Reading Comprehension: Overview

In Reading Comprehension, it is strongly recommended to work at the _____ level. This means we never read more than one _____ at a time.

Incorrect.

First, you cannot read more than one passage at a time as you never see more than one passage on the screen. 

Second, you must never read an entire passage. Reading so much text takes a lot of time and is totally unnecessary. There are only 3-4 questions on each passage, so they cannot possibly cover the content of the entire passage. 

Finally, the human mind has limited capacity, and a GMAT reading passage far exceeds this capacity. 

Incorrect.

This is a very common misconception. A lot of GMAT students think that the paragraph is the smallest context unit. In other words, that they have to read a whole paragraph in order for the information they read to make sense. Otherwise, they feel they lack context or a frame of reference.

This is not true; at least not on the GMAT. Also, the human mind has limited short-term capacity and a paragraph exceeds this capacity. 

Incorrect.

Throughout all the Verbal Section, we work at the same level, which is the sentence level. Words in themselves are not the issue. There are no vocabulary questions, for instance. The GMAT is about how things logically relate to one another.

This is true not just for Reading Comprehension but also for Sentence Correction and Critical Reasoning.

In the Sentence Correction section, the focus is on how the words in a sentence relate to each other.

In the Critical Reasoning section, the focus is on how the sentences in the argument relate to each other. for example, if a sentence begins with However, it means that its relation to the previous sentence is one of opposition.