscure, specialized terms. Instead, they are mostly used to precisely describe attitudes, directions of inference, information within the text, and tone.
Once you understand these words, they will help you identify the role of each sentence or paragraph within the passage. Combined with point 1 (inferring the author’s intent) and point 2 (connecting sentence relationships), as well as the “RC Structure Prediction” and “RC First Read-Through Guide” mentioned at the beginning, you will be able to fully reconstruct the entire passage structure.
