Lesson 9 of 46 · Reading Comprehension
Reading a passage for its structure
Read each GRE passage for what its parts are doing, not for every fact, and build a quick map you can answer most questions from.
About 18 minutes
In this lesson
- Identify the views in a passage, whose they are, and where the author stands.
- Use signal words to find the turns that carry a passage’s structure.
- Build a short map of roles that answers structure and function questions without rereading.
The idea
What the questions are built on
About half of the GRE Verbal Reasoning measure is based on passages. A passage can carry from one to six questions, and the subjects range across the physical and biological sciences, the social sciences, business, the arts and humanities, and everyday topics. You are not expected to know anything about the subject beforehand: every answer is supported by the text in front of you, and outside knowledge is more often a trap than a help.
The questions come in three formats: choose one answer from five; choose one or more of three answers (from one to all three can be correct, and there is no partial credit); and Select-in-Passage, where you choose the sentence in the passage that fits a description. Later lessons in this unit take each kind in turn. This lesson is about the reading that all of them depend on.
Read for the shape, not the facts
A passage is short but dense, and trying to hold every detail in mind is how readers run out of time. You can always go back to find a fact: within a section you can move back and forth between questions and change answers. What you cannot look up is the thing most questions turn on: what each part of the passage is doing.
So as you read, ask of every paragraph (and, in a one-paragraph passage, of every few sentences):
- What is the topic? The subject the passage is about.
- Whose view is this? A passage often reports a view and then questions it. Note who holds each view: "historians", "critics", "the standard account", or the author.
- Where does the author stand? Agreement, rejection, qualification ("partly right"), or neutral description.
- What job does this part do? Introduce a view, give evidence, raise an objection, explain a cause, give an example, concede a point, draw a conclusion.
Signal words carry the structure
Writers mark the turns of an argument with a small set of words. Reading them closely is the cheapest way to see the shape.
| Signal | What usually follows |
|---|---|
| however, yet, but, by contrast, nevertheless | a turn against what came before |
| therefore, thus, so, hence | a conclusion |
| because, since, for | a reason or evidence |
| for example, for instance, such as | an illustration of a claim already made |
| moreover, furthermore, also | more support of the same kind |
| admittedly, granted, to be sure | a concession before the author's real point |
A "yet" or "but" in the middle of a passage often marks the most important sentence: the one where the author turns from a reported view to the author's own.
Common shapes
Most passages follow one of a handful of patterns. Recognising the pattern early tells you where the author's point will be.
| Shape | Where the author's point usually sits |
|---|---|
| An older view, then a challenge or refinement | after the turn ("but", "yet", "recent work suggests") |
| A puzzle, then possible explanations | in the explanation the author favours, if any |
| A claim, then evidence for it | in the opening claim |
| Two positions compared | in any judgement between them, or in what they share |
| A proposal, then its limits | in the qualification |
Build a map as you go
A map is a few words for each paragraph or each turn. For a three-paragraph passage it might read: "P1 old view: X causes Y. P2 evidence against: Y without X. P3 author: X speeds Y up, does not start it." Building a map like this as you read answers most main-idea and function questions without rereading, and it tells you exactly where to look when a question asks about a detail.
Keep the map about roles, not data. "P2 evidence against" is useful; "P2: 1910s, three countries" is not, because if a question asks about the 1910s you will reread that sentence anyway.
Read the question, then go back
After your first read, decide what kind of question each one is. A question about the passage as a whole ("primary purpose", "organisation") is answered from the map. A question about a sentence or a detail sends you back to that place: reread the sentence and the ones on either side of it, then answer in your own words before you look at the choices. Wrong choices are written to sound plausible, and an answer you formed first is the best defence against them.
Worked examples
Example 1: Mapping a one-paragraph passage
For most of the twentieth century, ecologists treated the disappearance of lichens from city trees as a simple signal of sulphur dioxide pollution: where the gas was concentrated, sensitive species died, and only a few tolerant crusts survived. When sulphur emissions fell sharply in many European cities, this view predicted a steady return of the lost species. Some did return, but the communities that came back looked nothing like the ones that had disappeared. Species that thrive on nitrogen, once uncommon, now cover many urban trunks, while several species that tolerate neither sulphur nor nitrogen remain absent. The pattern suggests that lichens record not one pollutant but the balance among several. A tree covered in lichens is therefore not necessarily a sign of clean air; it may simply be a sign of air polluted in a different way.
Build a map of this passage, then name its shape.
