Solving English Reading Comprehension has become an inevitable part of almost every competitive examination. The question that lingers in every aspirant’s mind is “How to improve Reading comprehension?” We all are habituated to solve simple and direct passages in our school days, but when it comes to competitive exams, the task becomes difficult.  Unable to understand the vocabulary (meaning of words) and concept of the passage, many students become dull and uninterested in this section.   I may give you some tips and strategies to achieve success in the examination, but the ultimate solution lies not in shortcut solutions, but long term preparation and hard work, obviously. You need to have the courage to prepare and adhere to a systematic plan. So, here are some Reading Comprehension strategies to follow, to get more marks in Reading Comprehension.  1. Eliminate the words or phrases. A complaint which I hear often is that, the students are unable to understand the given reading comprehension.  If you belong to this category, you need to understand that you don’t need to understand each and every word of the comprehension. At the same time, you should find the gist (summary) of it. Both these points above may appear contradictory But the crucial thing is, you need to eliminate the words, phrases, sentences from the Reading Comprehension that are not useful and need to focus  on keywords.   2. Find your strengths first. To improve reading comprehension, first you need to find your strengths first. The conservative approach to solving a passage is, to read the passage first, and then go to the questions and solve them. But some students do not feel comfortable with this method. Probably they do not know which keywords to remember while going through the comprehension. Or, they may have to read the comprehension again, after reading the questions. This lead to the problem of Time Management. Solution: You can choose the “bottom up” approach. That means, read the questions first, so that you have an idea what to look for, in the comprehension. But ultimately you are the better judge of which approach is the best. So, practice several reading comprehensions in two different approaches and find out which method suits you.  3. Improve Your Vocabulary: Why you need to improve your vocabulary? Vocabulary means knowledge of words (meaning of words). If you do not have a good vocabulary, you have to stop at every new word in the reading comprehension, and be puzzled what does it mean? So, when you don’t know the meaning of a word, it becomes very difficult to understand the gist of the Comprehension. Having a good vocabulary, makes you understand the reading comprehension much easier. How to improve your vocabulary?

• Start reading in English, anything…….  Newspapers, stories, comics, text books….anything, that keeps you immersed in English. New words gradually sink into your subconscious mind and become familiar.
• Keep a notebook, Note down the new words you learned today and revise them periodically.
• Keep a target and a schedule to learn a certain number of new words every day. You are the better person to decide the number,… I am not. Do not deviate from the schedule at any cost.

 4. Use a pen while reading: Do not read the Reading Comprehension like a movie novel. While going through the passage, your three body organs should act in collaboration.

• Eyes
• Hand
• Brain

    Make a habit of finding valuable keywords quickly and underline those keywords with a pen (If the rules permit) So, if at all you have to read the Comprehension again you can go only through keywords, and not through all the junk.  5. Do a mental math quickly: Often students feel they are not efficient in solving Reading Comprehension, because of these three factors.

•  Vocabulary in the comprehension.
•  Difficulty in understanding the meaning of the questions.
•  Time factor.

               So, if there are 40 questions in the English part, do not try to attempt all the questions (If there is negative marking).  Just try to think how many marks you need in English, by calculating how many you are getting in other sections of the exam (Arithmetic, Reasoning Etc.). Based on that you can choose how many questions you have to solve in English.      This doesn’t take much time if you make a quick mental maths 6. Most Reading Comprehensions are complex: Usually, Reading Comprehensions are taken from scientific essays or well known fiction. Often the sentences are complex to understand. If you are not aware of this fact, you might be puzzled by those questions. Solution:

• Improve your Vocabulary
• Read and solve comprehensions, as many as possible
• Solve passages from different fields of knowledge, like Science, Arts, Literature, Politics, Economics, etc.

7. Focus: It is not unusual for any person to wander somewhere while reading something uninteresting. So, when you find the Comprehension dull, difficult and uninteresting, your eyes run through the sentences, but your mind wanders somewhere else. The result….you complete reading, but you grasp nothing. Solution: Focus on the content. Don’t let your mind go away from there. If it starts daydreaming….bring it back into reality. Tell yourself that you have plenty of time to dream after the exam. 8. Improve reading Speed: Do not move your lips while reading, it slows you down. You can refer the videos provided in your e-classes login id. I highly recommend those techniques for improving your reading speed very quickly. 9. While solving Reading Comprehension at home, don’t try to find the meaning of each and every word you find there,with the dictionary.  Of course, Looking for meanings in a dictionary and taking notes is a good habit, but for each and every word……No.. Sometimes you need to make a wild guess about a new word, taking into account of the context (situation). By this, you will be able to understand the meaning of new words. If you feel necessary, you may check the meaning after reading the Comprehension. 10. Solve previous papers By solving the previous papers you can understand and identify what kind of questions are appearing in the examination, so that you will be mentally prepared for those kind of questions.

• Some questions are Simple
• Some Draw Inferences
• Some of the RC questions will ask you about a specific word from a paragraph
• Some are Parallel Reasoning Question 

  11. Don’t draw on outside knowledge Don’t make conclusions which are not in the comprehension. Though you are well aware of the topic mentioned in the Passage, You should not bring your own knowledge into the answers. Just stick to the Information given in the comprehension. 12. Overcome panic While focusing on the passage, if you stare at the letters for a long time, your eyes feel uncomfortable. So, often close your eyes for a while, take a deep breath and start again. Don’t get panicked by the difficulty of the questions. Be prepared for them. 13. Never lose confidence By looking at the Comprehension, don’t let any thought of discouragement enter into your mind. Don’t feel depressed.         Always follow some tactics to motivate yourself 14. Learn what works best for you Whatever strategies mentioned here are not hard and fast rules. They are flexible. If you feel they don’t work for you, then you can alter them to suit your needs. You are the judge. 15. All the best: Following the above mentioned Reading Comprehension tips certainly brings you good marks in your academic tests.

Read also…. for success.