GRE Exam: A Simple Guide To Solving Reading Comprehension Problems

Of the 20 questions that you will see in each scored Verbal section, approximately 9 will be Reading Comprehension questions. Reading

Comprehension questions can be divided into two categories:
- Information-based passages. These passages can be classified as “long” or “short.”

A long passage is generally three to four paragraphs and 500+ words. Each long passage will have four associated questions. You can expect to see one long passage on your test. A short passage is generally one to two paragraphs and 100 to 300 words.

Each short passage will have one to four associated questions, though most of the time there will be two or three questions. You can expect to see five to six short passages on your test.

For both long and short passages, the questions concern the meaning of the passage, the author’s purpose, details about the passage, inferences that can be drawn from the passage, and application of the passage’s information to other contexts.

- Argument-based passages. Each of these passages has a single associated question. An argument-based passage will always be one paragraph (and sometimes as short as a sentence) and will always have one associated multiple-choice question. You can expect to see four to six argument-based passages on your test.
For argument-based passages, the questions concern the logic and structure of an argument. Typical questions will ask you to find an assumption in the argument, to find ways to strengthen or weaken the argument, and to identify the logical structure of the passage. The content for the passages will generally come from the humanities (e.g., art, literature, and philosophy), sciences (e.g., biology, ecology, astrophysics, and geology), and from the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology). No previous familiarity with the information in the passages is assumed or required.

Question Formats
Reading comprehension questions have three formats.

Multiple-Choice Questions—Select One Answer Choice
These are standard multiple-choice questions. You will be given five answer choices and will be asked to select one. Note that argument-based passages will always be “multiple choice, choose one.”

Multiple-Choice Questions—Select One or More Answer Choices
In these questions, you will be given a question and three answer choices. (In these questions, the answer choice letters will be in square boxes rather than ovals, as a signal that you may choose more than one.) You are to select all the choices that provide a correct answer to the question. In these questions, at least one of the choices will always be correct. There is no partial credit. These questions are inherently more difficult, so if you are short on time, you should guess on these questions.

Select-in-Passage
In these questions, you will be asked to highlight the sentence in the passage that best answers the question. The suggested approach for argument-based passages is fundamentally different from the approach for information-based passages, so let’s consider the two groups separately.

Information-Based Passages
Many test-takers preparing for the Reading Comprehension section are intimidated by both the length and scope of the passages. Though the content of the passages is certainly not straightforward (most of them are graduate-level texts), the following strategies will equip you with the proper mind-set and approach for both the passages and accompanying questions. A large component of this section will focus on how to be an efficient, active reader. Throughout this section, the focus will be on the necessity of asking yourself big-picture questions about the passage and identifying concrete, textual evidence in support of your answers. After all, the test-makers need to justify whichever answer they deem correct, so you should be able to do so as well.

Developing the appropriate approach for GRE passages largely requires the development of the mind-set that the test-makers are addressing in the passages and associated questions. These passages are written by academics and are about academic topics, so you will want to view the passages with a keen, analytical eye.

Because of this, there are no foolproof methods for tackling Reading Comprehension. Many companies and books suggest reading the questions and then the passage, but assuming you have budgeted your time correctly, you should always read the passage first. Why? Because properly answering the questions and eliminating wrong choices requires an understanding of the passage’s structure and the author’s tone and main purpose, all of which cannot be fully understood unless you’ve read the passage first.

We will look at how you should best approach the passages to align your mind-set with that of the test-makers.

Principle 1: Engage Yourself with the Text
Most of the time when you read, you tend to passively absorb the information without questioning what it’s telling you or even what its relevance is to the author’s main point. On GRE passages, you need to read actively, with an eye toward the passage’s structure. As you read through the passage, you should always be asking yourself questions. What’s the author’s main point? Why is she telling me this? How does this detail relate to the passage’s overall purpose? Oftentimes, there’s a tendency for readers to get bogged down in the content of the passage and to lose sight of the bigger picture, but by asking yourself Why? instead of What?, you’ll be able to efficiently absorb the passage’s content without wasting time on minor details.

