How to CRUSH Reading Comprehension: 3 Effective Strategies to Ace RC [+worked example!]

The first thing you must know about reading comprehension is that the real battle starts in your mind. Well, as someone fortunate enough to have gotten the perfect score in Verbal for both the GRE and the GMAT, I have three simple methods for getting around this problem.

My advice is different from what I have seen elsewhere, and the second and third methods might be a little controversial, but what can I say? They have worked perfectly for me.

First things first, you have to dismiss the negative thoughts immediately if you want to really succeed on reading comprehension and understand passages more intuitively.

If your brain suspects that you hate the text you are looking at and regard the information as useless, it will skim over the information and delete most of it before it can be stored in memory.
That is why you can come to the end of a passage and feel like you haven’t remembered anything.
Has that happened to you?

So many students have said this to me over the years and asked me how I can ace so many ‘boring’ passages, science passages, or history texts.

The truth is that you must convince yourself that the passages are not boring. When that thought comes into your brain intercept it and say ‘NO! I really want to learn about this topic so I can be an informed person. Forget the exam, I actually want to know.’

The same applies for reading articles, essays and books in real life.

Reading is not a chore, it is an opportunity to learn something new, maybe something that can change your perspective on life.

If I trace back the origin of many of the key turning points in my life, I can usually find an article, an essay or a book.

So, you are not lying to your brain when you say ‘this text could be really important.’

For exams, use your imagination to make the words stick. Create dialogue in your head to help yourself stay interested. Things like ‘Oh wow, I never knew that’ or ‘That’s so weird, who knew?’.
Yes, it does sound kind of crazy, but it really works.

This encourages your brain to retain the information. I will do a full example at the end of the video to demonstrate the technique.

A fancy way of naming this technique is to call it critical engagement with the text. Argue with what’s being said, agree with it, disagree with it, reply to it and predict where it is going.
All of this counts as critical engagement, and all of it helps your brain to digest the information into memory.

2. Read more slowly. More slowly than you read Twitter, WhatApp messages or YouTube comments.
Read … at … a … calm … and … careful … speed.

I sometimes say to students that I aim to be the slowest person in the room to read the passage and the fastest person to answer the questions. People ask me whether you should read the question first or the passage but I have done both and I don’t think it matters much. How deliberately you read is much more important.

In Reading Comprehension tests, the brain takes time to process unfamiliar nouns, so especially slow down when you get to the denser portions of the text.

I also don’t take notes, which saves some time. I know some students do, and other organisations recommend it, but I feel the passages are short enough that if I read slowly, I retain the core ideas in my head.

Writing often takes a fair bit of time and people rarely look back at their notes. If it works for you and you can do it within the time allowed, awesome.

For those for whom English is not a first language, reading slower may mean saving time elsewhere in the Verbal exam, such as guessing the hardest Sentence Equivalence or Sentence Correction sections. But answering most passages thoughtfully is more important than answering all of them badly.

Method 3. Stop and summarise. If you can’t quickly summarise the sentence you have just read, you haven’t really understood it. That’s why I always stop at the end of every sentence or two and ask myself if I understand what’s going on. If not, I re-read.

For tests, the creators of the question know which sentences are most confusing, and often test topics discussed in those sentences.

Yes, it takes time, but this is time we can buy back by answering the questions more confidently.
Some of you are probably thinking ‘but what if I just can’t understand a sentence, even with re-reading?’.

This could be because the syntax, or structure, of the sentence is just super-baffling or badly written,
or because you don’t understand a keyword or two.

[ishkapoor]

Literally baffled by how well this has worked for me, especially the advice regarding reading the passage slowly and comprehending it as i progress. Took a 6 question test in RC right after this, applying every advice with the addition of POE (Process of Elimination), got a perfect 6 in about 8 minutes. Although they were medium difficulty questions, Iam gonna ride this wave to a 320+ GRE score. Highly appreciate what you are doing here, carefully dissecting each conspicuous problem and coming up with ingenuous solutions.

[AyanfeoluwaAnjoorin]

I’m a 9th grader and I watched this on the bus to school to take my Language Arts Final Exam. I am done with the exam now and I got 100 for the first time everrr, 🎉🎉

[mansib]

"Slowest to read, fastest to answer" was exactly what I needed to hear out loud! This was stupendous! 👌

[ItsVarunContractor]

Sir, you have been sent by God to alleviate our difficulties of identifying nuances in the RCs. I have scored 319 once, 152 in Verbal but I found it very difficult to improve my score in verbal by 15-18 points since I need to score a perfect 340 to secure 100% scholarship at program of my interest. Your erudite knowledge and your goodwill to disseminate the same in mass at large is extraordinary, this is giving me practical ways to improve my score gradually thereby creating a chance to win the scholarship. In today's world people donot spend a single second for genuine welfare of the person besides him, while you have dedicated a lot of your time to engender the struggling student. This extra ordinary act should be adulated.

[notbrendon]

It has taken me 38 years to admit that I needed this video

[sarveshnarkhede]

"Slowest to read, Fastest to answer" is probably my go-to strategy from now on. Works like a charm.

[ramanahm]

Solid advice. I've gone through many of your videos and they have always enriched my preparation in significant leaps. Thanks for putting out your work.

[yogadajoshi]

By far the most detailed, precise, relatable and legitimate video on GRE RCs. Wish I'd come across your channel earlier.

[lisayoung]

I liked how you addressed mindset! It's so important in accomplishing anything well. Thank you.

[HumbledTeacher]

Some of the best advice I have heard on Reading Comprehension. Thank you so much!

[eshadey]

I have just started preparing myself up for GRE exam, this is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you so much for bringing video.

[aranzai]

I was scoring so low and then I saw your video and I improved so much!! Seriously this was very helpful

[piyushsingh]

Great advice. It pays to always take the advise of experts, like those who score GRE 339 and 340, I subscribed to Gregmat channel as well. Great work man & keep up the good work.

[latashawoodard]

I just want to say thank you; your videos help me get a decent score. Your reading comp strategy will help me tremendously in grad school for the mountain high list of readings I'll have to do in grad school.

[garimasahni]

Just gave my GRE and scored 156 in Verbal. Thanks to your RC and paragraph argument videos, I went from 148 in my first mock to 156 in the main exam! Thank you for explaining the concepts so well :)

[Thekingslayer-igse]

Man you are a real saviour!! You are such a profound tutor who gives us canny insights and makes cumbersome tasks rudimentary!! You are a real saviour

[prisonmike]

This is my first video by this guy and absolutely fell in love with this channel.

[siddharthbhayana]

Thanks, man! I liked your style of doing the video - it felt quite candid and, yet, professional enough.

[shravyabhaskara]

Hey,
I'm truly glad that I came across this video while preparing for GRE. The usual advice given by many other coaching institutes to skim through the passage, reading the questions first, never truly helps in improving the score! However, everything you said I believe was out of the experience, which is why it worked great for me too! I would get confused when a single passage contained controversial ideas in different paragraphs. However, by summarizing each and every passage, it became clearer to me!
Thank you again for this wonderful video!
Regards from India.

[user_jshkdbsms]

Stupefied by how well this worked for me. Thanks a ton!!