---
title: GRE & GMAT Active vs. Passive Reading Webinar | MyGuru
description: A summary of our December 9, 2020 webinar discussing how to use active reading strategy on reading comprehension sections of the GRE & GMAT.
---

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# **GRE & GMAT "Active vs. Passive Reading in Reading Comprehension Questions" Webinar: December 9th, 2020**

### One of MyGuru's top online GRE & GMAT instructors demonstrates the difference between active and passive reading in reading comprehension questions on both the GRE & GMAT. 

## READING COMPREHENSION

- Is about a third of the test on both exams
- GMAT: 3 short/1 long, occasionally 2 short and 2 long
- GRE: Usually 1 long passage per Verbal section
- People tend to take reading comprehension for granted 
- Read actively: treat it like a puzzle or math problem
- Most reading comprehension questions are quite similar

### General Strategy

- Read the entire passage first (usually)
- **ACTIVE READING:** What are we looking for? 
    - Structure > Details 
          - 1) Structure is the logical flow of a passage (how is it organized)
          - 2) Main content (what's it about?)
    - Tone  
          - Author's voice - Pro? Con? Neutral? Strong/mild advocate? etc. 
    - Scope (scale broad/narrow) 
          - Scope of the question and the correct answer and the corresponding part of the passage all need to match up
    - Point of View - author/narrator but also other POVs 
          - 3-5 points of view in a passage are common

**KNOW WHERE DETAILS ARE, BUT NOT NECESSARY TO RETAIN ALL OF THEM. **

### Which sentences tend to be important? 

- Introduction - Topic sentence and thesis
- Conclusion
- Opening and closing sentences in each paragraph 
- LOUD words

**General rule: Keep your passage reading under 4 minutes.**

#### Reference the video located above to watch the entire webinar with specific examples. 

### If you have additional questions regarding the information in this webinar or GRE/GMAT prep, please reach out to us at [info@myguruedge.com. ](mailto:info@myguruedge.c)

For a full listing of our GRE/GMAT webinar videos [click here,](https://www.myguruedge.com/free-gmat-gre-classes-webinars-listing) and see below for more information about our online tutoring: 

- [GRE](https://www.myguruedge.com/gre-prep/online-gre-tutoring)
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