Principle 2: Slow Down, Then Speed Up
The beginning of a passage always introduces essential information. It will introduce key people or terms, important phenomena, the background for a theory, or in many cases, the passage’s main point. Since this information is so important, you should slow down when reading the first few sentences of a short passage and the first paragraph of a long passage. Make sure that you understand all the terms and information introduced at the beginning of the passage. Even if this means losing time at the beginning, you’ll make up for it later in the passage by speeding up when you’re only looking at minor details.

Principle 3: Identify the Main Purpose
When you are reading a passage, your initial goal should be to identify the author’s purpose. This means asking yourself: “Why did the author write the passage?”

Many test-takers tend to answer this question by giving a list of what the author said, but this is not the answer that you’re looking for.

In one sentence, you should be able to say why the author wrote the passage:

The incorrect response only identifies information in the passage without understanding it in the larger context of the author’s goal.

The correct response identifies a reason the author has for writing the passage.

Generally, the author’s purpose will fall into four categories:
- Explain. The author’s goal is to explain a concept or phenomenon.
- Resolve/reconcile. The author’s goal is to resolve two or more competing viewpoints.
- Introduce. The author’s goal is to introduce a surprising discovery, phenomenon, or perspective
- Solve. The author’s goal is to provide a solution or answer to a question presented in the passage.

To identify a passage’s main idea, you should focus on contrast signals and continuity signals similar to the ones discussed in Chapter 4.

In the context of reading passages, these clues are essential because they provide pivots for the direction of the passage. When you see a contextual signal, you should slow down and identify the importance of that sentence to the passage. Usually, that sentence will either determine the main purpose of the passage or provide a transition into the passage’s main purpose.

Look at the following excerpt from a passage:
. . . Because the volume of shipments during the 16th and 17th centuries was so low compared to modern standards, most historians contend that colonial era trade is irrelevant to the origins of the modern corporation. However, despite the relatively low volume of trade, the hierarchical structure of these organizations is an edifying antecedent to today’s high-volume companies.

If you were asking yourself why as you read the first sentence, you probably couldn’t arrive at an answer. The real purpose doesn’t manifest itself until the contextual clue however. Once you see this word, you know that the author is introducing a point of emphasis, and you should slow down to understand what this point is, how it relates to the previous sentence, and what type of information might come after it.

In the preceding excerpt, you see that the claim “the hierarchical structure of these organizations is an edifying antecedent to today’s high-volume companies” contrasts with what most historians think about the role of 16th- and 17th-century trade in the development of the modern corporation. You can thus infer that the author’s goal is probably to introduce: the author believes that the 16th- and 17th-century trading companies are relevant to the development of the modern corporation, and he will most likely go on to clarify that surprising new idea in the rest of the passage.

Principle 4: Understand the Role of Evidence
Once you have identified the main purpose, the next step is to understand the role that the rest of the information in the passage plays. To do so, you must keep the following point in mind: everything the author says will somehow relate to his main point.

In a short passage, this information may constitute only a few sentences, whereas in a longer passage, it may comprise several paragraphs, but the general point still stands: as you read through the rest of the passage, you want to understand why the author is presenting the information that he does.

For example, is he trying to qualify a claim? Is he trying to provide evidence for his theory? Is he trying to address a rebuttal to his theory?

This advice is especially helpful for long passages and for dense scientific passages. For long passages, where time constraints can prevent you from reading the entire passage, focus on the first and last sentence of each paragraph, and use those sentences to understand the role the paragraph plays in the overall passage. If a question refers you to the details of that paragraph, you can go back and read it more carefully.

For dense scientific passages (or any passage that contains information that is difficult to absorb), do not read and reread the supporting information. Instead, make sure that you have an idea of why the author is introducing that content, and if necessary, go back to that information later if a question addresses it.

