Suggested Lessons
Reading Comprehension :
Rules for solving
Dear students, in 2017, English Section was the one that showed extreme variations in its pattern throughout the year in all sorts of banking examinations. With every other banking exam, one got to see a completely different set of questions in a different set of patterns.
Now that the SBI Clerk Prelims Exam is approaching, many of you must be having a question on their minds if English Section will come up with a different pattern of questions to blow your minds once again. But students, to your aid, there are still a few conventional pattern questions that are always asked in these banking examinations, one of them being Reading Comprehension. Also, there is a sectional timing of 20 minutes for the English Section, you will have enough of time to do the reading comprehension questions that you usually tend to ignore. So, students, this article is especially intended to help you guys attempt a maximum number of questions from a Reading Comprehension in a minimum time period.
Let’s discuss the type of questions that are generally asked from a reading comprehension. In SBI Clerk Prelims Exam, one can expect 10 questions based on RC, out of which, at least 5 questions will be passage based conventional pattern questions. These questions need a deep penetration through the passage, and hence, should be attempted in the end. Rest of the 4-5 questions will be based on either vocab or phrases. If the questions are vocab based, a few words will be given in bold and you will be asked to mark the synonyms or antonyms of the words as the correct option. And, if, the questions are based on phrases, a few phrases will be given in bold and you will be asked if there is an error in them or not and you will have to mark the correct option accordingly.
After having attempted the vocab/ phrases based questions efficiently, go for the passage based questions. While doing the passage based questions, try not to read the whole passage, try reading only the part that is related to the questions that are asked. Doing this will save your time and help you attempt the maximum number of questions in the minimum time. The questions may also be based on the tone/ attitude/ style of the writer. In such questions, one has to answer if the tone of the writer is persuasive, argumentative, controversial, complimentary, critical or laudatory. And you will only be able to answer such questions efficiently if you have a habit of reading different articles, so, if you haven’t yet started reading them, do it right away. You may also be asked about the theme of the article or to give the article an appropriate title. Attempt such a question only if you are sure about the theme. If you aren’t sure about the theme, then, reading the whole paragraph just to find the crux of it can prove to be very time consuming and you can choose to skip it for sure.
So, students, this is how you need to attempt a Reading Comprehension in order to bag the maximum marks form it. Mere reading through the tips and tricks won’t help unless you yourself take an initiative of practicing really hard to ace the grades in the examination. Also, develop a habit of reading newspaper articles for to develop a habit of reading faster with a better understanding. We will also be providing Article based vocabulary from different newspapers that will prove to be beneficial for you all. Plan your strategy as per your strengths and weaknesses and start preparing for the SBI Clerk Prelims Exam right away. This is by far the easiest type of RC question that appears in examinations. The reason for this is that the answer to these questions is given in the passage itself.
The student does not have to analyse, evaluate or reason with the information provided in order to arrive at the right answer. Also known as factual questions, such questions have answers founded in fact, the facts being given in the passage itself.
The main difficulty in solving these type of questions is that the student must spend valuable minutes of his time in scanning the passage to look for the answer. This can be especially problematic if the passage is very lengthy. However, passages that are lengthier than average are easier to comprehend. Also, the answer may not be given in the exact wording that the question is asking.
Such questions could ask for any details such as numbers, dates, names, places, specific events, situational details explicitly mentioned in the passage. The question stem looks somewhat like this:
‘According to the passage,..’
‘The author mentions which of the following?’
‘The passage provides information that would answer which of the following questions?
Tips for Solving
Step 1: Read the entire passage before proceeding to the questions.
Step 2: Understand what the question is asking. Once you have read the passage, you will have a fair idea where in the passage the answer to the question lies.
Step 3: In the case that the passage is very lengthy, try to navigate your way through it by looking for keywords mentioned in the question. This will narrow down the amount of content you must scan to arrive at the answer.
Before we proceed to more difficult and lengthier passages, let us look at this easy example to understand this question type and how to solve it.
Example
Existential anxiety is so disconcerting that most people avoid it at all costs. They construct an inauthentic but comforting reality made up of moral codes, bourgeois values, habits, customs, culture, and even – arguably – religion. The Harvard theologian PaulTiiiich and indeed Freud himself suggested that religion is nothing more than a carefully crafted coping mechanism tor existential anxiety.For Tillich, true faith consists simply in ‘being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God.’
According to the passage, which of the following is !file?
1) Freud believed that religion was nothing but a scam created by priests to make money.
2) Freud believed that religion was created by authority figures to deceive their subjects into submission.
3) Freud believed that religion was created by man to cope with existential anxiety.
4) Freud believed that religion was created out of man’s fear of death.
5) Freud believed that religion was created because the man did not have an answer to everyhing.
Solution: The correct answer is 3. Since this is a specific detail question, the answer to it must be found in the passage.The line which authenticates the right answer is given in boldface.You can also look for the answer by trying to look for certain keywords mentioned in the question, for example,’Freud’.
Vocabulary
These questions differ slightly from the regular vocabulary questions that appear in the verbal section of examinations. This is because most of the times,the student is required not only to understand the literal meaning of the word, but the contextual meaning as well. The student may be asked to choose the phrase that best describes the meaning of a certain word, or he might be asked to choose the option that is a synonym or antonym of the given word.
The question stem looks somewhat like this:
‘The word,in the passage is closest in meaning to..’
‘Which of the following phrases best expresses the meaning of the word..’ ‘The word,in the passage is opposite in meaning to..’
