GMAT Reading Comprehension: Think INSIDE The Box

Today’s post is written by David Gerrard and brought to you by MBA House. To learn more about MBA House, visit the website (and find info on an MBA House promotion on our Resources page) 

Here’s something that can get in our way on the Reading Comprehension section of the GMAT: school. In school, when we’re asked a question about something we’ve read, we’re expected to say something interesting. We can infer from a green light at the end of a dock all sorts of things about the future, ambition and America. However, on the Reading Comprehension section of the GMAT, an interesting answer will almost certainly be a wrong one. We can’t infer much more from a green light at the end of a dock other than that the green light is somewhere near water. Any insight that is not clearly and specifically supported by the text will get you into trouble.

Reading Comprehension questions require strict—very strict—adherence to the text. Careful reading is rewarded; insight is often punished. Any comment that might be considered interesting in a seminar room will probably lead you directly into a trap answer choice.

At first this sounds scary, but really it’s the best news there is about the GMAT. Once you turn off the part of your brain that says “That can’t be the right answer, that’s too obvious”—once you realize that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO OBVIOUS ON THE READING COMPREHENSION SECTION—suddenly a lot of questions that would otherwise seem very difficult suddenly become a lot easier. Topics cover a lot of technical ground, ranging from recent research on the concentration of tryptophan in the blood to competing theories on the role of women in nineteenth century industrial labor. But you can approach the test calmly and confidently if you remember that you don’t need any outside knowledge and that everything you need is right there on your computer screen—and that the right answer is very often a close paraphrase of a particular sentence.

There’s actually a good reason why the answers are often such close paraphrases of passages from the text. In life, we tend to get careless when we read, assuming that something is there when it just isn’t. If you’ve never made a mistake because you read an email too quickly and thought it said something it didn’t, well, you’re a more careful person than I am.

Actually, even in English class, it’s important to stick closely to the text; the difference is that the texts are longer and we can bring in other texts as well. In English class we can even treat the world as a text. On the GMAT, the passage will be two to four paragraphs long, and for the four questions you’ll have answer, that passage is essentially the whole world.