So how can you identify when the author is providing supporting evidence? Just as there are important contextual clues for identifying main purpose, there are also important contextual clues for the introduction of evidence.

Clues to Introducing Evidence
For example
For instance
Indeed
Because of
As a result of
Since
Illustrated by
Shown by
Evidence for

Let’s extend the previous excerpt to see these contextual clues in action.

Recall that you identified that the author’s main purpose is to show that 16th- and 17th-century trading companies are relevant to the development of the modern corporation.

When reading the rest of the paragraph, you should focus on how that information relates to the main point. The contextual clues for example and indeed are essential to understanding the role of this supporting evidence. You know that what comes after for example will support the author’s main point. Because indeed indicates continuity, you know that the last sentence will serve to further reinforce this main point. Thus when reading these sentences, you can understand the structure of the paragraph and the role of each of the sentences even if you haven’t digested all of the minor information. And this is not a problem: minor information should not concern you. The reason the author mentions it is the larger concern.

Principle 5: Identify the Author’s Tone
Tone refers to the author’s attitude toward the subject matter in the passage. For example, an author can be pessimistic, slightly hopeful, objective, skeptical, and so on.

To identify tone, look for valenced words in the passage. If the author uses words like fortunately or thankfully, you know that the author feels positively about whatever he is discussing, whereas words like regrettably indicate that the author feels negatively about the content matter of the passage. However, note that, while the author might regret a situation, he will rarely abhor it. Why? Because the author’s tone in a GRE passage will almost never be extreme. Identifying tone is important not only because some questions explicitly ask about tone, but also because you can use the author’s tone to eliminate wrong answer choices.

Now let’s put these strategies into action with a full passage and associated questions.

As you probably recognized, there are a lot of details in this passage, along with terminology that may not be completely familiar to you. But let’s try to take a big-picture approach toward the passage. In the beginning of the passage, the author introduces an important term: “bleaching.” An efficient reader would slow down to understand this term. Once you understand what bleaching is, your next step is to identify the author’s main purpose. He gives you “the prevailing theory” for why bleaching occurs, but is the author’s main purpose to describe this theory? No. In the last sentence of the first paragraph, the contextual clue “However” indicates that the author’s purpose is to show that bleaching can happen for reasons other than disrupting photosynthesis. Now that you know why the author has written the passage, your next step is to identify the role of the evidence—in this case, why the author wrote the second paragraph.

The last sentence of the first paragraph questions the prevailing theory, and the second paragraph is spent providing evidence for why this theory has been questioned. Though the terminology and processes might be difficult to follow, you know that the role of this paragraph is to explain why the prevailing theory of the disruption of photosynthesis is not adequate to account for the phenomenon of bleaching. Now that you have a big-picture understanding of the passage, you can move on to the questions.

Question Types
Now, we're goping to review common GRE question-types by seeing how they relate to the previous passage.

But before that, keep in mind two important guidelines you should follow when answering any Reading Comprehension question:
- Eliminate any choices that contradict the passage.
- Eliminate any choices that are irrelevant to the question being asked.

Main-Point Questions
Main-point questions can be phrased as:
- “The primary purpose of the passage is to . . .”
- “The author’s primary purpose is to . . .”
- “The author is primarily concerned with . . .”
- “Which of the following would be an appropriate title for the passage?”

Example: The primary purpose of the passage is to
question the validity of “ocean bleaching”
explain why “bleaching” occurs
explain the role of photosynthesis in the process of “bleaching”
introduce an alternate explanation for “bleaching” and its implications
identify the effect of global warming on coral reefs

How to Tackle a Main-Point Question
The answer to any main-point question will encompass the entire scope of the passage. Oftentimes, there will be choices that provide information that is true about the passage but that does not fully address the entire purpose of the passage. To avoid these answers, ask yourself: Does this choice explain the passage as a whole or just part of the passage?

