GMAT Reading Comprehension Part 3: What You Should be Reading

A common concern among GMAT test prep students at Knewton is what to read in preparation for the Reading Comprehension section. While the RC is more focused on reference than it is on real reading, it can never hurt to practice your reading skills, especially if you've been working too hard to pick up a book or magazine. The following is a list of suggestions from Knewton tutors for great ways to get in some real-world reading comprehension practice

1. Magazines and Newspapers:

GMAT Reading Comprehension passages tend to be closer in tone and length to Magazine, newspaper and journal articles than to full-length books. Since each article you read is also about a different topic, reading these publications will also help you develop the ability to pick up the main idea, purpose and attitude of the article within a few hundred words, a key skill on the GMAT.

An extra perk: all of the magazines and papers listed below have websites or web archives - many of which are free - that can be accessed without leaving the computer.

Science

• New Scientist
• Science
• Nature
• Science News
• Popular Mechanics
• Scientific Americanhttp://www.scientificamerican.com
• Times of London science

Business

• BusinessWeek
• Newsweek Business
• Times of London Money sectionhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/
• Economisthttp://www.economist.com/
• Financial Times
• Harvard Business Review
• Wall Street Journalhttp://online.wsj.com/home-page
• Fast Company

Humanities/General Interest

• NYTimes
• Washington Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/
• Guardian
• Foreign Affairs
• Atlantic Monthlyhttp://www.theatlantic.com/
• New Republic
• New Yorker
• NY Review of Bookshttp://www.nybooks.com/
• Wired
• National Geographic

2. Books

Knewton GMAT teachers recommend that you choose books that cover a wide variety of material in relatively short bursts, rather than those that encourage long, sustained reading in which you must remember lots of information. Although just about any high-level reading will help hone your reading skills, short, focused, reading on a variety of topics mirrors the reading comprehension skills tested on the GMAT.

• Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson
• The Duck That Won the Lottery: 100 New Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher by Julian Baggini
• Days That Changed the World: The Defining Moments in World History by Hywel Williams
• The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History by Michael H. Hart
• The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society... by Dan Karlan, Allan Lazar, and Jeremy Salter
• 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought From Ancient Times to Today by Martin Seymour-Smith
• New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought by Todd G. Buchholz and Martin Feldstein
• New Ideas from Dead CEOs: Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office by Todd G. Buchholz
• The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers [7th Edition] by Robert L. Heilbroner
• HBR Case Studies: Keeping Strategy on Track (Harvard Business Review Case Studies) by Harvard Business Press
• HBR Case Studies: Making Change Stick (Harvard Business Review Case Studies) by Harvard Business Press

Lastly, if you want to get a head start on business-centric reading, here is an excellent list of business books from Inc. Magazine. Practice reading while learning business; the best of both worlds!

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/the-business-owners-bookshelf.html

Check out GMAT Reading Comprehension Part 1 and Part 2.

Author Bio

Josh Anish is Senior Editor at Knewton Inc., an adaptive learning company currently offering online test preparation courses for the GMAT, LSAT, and SAT.