Important Tips for Reading Comprehension
Read LESSON 1 : How to Get Good Marks in Reading Comprehension Here
F riends, in our last
post we've discussed some basic techniques on how to get good marks in Reading
Comprehension section of bank and other competitive exams. (you can read that
post here). In this post we shall discuss some important points
you should keep in mind while dealing with Reading Comprehension
problems.
What to read
first? The given Passage or Questions?
There are people
belonging to both schools of thought. But it is preferable to read the passage
first to get a grasp of the broad ideas the author is trying to communicate and
then take up the questions one by one. In the process of going through the
passage initially, underline key words and phrases as well as some important
points in the passage (for online exam you can’t mark anything so better keep
important words in your mind instead of writing anywhere). Then, when you go
through each question, get back to the relevant portion of the passage, read it
more thoroughly this time and then answer the question.
As mentioned in
our previous post, the following are the major categories of
questions that are asked :
- Main idea of the passage / title for the passage
- Specific details basically reproducing what is given in the passage
- Drawing inferences / implications
- Determining the meaning of words / phrases as used in the passage or by the author
- Application of the ideas expressed in the passage to other situations
Where you have to
choose a title for the passage or identify the main them of the passage, check the opening and closing sentences of each paragraph particularly
the opening sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the last
paragraph. At the same time, be wary about too specific or too broad choices in
the multiple choices given.
We are planning to
give you a number of practice tests on Reading Comprehension as this is one of
the crucial area of Competitive Exams. We hope these tests may enable you to
get sufficient practice in this important area. Please remember that in this
area, unlike in other areas like Maths or Reasoning where you will be able to
assess for yourself how much of new knowledge you have added on and how much of
improvement in speed you have achieved, there will not be such clear
indicators. However, performance in reading comprehension will improve only
with practice and that requires a lot of effort and determination on your part.
In addition to the online tests you take from this blog, you will have
to put in at least 45 minutes of reading practice per day to improve
your reading speed and comprehension. You need to take up serious
reading material for practice - News Papers Editorials, editorials in
general magazines like India Today or Business Magazines like Business
India or other articles in such magazines, general books on a wide
variety of subjects like Psychology, Sociology, Technology, etc. For
each article or part of a book that you are reading , go through the
process of reading, writing down from memory a few important points from
what you have just read and then checking back with the text whether
any important points got left out. This exercise done regularly over a
period of time will certainly help you improve your reading speed as
well as your ability to understand and retain what you read. But, as
already mentioned, only regular practice can help you in this regard.
All The Best...
That's all for now friends. In our next post we shall discuss some more
practical techniques to improve your reading speed. Happy reading :)