Let’s review the possible choices with this advice in mind:
- Choice A. Remember the importance of evidence. The author does not question whether bleaching occurs. → Incorrect
- Choice B. This is a trap answer. In the third sentence, the author states: “Researchers have identified that the culprit for much of this disruption is coral ‘bleaching,’ which occurs when the algae feeding on the polyps die and therefore lose their green pigmentation.” Thus the author does explain the process of bleaching. However, the point of the passage is not to discuss this process. → Incorrect
- Choice C. The author does more than just explain the role of photosynthesis in bleaching; he provides evidence that refutes it. → Incorrect
- Choice D. This answer successfully addresses the scope of the passage. The author spends the second paragraph refuting the view that bleaching occurs because of a disruption of photosynthesis, and concludes by saying that “these findings . . . should point scientists toward new directions in identifying ways to decelerate this bleaching process.” → Correct
- Choice E. This choice is too broad. Though the author does state that bleaching is due to global warming, the passage is not primarily concerned with the effects of global warming. → Incorrect

Detail Questions
Detail questions can be phrased as:
- “According to the passage . . .”
- “Based on the passage, which of the following is true . . .”
- “The author mentions which of the following . . .”

Example: According to the passage, the primary difference between Tolleter’s findings and the “prevailing explanation” (line 8) is that Tolleter’s findings
de-emphasize the role of climate change in coral bleaching
provide a new explanation for the mechanism behind coral bleaching
show that coral bleaching is initiated by means other than the disruption of photosynthesis
resolve the debate over the causes of coral bleaching
reinforce the role that temperature change has on coral bleaching

How to Tackle a Detail Question
To answer a detail question, you should focus on finding specific text from the passage that answers the question. For detail questions, you do not need to make any inferences and should avoid making assumptions. Instead, look at each choice, and identify which choice is best supported by concrete evidence from the passage.

Let’s review the previous choices with this advice in mind.
- Choice A. The passage states that Tolleter’s team focused on the cellular mechanisms behind coral bleaching. The role of climate change is not questioned. → Incorrect
- Choice B. At first glance, this answer might appear correct. However, the author explicitly states that Tolleter’s findings “question the exact mechanism through which this bleaching occurs.” Questioning the mechanism is different from “providing a new explanation.” Since there is no evidence that Tolleter’s team has provided a new explanation, eliminate Choice B. → Incorrect
- Choice C. This choice restates the author’s description of the significance of Tolleter’s findings. The author states that Tolleter’s findings “question the exact mechanism through which this bleaching occurs.” Choice C is a restatement of this fact and is thus supported by the passage. → Correct
- Choice D. There is no evidence that Tolleter’s team has “resolved” the debate; instead, they have questioned the “prevailing explanation.” → Incorrect
- Choice E. The role of temperature change is not an issue in the passage. → Incorrect

Inference Questions
Inference questions can be phrased as:
- “The passage suggests . . .”
- “The passage implies” . . .”
- “Which of the following can be inferred from the passage . . .”
- “Which of the following can be concluded from the passage . . .”

Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
The passage suggests which of the following about photosynthesis? (A) It can sometimes occur in the absence of light. (B) Tolleter’s findings call into doubt its role in coral bleaching. (C) It is not the only cellular mechanism implicated in coral bleaching.

How to Tackle an Inference Question
Inference questions are very similar to detail questions. As is the case with detail questions, with inference questions you should focus on identifying concrete textual evidence to justify your answer. The primary difference is the following: To answer an inference question, you must draw a conclusion based on information in the passage. With inference questions, the actual answer will never be explicitly stated in the passage. Instead, it will be implied by what the author says. To answer these questions, look for which choices can be directly inferred from the given information in the passage.

Let’s review the previous choices with this advice in mind.

