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Many GMAT test-takers find the GMAT Dense Reading Comprehension section to be one of the least favorite areas in the GMAT EXAM; however, it is possible to score well in this kind of question with a bit of practice. This article suggests some tactics that, if well applied, might just be what you need to attain that high-end GMAT score you are targeting.
Assume one or two of the four assumed passages per verbal section will be these denser reading comprehension passages. Usually, the GMAT Dense Reading Comprehension questions involve one long paragraph about a technically specific topic you are probably not familiar with.
They are potentially reading comprehension-style content. They could also be integrated reasoning, multi-source content, or two-part analysis questions. Remember that in the verbal reasoning section, you may not want to skip these to save time because you may miss two, three, or even four questions in a row. The same applies if it is integrated reasoning or multi-source content. However, if it is a two-part analysis, you may have a little more flexibility since you can decide to guess and move on to maintain pace, knowing that it will only affect that one two-part analysis question.
Read carefully and slowly to ensure that you comprehend the content. You cannot rush through it; you must engage with the passage through a dense reading comprehension mapping this article outlines.
Consider using the online whiteboard textbox when working on this kind of question, and in general, any reading comprehension passages and, to a degree, critical reasoning note-taking processes. This will facilitate sentence-by-sentence passage mapping. The online whiteboard textbox may not be very useful for the quantitative reasoning section or process elimination; however, the online whiteboard may come in handy on the at-home exam administration. Typing in notes may be faster than handwriting on a physical whiteboard or any other kind of whiteboard.
Use initials or shorthand to simplify unfamiliar jargon or acronyms. For instance, you could use a “variable” to represent long numbering nomenclature. Don’t even waste time trying to pronounce difficult, long, scientific names mentally. Use initials and shorthand and save yourself some precious time.
Synthesize the information as you go and note the location of your subject to better answer subsequent questions. Mapping does not only help you engage with the passage; it also tells you where to go back and get information. When you refer to your notes, you can quickly pinpoint exactly where to locate a given subject matter to answer a particular question.
Given its rugged coastline and absence of safe boat landings, ancient foraging on Anacapa Island must have been relatively challenging. Today, you can only find fresh water in an isolated spring with no perennial running water on an island segment. As a result, currently, the dominant vegetations are coastal bluff scrubs and coastal sage scrubs, with trees and shrubs limited primarily to two protected gullies on the northern slopes of west Anacapa and at Shepherd’s landing on Middle Anacapa. People commonly see California sea lions and harbor seals in the waters and rocks around the island.
Still, the absence of an extensive beach, except at Frenchy’s Cove on West Anacapa, limits the area for pinnipeds to haul out. The rocky coasts of Anacapa support rich rocky intertidal and kelp forest ecosystems. The island is more exposed to the warm, southerly waters of the California countercurrent than some of the other northern Channel Islands. This island’s steep slopes likely made it difficult for people to bring marine resources to sites on the top of the island, although access may have been easier in the past. Anacapa Island hosts enormous colonies of nesting birds, especially western gulls(Larus occidentalis) and brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), the latter of which use Anacapa and Santa Barbara Islands as a primary nesting area along the west coast of the United States.
We will summarize a sentence at a time. S1 represents sentence 1.
“Dearth,” as used in this sentence, means “not safe”. It is best that you use your in-summary. If you don’t know the meaning, don’t worry; just note that we are talking about boat landings.
Instead of “coastal bluff scrubs and coastal sage scrub,”, we simply write “CBS and C.”.
There is a lot of other information in the sense, and yet the essential communication here is the lack of beaches for sea lions and seals to rest on. It may not be necessary to concern yourself with the details or even the meaning of a word like Pinnipeds if you don’t know its meaning, even though you can make out the meaning from the context.
You may include or talk about the water, but you probably will remember where it is anyway. Remember, as we go further, your summary will likely get shorter as you familiarize yourself with the passage.
The scientific name is unimportant, and you can use initials to represent the names of the birds and other nouns in the sentence.
We will now use this map to answer questions from the passage. There is only so much room on the screen, and the map is probably going to disappear. Still, for the simple reason that we went through the passage so deliberately, we are probably going to remember where everything is.
According to the passage, currently, you can find each of the following on Anacapa Island EXCEPT:
We are looking for what you can’t find presently on Anacapa Island. From our passage map, we remember sea lions and harbor seals mentioned in sentence 4, underlined in the passage. We can hold choice C for now. There’s mentioning of fresh water in sentence 3, also underlined. There’s an indication that Nesting birds(pelicans) are on the island, sentence 7. By the process of elimination, our correct answer is choice C. But we can still read it back into the past just to confirm that there were indeed no protected harbors on the island. “Given its rugged coastline and dearth of safe boats”. Be on the lookout for unfamiliar paraphrasing meant to confuse you. Elimination is a good safeguard to protect yourself against any confusion resulting from such paraphrases.
Prediction: give a location where sea lions and harbor seals can ‘haul out.’
The reference to Frenchy’s Cove is most likely intended to
“Intended to” means we are looking for a reason why it is there. We can get where there’s a mention of Frenchy’s Cove from the passage map, so hopefully, there won’t be much need to go back to the passage.
