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GRE Reading Comprehension Practice: Passage Analysis
It never hurts to make time for a little GRE Reading Comprehension practice. In this two-part blog series, we’ll provide you with a GRE passage and then walk you through it step-by-step, highlighting answers and explanations at each stage.
Reading Comprehension practice exercise
First, let’s break down a sample passage before moving on to a few practice questions:
Although Shirley Jackson is perhaps best known for her macabre short stories and novels, she was, in fact, a master of several genres and a prolific and varied writer, composing essays, autobiographies, and magazine articles as well as fiction. While Jackson had a vast literary repertoire, however, she tended to use the same types of fictional elements in her stories.
For example, like Flannery O’Connor, another writer renowned for her dissection of genteel society, Jackson often paired hyper-realistic settings with surreal plots to expose the dark underside of Middle America. Many of her stories took place within structured societal confines, such as neighborhoods or even entire towns, and featured large casts of archetypal characters–usually including gossips, shrews, and other unsavory types who insisted on conformity to the community’s self-imposed rules, with fearful consequences. Her most famous story, “The Lottery”–in which a “normal” American village gathers for its yearly ritual, the stoning of one of its residents–is perhaps a classic Jackson tale in this sense. The ceremony, which seems bizarre and cruel to most readers, is treated by Jackson as if it were the most natural thing in the world, which causes the reader to call into question his or her own participation in society’s rituals.Passage analysis questions.
Although Shirley Jackson is perhaps best known for her macabre short stories and novels, she was, in fact, a master of several genres and a prolific and varied writer, composing essays, autobiographies, and magazine articles as well as fiction. While Jackson had a vast literary repertoire, however, she tended to use the same types of fictional elements in her stories.
For example, like Flannery O’Connor, another writer renowned for her dissection of genteel society, Jackson often paired hyper-realistic settings with surreal plots to expose the dark underside of Middle America. Many of her stories took place within structured societal confines, such as neighborhoods or even entire towns, and featured large casts of archetypal characters–usually including gossips, shrews, and other unsavory types who insisted on conformity to the community’s self-imposed rules, with fearful consequences. Her most famous story, “The Lottery”–in which a “normal” American village gathers for its yearly ritual, the stoning of one of its residents–is perhaps a classic Jackson tale in this sense. The ceremony, which seems bizarre and cruel to most readers, is treated by Jackson as if it were the most natural thing in the world, which causes the reader to call into question his or her own participation in society’s rituals.Passage analysis questions.
Passage analysis questions
Passage analysis questions
Effective Reading Comprehension practice is about learning how to look for the right elements in the GRE passage. Try answering the following analysis questions:
- What is the TOPIC (main idea) of this passage?
- What is the SCOPE (specific focus) of this passage?
- What is the PURPOSE of this passage? (What is the author trying to do with this passage? Describe/explain, argue, advocate, etc…)
- What notes would you jot down on your scratch paper to paraphrase each paragraph?
Answer here in the comments, and we’ll post another blog entry with the full explanation next week. Happy practicing!
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Source: http://www.kaptest.com/blog/grad-school-insider/2015/10/09/gre-reading-comprehension-practice-passage-analysis/
It never hurts to make time for a little GRE Reading Comprehension practice. In this two-part blog series, we’ll provide you with a GRE passage and then walk you through it step-by-step, highlighting answers and explanations at each stage - See more at: http://www.kaptest.com/blog/grad-school-insider/2015/10/09/gre-reading-comprehension-practice-passage-analysis/#sthash.poWmVjvv.dpuf