The passage suggests which of the following about photosynthesis?
- Choice A. The passage questions the role of photosynthesis in coral bleaching by providing evidence that coral bleaching occurs even when the algae are heat-stressed in the dark. Since being heat-stressed in the dark is used as evidence against the role of photosynthesis in coral bleaching, it can be inferred that photosynthesis does not occur in the absence of light. Choice A states the opposite of what can be inferred and is thus incorrect. → Incorrect
- Choice B. The passage states that “the heat’s effect on the algae must occur by disrupting cellular processes other than photosynthesis.” The author discusses the effect of heat on algae in the absence of light to show that bleaching occurs even when the photosynthesis machinery is turned off. → Correct
- Choice C. In the last sentence, the author states that Tolleter’s findings suggest that additional mechanisms must be implicated as causes for coral bleaching. The term “additional” implies “in addition to photosynthesis.” → Correct

Select-in-Passage Questions
In Select-in-Passage questions, you will be asked to highlight a sentence in the passage that corresponds to the information that the question asks for. These questions will usually be phrased as “Select the sentence in which the author . . .”

Select the sentence in which the author introduces a theory that Tolleter’s research rejects.

How to Tackle a Select-in-Passage Question
Use the context of the question to determine where to turn to in the passage. In the first paragraph, the author introduces the background of coral bleaching and previous explanations for it, so you should look there. Since Tolleter’s team rejects photosynthesis as an explanation for coral bleaching, find the sentence that introduces the previous belief that photosynthesis was responsible for coral bleaching. The sentence is “The prevailing explanation for coral bleaching has been that the increase in the ocean’s temperature disrupts the process of photosynthesis—the conversion of light into energy—and thereby kills the algae.”

Vocabulary Questions
Vocabulary questions are usually phrased in the following way: In the context in which it appears, “. . .” most nearly means . . . .
On the computer-based test, the word being referred to will always be highlighted.

Example: In the context in which it appears, “implicating” (line 21) most nearly means
suggesting
accusing
questioning
undermining
neglecting

How to Tackle a Vocabulary Question
Treat reading-based vocabulary questions the same way you treat Sentence Equivalence and Text Completion questions: use the context to make your own prediction; then find which word in the choices most closely matches your prediction.

Let’s review the previous question with this advice in mind: “Implicating” appears in the following sentence: “Future research is necessary to identify the other routes by which bleaching occurs, but these findings, by implicating additional mechanisms in the process of bleaching, should point scientists toward new directions in identifying ways to decelerate this bleaching process.” The word is used in reference to the discovery of mechanisms other than photosynthesis that are responsible for coral bleaching. A good prediction would thus be discovering. Of the choices, the word closest in meaning to discovering is suggesting. The correct answer is Choice A.

Argument-Based Passages
In an argument-based passage, you will be given one paragraph and one associated question. Though ETS groups these passages with other types of Reading Comprehension passages, your approach toward these passages should differ from the approach you take toward a typical Reading Comprehension passage. Usually, the passage will present information and a claim drawn from that information. Your task will be to identify information that most impacts the argument by strengthening it, weakening it, providing an assumption, or resolving an apparent discrepancy.

Let’s take a look at a sample question and how to approach it:
Two software producers, DigiCom and EverDrop, recently launched new word processors. The two word processors are comparably priced, and each received highly favorable reviews during independent consumer tests. Nonetheless, since DigiCom has spent more money than EverDrop on advertising, sales of the DigiCom word processor will greatly exceed those of the EverDrop word processor.

Example: Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the author’s prediction?
DigiCom’s production team spent twice as many hours refining the usability of its current word processor as it did refining the usability of its previous word processor.
Any large differences between the two word processors are obvious only to users with specific experience in software engineering.
News and media outlets have not extensively publicized the release of DigiCom and EverDrop’s software.
DigiCom’s advertising budget for the new word processor is greater than its advertising budget for any of its other lines of software.
EverDrop’s advertising team is well-known for perfectly tailoring the company’s ads to its target demographic.