Prediction: Dominated by CBS and CSS
With which of the following statements regarding the vegetation of Anacapa Island would the author most likely agree?
We have to go back to the passage and find the term vegetation. Then we will read around it, at least a sentence above and a sentence below. The passage map will also help determine how much you need to read.
Today, fresh water is found only in an isolated spring with perennial running water on any of the island segments. As a result, vegetation is currently dominated by coastal bluff scrubs and coastal sage scrubs, with trees and shrubs limited primarily to two protected gullies on the northern slopes of west Anacapa and at Shepherd’s landing on Middle Anacapa.
Take a look at the steps below:
Scuba-based observations and experiments helped promote the idea that positive interactions among species play key roles in the maintenance of biodiversity by facilitating the persistence of habitats created by foundation species, which are now often known as physical ecosystem engineers.
There was a clear demonstration of this critical role for Panamanian coral reefs in the early 1970s by elegant experiments following Peter Glynn’s observations that Trapezia crabs and Alpheus snapping shrimp living within branching pocillopora coral colonies prevented the crown of thorns starfish Acanthaster planci from feeding on the corals. Pocilloporid colonies, where there was an experimental removal of protective symbionts, suffered higher rates of destruction by A. planci, and coral diversity was higher where there was the prevention of the crown of thorns starfish from foraging.
Another example of positive interactions affecting foundation species, and ultimately, species diversity, comes from the Caribbean fore-reef slope.
The hypothesis indicates that sponges enhance the persistence of foliaceous corals on the steep forereef slope by binding the corals to the reef frame.
Corals fell off the slope on manipulated reefs where divers removed the sponges from the coral interstices, resulting in elevated coral mortality. Later work in similar habitats showed that the underside of foliaceous corals supports an exceptionally high diversity of epifaunal invertebrates. Thus, the positive effect of sponges on foliaceous corals enhances community-wide biodiversity.
Here is another dense reading comprehension passage and a question. If this is the first question, then you need to decide if you want to read this specifically for the term referenced “elegant experiments,” or do you want to engage with the whole passage? We can see from the way it is constructed that this is a rather dense and technical passage. For the purposes of this article, let us engage with the whole passage.
S1) Scuba observations and experiments promote the idea that species interactions are key to maintaining biodiversity.
S2) For Panamanian coral reefs, experiments following P.Gs observed that some organisms stopped starfish from feeding on the corals.
S3) Experiments showed that removing the organisms hurt reefs. Biodiversity was higher when starfish stopped feeding.
S4) Introduces another experiment showing species interaction improves the biodiversity of reefs.
S5) Intro the hypothesis that sponges enhance reef
S6) If you remove sponges, reef mortality increases.
S7) Later work showed high biodiversity on the underside of the corals
S8) Sponges lead to enhanced biodiversity for reefs in total
Remember to use initials and shorthand in the way that suits you. This can be quite a long process, and often, the exam introduces difficulty by giving you more things to do. It will probably take you three to five minutes to break all this down and type it out, so you have to decide if it is a worthy effort. Remember also that there could be three or four questions here, and you can use this information for the subsequent questions.
For the above question, we know our experiments are in sentences 4 – 7, where they removed the sponges or returned them and saw what happened. S3 is another experiment that involved the starfish. So basically, we are looking for something that would match the idea, where you remove or introduce something, and then make observations.
Answer choice A is way too broad and does not match what we read, so can eliminate it. “Longitudinal means “it goes on for a long time.” But if you don’t know what it means, just focus on “entire order”. These experiments were pretty specific, and it automatically rules out choice A.
Choice B is a reversal. The experiments didn’t take place outside of their natural habitat but rather inside. So we can eliminate this.
Answer choice C is also a reversal. The experiments didn’t take place in a laboratory but in the field.
Choice D seems closer but is again another reversal since no artificial coral reefs were built. The experiments took place outside, in nature.
E is very similar. It only changes sponges and starfish for seahorses and clearly matches what we would expect from the experiments.
One of the tactics that the exam likes to use, they will put the main idea question at the end of these denser passages.
Which of the following best describes the structure of the passage?
We basically have all of it set up here in our passage map so we can go straight to elimination.
Answer choice A sounds pretty accurate. Yes, there was a claim, and several examples are there in support.
A theory is given, and accurate, and evidence is provided for but not against it. So choice B is incorrect and can be eliminated.
For choice C, we don’t really know that there’s an introduction of a new scientific method.
No hypothesis has been refuted. All evidence available is in support, so choice D is out.
There’s no description for the experiment; the theory is. Answer choice is also out. We can confidently select answer choice A.
This example illustrates how you can move more quickly through the questions in the GMAT Dense Reading Comprehension section once you have a good sentence-by-sentence passage map. This may not be your favorite thing to do, but try applying this kind of passage map to work through some practice passages and improve your performance on this relatively difficult aspect of the verbal section of the GMAT.
Remember, the more you practice, the more you become confident in handling questions in the verbal section of your GMAT exams. On that note, spare some time to take advantage of the GMAT study resources available on our sites to keep yourself on track. Just like every other section, the GMAT Dense Reading Comprehension questions contribute to your final score. Therefore, it’s advisable to take time to practice all areas.
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