For most 11 Plus aspirants, Reading Comprehension is a tough task. “It takes too much time” “The answer choices are too close” and so on. So how does one attempt and more importantly crack Reading Comprehension?

Firstly, Reading Comprehension has to be attempted, as it accounts for 16 or more question in most of the test types. Since you can’t do well in exam without Reading Comprehension, the bottom line is, no Reading Comprehension – desired grammar school.

Can Reading comprehension be developed? Yes, but it takes time. It is a skill, which develops through practice. In this article, I will give you a simple plan which is a part of basic teaching framework at Champs Learning, that will improve your Reading Comprehension skills for 11 Plus exams.

But first, Lets start with Attempting Reading Comprehension in any past 11 plus exam papers. In GL Style paper, Reading Comprehension will contribute to one third of the questions from English section. So ideally one should allocate one third of the total time attempting reading comprehension. If there are two reading comprehensions, then in total one should allocate 10-12 minutes for this area.

The key here is to remember that one does not need to study, understand or remember every sentence in the passage. That is what many students do, reading too slowly, rereading, underlining etc. But not every sentence is linked to a Question. So we need to speed-read the passage, picking up key ideas, while spending time on the parts, which are linked to Questions.

Below are two common methods which students can use for Reading Comprehensions. Some students find method 1 suitable while others find method 2 suitable. So it is up to you to decide which one suits you.

Passage First: Read the passage first at a normal speed. Don’t reread, highlight or even worry about not retaining all the information. You will only need to get the key ideas – an overview. As a passages tend to be 600-700 words long, this should take you about 3 min. Now for each question, go back to the passage and find the relevant sentence(s). Read them carefully and answer the questions. This process should take about 2 min per question. So a total of 10-12 min for the whole exercise.

Questions first: Start from the questions. Read all questions (not the answer choices) and then proceed to the passage. Start reading the passage at your normal reading speed. As an when you reach a part which is linked to a question, slow down, read carefully and go back and answer that question. And then come back to the passage and continue reading.

You must have noticed that both methods are based on the same key idea explained in the preceding paragraph, spend time only on the parts of the passage linked to a question.

Reading Comprehension Preparation

Firstly, we have many sources of reading material that we can access. Newspapers, Magazines, websites, eBooks and so on. When we select reading material, we look at Subject and Language complexity. As we prepare for Reading Comprehension, we try to cover a wide range of subjects to increase our familiarity (which also increases speed). At the same time we have to gradually raise the complexity of difficulty level of the passages that we practice on. If a passage is too easy, then no benefit comes from solving it. For difficult subjects like Philosophy, Psychology, Art and Architecture, first get a basic idea from sites like Wikipedia. Understand basic terms and definitions/concepts before you take up passages form one of these subjects.

Understanding Passage structure: All good passages have a well defined structure. The passage has a central theme that is explained through a few key ideas. Each unique key idea deals with one aspect of the central theme and is normally given in a distinct paragraph. Each key idea is then explained/elaborated through descriptive sentences (additional information) or illustrated through examples. Similarly, ideas may be compared and contrasted, with the author favoring one over the other or by building an argument towards a conclusion.

Take any small passage and identify the central theme. Underline all key ideas and see how they are related to the central theme. And for each key idea, try to understand how the author develops it further. Take each sentence in a paragraph and try to identify its function, Describe/Illustrate/Contrast etc.

Passage summary: Take a passage from any Source. Read it once at your natural speed, do not re-read or attempt to memorize anything. Then put it aside and try to write a point wise summary of the passage. You should only include key ideas. And importantly, you should rephrase the ideas and not repeat the exact sentences. You should try to get the key ideas in the same sequence/order in which they appear in the passage. A passage of 600-700 words normally has 4-6 key ideas.

Once you are done, compare the passage and the key ideas. Did you get all the key ideas? Was the order right? What is the links between each key idea? This will help you in understanding the structure as well remembering key ideas.

Inference based questions

A lot of Reading Comprehension questions in 11 plus exams are not based directly on the facts stated in the passage but require you to make some inferences. While you do learn through practice, it makes sense for you to go and study Critical Reasoning basics before attempting inference-based questions. This should help you get a sound understanding for the nature of arguments: Facts, Assumptions and how Conclusions and Inferences can be drawn.

Practice and Tests

An Ideal plan would involve working on the basics: Understanding passage structure, summary exercises and critical reasoning for 4-6 weeks. After that start Reading Comprehension specific tests, followed by Mock Exams.