How to Tackle Questions on an Argument-Based Passage
First, read and categorize the question. The sample question is a “strengthen” question. The correct answer should provide a fact that will support the author’s argument.
Next, understand the situation in the passage. Think of the situation as a summary of all the background facts presented in the passage. In this case, the situation can be paraphrased as the following: two companies have released new software that is about equally priced and that has generated positive reviews.
Next, identify the argument. The argument is an opinion drawn in the passage based on certain evidence. The evidence used to support the opinion is called the premise or premises, and the opinion the author draws is called the claim.

To identify the claim of the passage, look for words such as:
as a result
belief
consequently
hypothesis
in conclusion
may
might
nevertheless
nonetheless
predicts
probably
therefore
thus
will

These are good claim signals because such words generally introduce a belief that can be disputed. If something in the passage can be disputed, then it is a claim, not a fact.

To identify the premises of the passage, look for words such as:
since
because
due to
owing to
as a result of

All of these phrases play the role of providing evidence that leads to a conclusion. Thus when you see these phrases, you should be on the lookout for the author’s main claim.
Now that you know what the argument, premises, and claim are, let’s identify them in the passage. In the previous passage, the argument is the following:
Nonetheless, since DigiCom has spent more money than EverDrop on advertising, the sales of the DigiCom word processor will greatly exceed those of the EverDrop word processor.
The claim is that sales of the DigiCom word processor will greatly exceed those of the EverDrop word processor. This claim is based on the premise that “DigiCom has spent more money than EverDrop on advertising.”
Once you have identified the claim and premises of the passage, your next step is to think about assumptions made in the argument. You can think of an assumption as the glue that holds the premises and claim together. Basically, it is a piece of evidence that is necessary for the conclusion to logically follow from the premises. Though any argument can have infinite assumptions, some will be more obvious than others. A major assumption in the previous argument is that increased advertising will actually lead to increased sales.

Finally, go through the choices. When going through the choices, your goal is to identify the choice that best addresses the link between the premises and the claim:
- In a strengthen question, you are looking for a piece of information that strengthens the link.
- In a weaken question, you are looking for a piece of information that breaks the link between premise and conclusion.
- In an assumption question, you are looking for a piece of information that is necessary for the conclusion to be drawn from the premises.

Since this is a strengthen question, you should look for a choice strengthening the argument that increased advertising will lead to additional sales for the DigiCom word processor.

Now let’s look at the choices.
- Choice A. The argument of the passage concerns the link between increased advertising and increased sales. The usability of the software is irrelevant to the passage’s argument. → Incorrect
- Choice B. The argument of the passage concerns the link between increased advertising and increased sales. The ability of users to differentiate between the word processors is irrelevant. → Incorrect
- Choice C. This choice strengthens the link between the premise and the conclusion. You want an answer choice showing that increased advertisements will lead to increased sales for DigiCom. If the given statement in Choice C is true, then the possibility that the advertising will be ineffective due to prior publicizing of the software is eliminated. By eliminating a potential weakness, Choice C strengthens the argument. → Correct
- Choice D. This choice might be tempting since it addresses DigiCom’s advertising budget. However, it does not address the gap between advertising and increased revenues. You are already told that DigiCom will spend more money than EverDrop on advertising. The fact that this advertising budget is greater than for any other DigiCom line of software is irrelevant. → Incorrect
- Choice E. In contrast to the other three wrong choices, this choice does impact the argument. However, it does so by weakening the argument instead of strengthening it. Recall that you are looking for information that supports the claim that DigiCom’s increased advertising of its product will lead to an increase in sales of that product. If Choice E is true, then the link between increased advertising and increased revenue is broken. Why? Because the choice provides evidence showing that DigiCom’s increase in advertising might not lead to an increase in revenue. Thus Choice E impacts the argument, but does so by weakening the argument rather than strengthening it. → Incorrect