Find the topic and the first view. The topic is lichens on city trees. The opening sentence reports a view held by "ecologists" for most of the twentieth century: losing lichens signals sulphur dioxide pollution. The author has not yet taken a side. Map: "old view: lichens = SO2 signal".
The next sentence draws a prediction from that view: when sulphur fell, the lost species should return. Map: "prediction: species come back".
"Some did return, but…" is the turn. The evidence only partly fits the prediction, and the following sentence gives the details (nitrogen-loving species now common; some species still missing). Map: "evidence: partial, different return".
"The pattern suggests" introduces the author's own conclusion: lichens record the balance of several pollutants. "Therefore" in the last sentence draws a consequence from it. Map: "author: balance of pollutants; so lichen cover ≠ clean air".
Answer
Map: old view, its prediction, evidence that partly fails the prediction, the author's refined view, a practical consequence. The shape is an older view refined by new evidence. The tempting description is "the passage rejects the older view"; it does not, because sulphur still matters in the author's account; it is one pollutant among several.
Example 2: What is the last sentence doing?
In the lichen passage above, what is the function of the final sentence ("A tree covered in lichens is therefore not necessarily a sign of clean air…")?
Locate the sentence and read the one before it. The previous sentence states the author's conclusion: lichens record the balance among several pollutants.
Read the signal word. "Therefore" marks what follows as drawn from what came before, so the final sentence is a consequence, not new evidence.
Say what the consequence is about: how to read a lichen-covered tree. It is a practical implication of the refined view.
Test it against a tempting description: "it restates the twentieth-century view". The old view would say a lichen-covered tree means low sulphur, which comes close to "clean air"; the final sentence warns against exactly that reading.
Answer
The final sentence draws a practical implication of the author's refined view: plenty of lichens does not by itself show that the air is clean. It neither offers evidence nor restates the older view.
Common traps
Reading for every detail
Trying to remember every date, name and number makes the first read slow and leaves you no clearer about the structure. Details can be found again in seconds; the role of each part cannot. Read for roles and come back for details when a question asks for one.
Taking a reported view for the author’s
Passages often open with what "critics", "economists" or "the usual account" say. A choice that matches that opening view will look supported by the passage, because the words are there. Before you accept it, ask whether the author agrees, or only reports the view in order to question it.
Missing the turn
A single "yet", "but" or "however" can reverse the direction of a passage. Readers who skim past it end up attributing the first half's position to the whole. When you see a contrast word, stop and note in your map what has changed.
Treating a refinement as a rejection
Many passages do not overturn an older view; they narrow it or add to it ("not a myth so much as half the picture"). Choices that say the author "refutes" or "dismisses" a view are wrong for such passages. Match the strength of the verb to the strength of the author's position.
Check yourself
Answer each question before you open its answer.
Question 1: How the passage is organised
Reading Comprehension
Accounts of silent cinema often imagine a lone pianist improvising whatever came to mind. Surviving theatre records suggest a more organised trade. By the 1910s, film distributors in several countries circulated cue sheets that listed suggested pieces for each scene, and larger theatres employed music directors who assembled scores from libraries of catalogued mood pieces: agitated music for chases, mysterious music for villains, and so on. Yet the same records show how loosely these sheets were followed. Players in small towns, with limited libraries and a single rehearsal at most, substituted freely, and audiences seem to have expected the local organist's favourite tunes as much as anything the distributor proposed. The improvising pianist, then, is not a myth so much as half the picture: silent-film music was planned at the centre and remade at the edges.
Which of the following best describes the organisation of the passage?
- A.A popular image is described, evidence that complicates it is presented, that evidence is itself qualified, and a reconciling view is stated.
- B.A popular image is rejected outright and replaced by a contrary account.
- C.Two scholarly theories are compared, and one is shown to be better supported.
- D.A historical practice is described, and the reasons for its decline are explained.
- E.A claim is made, and several examples are given that all support it.
Show the answer
Answer: A. A popular image is described, evidence that complicates it is presented, that evidence is itself qualified, and a reconciling view is stated.
Working
Map the passage: the popular image (a lone improvising pianist); evidence of an organised trade (cue sheets, music directors); "Yet" the sheets were loosely followed in small towns; conclusion: planned at the centre and remade at the edges. That is an image, complicating evidence, a qualification of that evidence, and a reconciling view.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. The author says the image is "not a myth so much as half the picture", which keeps part of it. "Rejected outright" is too strong.
- C. The opening view is a popular image, not a scholarly theory, and the passage ends by combining the two pictures rather than choosing one.
