Lesson: Reading Comprehension Basic - 02t01

A Crucial Reminder

In our daily lives we read either to learn something or to pleasantly pass the time. Needless to say, neither of these goals has much to do with your task in a Reading Comp section! Which is to say that the Reading Comprehension portion of the test requires a different kind of reading, a more meticulous, focused approach that's so different from reading in the general sense that here we won't even call it "reading" at all - we'll call it "attacking." Learning to attack passages, questions, and choices is the goal of your CAT Reading Comp training.

What does "attacking" a Reading Comp passage mean to you? Think about this for a few seconds, and then click Continue to see what at CAT we designate as the major elements of the "attack" mentality.

With regard to the passage, the "attack" mentality involves

• separating fact from opinion
• capturing the gist of written text
• using Keywords to help you navigate through the passage
• skimming past detail to extract the significant aspects of the text
• paraphrasing text to make it your own
• creating a Roadmap of the passage to help you master its structure and locate relevant text when the questions demand
• Seeing prose as the product of an author's mind, rather than as sterile, impersonal text

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