• You will have two to four reading comprehension passages, with a total of six to ten questions. Reading comprehension questions generally don't appear until about questions eight to twelve.
• GRE reading comprehension is unlike any other reading you do. Therefore, you should not approach it in the way you approach other reading.
• ETS passages are poorly written, but not on purpose. Don't look for hidden meanings in the grammatical and stylistic errors.
• Forget about "comprehension." On the GRE, you read for one reason only: to earn points. If you can accept this fact, you'll be far, far ahead. Don't even try to read the whole passage, just get an idea what each paragraph is about and what the main idea of the whole passage is. Don't get bogged down in useless details that may not even be considered in the questions.
• Outline the passage:

Read the first sentence and last sentence of each paragraph.

On your scrap paper, jot down a few notes for each paragraph, then write down the main idea. This is what we call outlining. Be sure to number the paragraphs in your notes. For example:

"1^st paragraph: greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect introduced"

"2^nd paragraph: greenhouse gases affected by humans, and CFC/ozone example"

"3^rd paragraph: 2 possible results of greenhouse effect"

• When you skim and summarize a passage, you should look for the big themes and main ideas and skim over the details. You shouldn't "speed read." That is, you should slow down for the important stuff and speed up for the details.
• There are two types of GRE reading passages: science and nonscience.
• Science passages may deal with either the "hard facts" of some particular science or with a "soft" topic, such as the history of science.
• Nonscience passages will deal with either a topic related to the humanities or a topic related to the social sciences.
• Use common sense. You won't find a passage arguing that literature is stupid, or that history doesn't matter, or that the moon is made of green cheese. As a result, you will often be able to eliminate answer choices simply because the facts or opinions they represent couldn't possibly be found in ETS reading passages. However, all the information that will lead to the correct answer will always be found in the passage. This is a treasure hunt; look to the passage for the answers.
• Correct answers will always be politically correct. Authors of passages will never say negative things about other people, groups of people or ideas. If the answer choice says that the purpose of a passage is "to demonstrate the intellectual dishonesty of our founding fathers," you can safely eliminate it without even reading the passage.
• Correct answers will never be too negative, too extreme, irresponsible or irrational. Eliminate any answers that fit this category.
• Eliminate disputable statements. ETS's answer will be indisputable. The easiest way to find this answer is to focus your attention on disputable choices and use process-of- elimination aggressively to eliminate as many of them as possible:

Certain words make choices highly specific and therefore easy to dispute--must, each, every, all, will totally, always, no.

Certain words make choices very general and therefore difficult to dispute-- may, can, some, most, sometimes.

Vague, general choices won't always be ETS's answer, but ETS's answer will always be indisputable. If a statement says that something is sometimes true, you only need to find one example to prove it correct.

• Avoid direct repetitions. ETS's answer will almost always be a paraphrase, not a direct repetition.
• The more closely a choice resembles a substantial part of the passage, the less likely the choice is to be ETS's answer.
• Theme questions, tone questions, and organizational questions are all general questions. You should be able to answer them without looking back at the passage.
• Explicit questions, inferential questions, and literary-technique questions are all specific questions. You'll need to refer back to the passage to answer them.
• Many, many students make careless mistakes on LEAST/EXCEPT/NOT questions. Be careful! Remember, you are looking for the one dumb answer among the choices.
• Triple true/false questions are time-consuming and difficult. POE will improve your guessing odds dramatically.

• Theme questions invariably have general answers, so eliminate choices that are too detailed or specific.
• Do not refer back to the passage in answering these questions; the details will only lead you astray.
• Beware of answer choices that too closely resemble the first or last sentence of the passage.

• Tone questions ask you to identify the author’s tone, style, or overall point of view. Is the author being critical, neutral, or sympathetic? Is the passage subjective or objective? These are also general questions. They can be phrased in several ways:

"The author’s tone is best described as…"

"The author views his subject with…"

"The author’s presentation is best characterized as…"

"The passage is most likely from …"

"The author most likely thinks his audience is…"

• Make a quick mental assessment of the author’s tone before you look at the answer choices. Specifically, decide whether the author’s tone is objective (neutral, unbiased, descriptive, nonpartisan) or subjective (biased, impassioned, partisan, argumentative).

• You are supposed to be making a deduction or inference from the passage. Therefore, you should be certain to pick a choice that says more than the passage says. That is, if a choice sounds too much like something you’ve heard recently, it’s probably wrong.

• Pay attention to trigger words and trigger punctuation.
• The answer to a literary technique question will not be the general theme of the essay. Make certain you understand exactly what the question is asking for.
• Beware of choices containing substantial repetitions from the passage. ETS’s answer will most likely be a paraphrase.

• ETS's answer will be the dumb choice, the wrong choice, the crazy choice.
• Look for "correct" answers -- and eliminate them. That is, refer back to the passage with each uneliminated choice and see if the passage supports it. If it does, cross it out. You're looking for the one choice that doesn't make sense.

• Conciliation precludes the idea of an impartial judge dispensing justice.
• Conciliation seeks a mutual coming to terms between the parties whereas arbitration imposes a binding decision.
• Conciliation proceedings are more binding than arbitration because in conciliation the parties have effected a compromise themselves.
• I only
• III only
• I and II only
• II and III only
• I, II, and III

• Although time-consuming, these questions are a good place to use POE.
• Start with the shortest of the Roman-numeral statements. Go back to the passage to find out if it's true or false.
• When you find a false statement, be sure to eliminate all appropriate answer choices. For example, if statement I in the item above is false you'll be able to eliminate choices A, C, and E, all of which include statement I.