From the course: Test Prep: GRE

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,400 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Read for the big picture

Read for the big picture

From the course: Test Prep: GRE

Start my 1-month free trial

Read for the big picture

- [Voiceover] Given the time constraints of the GRE, it can be difficult to read long passages in the way that you would normally want to. So in this video, I'll give you some ideas about how to read more efficiently during the test by reading for the big picture. So here we have a passage that's fairly long and let's just think about, if we were to read this just for the big picture, what can we get away with so that maybe we don't have to read everything? Well, this has a really long first paragraph, but normally the first paragraph, especially the first few sentences, is a good time to pay attention because the author's probably trying to orient you toward what the passage is going to be about. So if we read the first few sentences here, it's telling us that Tolkien was famous and popular, and we're introduced to this guy James Sebastian, who's provoked criticism, and then what that person argues. We already get a sense of what's happening in the passage, that we've got the subject…

Contents