- D. Nothing in the passage describes a decline; the cue sheets and the local substitutions are presented as existing side by side.
- E. The evidence points both ways: the cue sheets suggest planning, and the small-town practice suggests improvisation. That tension is the passage's point.
What carries over
Count the turns: each "yet" or "but" adds a stage, and the right description of the organisation names every stage.
Question 2: The role of one sentence
Reading Comprehension
Accounts of silent cinema often imagine a lone pianist improvising whatever came to mind. Surviving theatre records suggest a more organised trade. By the 1910s, film distributors in several countries circulated cue sheets that listed suggested pieces for each scene, and larger theatres employed music directors who assembled scores from libraries of catalogued mood pieces: agitated music for chases, mysterious music for villains, and so on. Yet the same records show how loosely these sheets were followed. Players in small towns, with limited libraries and a single rehearsal at most, substituted freely, and audiences seem to have expected the local organist's favourite tunes as much as anything the distributor proposed. The improvising pianist, then, is not a myth so much as half the picture: silent-film music was planned at the centre and remade at the edges.
The sentence beginning "Yet the same records show" functions primarily to
- A.deny that distributors circulated cue sheets
- B.explain why larger theatres employed music directors
- C.introduce evidence that limits how far the organised system actually governed what was played
- D.state the conclusion that the author draws from the theatre records
- E.give an example of the mood pieces kept in theatre music libraries
Show the answer
Answer: C. introduce evidence that limits how far the organised system actually governed what was played
Working
The sentence opens with "Yet", so it turns against what came just before: the description of an organised system of cue sheets and catalogued scores. It says the sheets were loosely followed, and the next sentence gives the small-town evidence. Its job is to limit how far the organised system controlled the music, which sets up the reconciling conclusion.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. The sentence accepts that cue sheets existed; it says only that they were loosely followed.
- B. Music directors appear in the previous sentence, and no reason for employing them is given anywhere.
- D. The conclusion comes in the last sentence ("The improvising pianist, then…"). This sentence supplies part of the evidence for it.
- E. The examples of mood pieces (music for chases, for villains) are in the previous sentence.
What carries over
A sentence that starts with a contrast word usually limits or reverses the claim just before it; name that claim to name the function.
Question 3: The author on the popular image
Reading Comprehension
Accounts of silent cinema often imagine a lone pianist improvising whatever came to mind. Surviving theatre records suggest a more organised trade. By the 1910s, film distributors in several countries circulated cue sheets that listed suggested pieces for each scene, and larger theatres employed music directors who assembled scores from libraries of catalogued mood pieces: agitated music for chases, mysterious music for villains, and so on. Yet the same records show how loosely these sheets were followed. Players in small towns, with limited libraries and a single rehearsal at most, substituted freely, and audiences seem to have expected the local organist's favourite tunes as much as anything the distributor proposed. The improvising pianist, then, is not a myth so much as half the picture: silent-film music was planned at the centre and remade at the edges.
The author would most likely describe the image of a lone pianist improvising whatever came to mind as
- A.accurate for large theatres but not for small ones
- B.an invention of later writers with no basis in practice
- C.confirmed by the cue sheets that distributors circulated
- D.partly accurate, but incomplete as an account of the whole trade
- E.accurate for the 1910s but not for later decades
Show the answer
Answer: D. partly accurate, but incomplete as an account of the whole trade
Working
The last sentence gives the author's judgement directly: the image "is not a myth so much as half the picture". Half the picture is partly accurate but incomplete, which is the choice that says so. The other half, the organised system, is what the image leaves out.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. This reverses the passage: the large theatres had music directors and assembled scores, while the free substitution happened in small towns.
- B. The author says the image is "not a myth", and the small-town evidence gives it a real basis.
- C. The cue sheets are the evidence of planning, which is what makes the image incomplete; they do not confirm it.
- E. The passage makes no contrast between periods; the 1910s are mentioned only as the time when cue sheets circulated.
What carries over
When the author states a judgement in so many words, the right choice paraphrases it at the same strength.
Key points
Read for what each part of a passage does; come back for details when a question asks for them.
Note whose view each claim is, and where the author stands on it.
Contrast words mark the turns; the author’s own point usually comes after one.
Answer in your own words before you read the choices.
All questions here are original and written for UniExamer; none comes from the test maker.
Written by the UniExamer team with AI assistance. Every worked example and check question was re-solved by an independent checker before publication. No subject expert has reviewed this lesson yet. If you find a mistake, write to support@uniexamer.com.