Reading Comprehension for IPMAT should ideally be the easiest topic to be tested on in IPMAT but, in actuality, turns out to difficult tricky. This article aims at demystifying reading comprehension for IPMAT and provide you IPMAT 2020 insights for preparation.
At the onset the structure of the Reading Comprehension (RC) questions is-1) a passage, which is normally 500-700 words long and, 2) 5-6 questions based on the passage. IPMAT 2019 had two passages-one on ‘gender bias’ and the other one on people living on an island. We feel that going ahead IPMAT 2020, both for IIM-Indore IPM and IIM-Rohtak IPM, one can expect almost similar structure.
One of the biggest IPMAT 2020 insight to cracking RCs is to focus on understanding what is given in the passage. The biggest challenge to that would be one’s reading habits. The student is expected to have proficiency in summarizing the essential details of the passage, which admittedly students find difficult. So, as a general principle, we suggest students to read editorial articles and blogs, preferably online, and get in a habit of writing the summary of the same. This practice, for 25-30 days, would help you focus on important details given in the passage. It is essential because in order for you to get 9-10 questions out of 12, you do not need the whole passage, but important details given in it, which add up to not more than 200 words! We recommend that a student should read articles or blogs from various subjects and topics. Few topics that are regularly tested in Reading Comprehension for IPMAT are from – Sociology, Politics, Literature, Science, Management & Economics, Psychology, Art. So, if you are a Commerce background student you would be comfortable with Economics, Business & Management. But, you would be at odds with a passage from Psychology or Literature. We recommend you get out of your comfort zone and start reading topics that are new to you.
Cracking Reading Comprehension for IPMAT requires psychological comfort with the information you are reading. So, this is what we are aiming at. Admittedly, there are ‘n’ number of topics that have been written on, but having a basic familiarity with the ‘language’ or ‘key-words’ of the given topic makes a huge difference. For this you need to pick out trusted and reputed IPM study material and IPMAT books.
Next, you should understand that the questions that you are tested on, requires a process. So, there may be questions that are direct or questions that require you to read between the lines.
For direct questions, such as- based on contextual vocabulary or true/false questions, you just need to locate the information in the passage and mark the answer. There could be questions which ask you- what is this passage about? Or the central idea of the passage. This question type of question is basically asking you to have the gist of the passage, which is what you would become adept at after you have practiced writing summaries as mentioned above. The questions on inference, would require you to put yourself in the author’s place and gain insights to his thought process. There could be veiled attempt at communicating information by the author. The best way to solve these questions would be to locate answer option that is tangentially related to the passage. The correct answer would seldom be unrelated to the theme and context of the passage.
Note- You should go with eliminating answer options that you feel are certainly incorrect. One tricky question type would be based on ‘tone’ of the passage. Ironically, we are good at telling the tone of a person talking- is he angry, anxious, sad or happy. Or, for that matter we can categorize movies in genres such as- comedy, action, thriller, drama etc. We can do so because we understand the intonation. And it should be the same with a passage as well. But because of poor reading habits, we fail to pick up cues of the words that help us categorize the tone of the passage. Be aware of the defining words, adjectives, similes or metaphors that are there in a passage and tone-based questions would be a piece of cake for you.
We hope that this article on Reading Comprehension for IPMAT 2020 Insights was helpful to you. Meanwhile, you can read the article on Verbal Ability for IPMAT 2020 Insights’. For Free IPMAT Books and Free Study Material for IPM login or register for free on Career Launcher and also get access to abundant IPMAT sample papers with solutions, Free IPM Classes and IPMAT previous year paper with solution.
Happy Reading!