GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions — Format, Directions, and Sample

Reading Comprehension Format, Skills Tested, and Directions

How many: 14-15 questions

Where: In the 75-Minute Verbal Ability section, mixed with Critical Reasoning and Sentence Correction questions

Format: A brief passage of text (150-325 words) is accompanied by a series of 2-4 questions. Each question is multiple-choice (you select one of five choices by clicking on an oval).

Skills tested: Your ability to read carefully and accurately, to determine the relationships among the various parts of the passage, and to draw reasonable inferences from the material in the passage

Directions: Here are the directions for GMAT Reading Comprehension. These directions will appear on your screen just before your first Reading Comprehension set (and you can access them while tackling any Reading Comprehension question by clicking on the HELP button).
 

Directions: This passage is accompanied by questions about its content. Fo each question, select the best answer among the five choices. Answer all questions on the basis of what the passage states or implies. . To review these directions for subsequent questions of this type, click on HELP.

Sample Reading Comprehension Question

Influenced by Evangelical attitudes, art and literature of the nineteenth century were expected to contribute to moral education. Running afoul of that expectation was the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), which invited the vituperations of reviewers of its day. Being "retrogressive" in a progressive era may be a serious fault, according to Charles Dickens' rhetoric about the art of John Millais; but being "fleshly" and "aesthetic" in an age of moral earnestness may be worse, as D. G. Rossetti, another PRB ringleader, discovered when poet and critic Robert Buchanan attacked him and his work in "The Fleshly School of Poetry" (1871).    However much the PRB had offended the establishment, most of the brothers had insisted on the importance of the arts as moral guides. Yet Rossetti had expressed doubts about art designed to be morally uplifting: the painter-hero of his short story "Hand and Soul" (1850) tries through art to inspire "moral greatness," only to witness his frescoes of Peace spattered by blood shed in a vendetta. And, privileging form at the expense of meaningful content and animal passion at the expense of conventional morality, the poems and Rossetti himself, Buchanan wrote, were "never spiritual, never tender, always self-conscious and aesthetic." Q: According to the passage, Rossetti's poems were criticized by reviewers as not progressive enough violated certain aesthetic ideals through their portrayals of violence suggested that Rossetti had rejected the tenets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood came under attack for their emphasis on form at the expense of substance advocated certain behavior which ran contrary to the prevailing morality of the time

Quick Tip for Sample Question

Analysis of Sample Question

The second answer choice (we'll call it "B") is a poor response in two respects. First, it confuses the information in the passage, which mentions one of Rossetti's short stories ("Hand and Soul"), not his poems, as portraying violence. Secondly, the passage neither states nor implies that Rossetti's poems violated particular aesthetic ideals; to the contrary, the passage indicates that Buchanan accuses Rossetti of being overly aesthetic.

The third answer choice (we'll call it "C") finds some support in the passage — specifically, in the assertion that Rossetti, unlike his fellow PRB brothers, was suspicious about art designed to be morally uplifting. This assertion does suggest a clear difference of opinion between Rossetti and the other PRB members. However, the assertion that Rossetti "rejected" the basic PRB tenets is an unfair, exaggerated characterization of that disagreement.

The fourth answer choice (we'll call it "D") is the best response. The final sentence of the passage indicates that Buchanan (a critic of Rossetti) criticized Rossetti's poems for "privileging form at the expense of meaningful content" — in other words, for stressing form over substance.

The fifth answer choice (we'll call it "E") is unsupported in the passage, which mentions no specific behavior that Rossetti's poems might have advocated. The only "behavior" portrayed in a Rossetti work and that the passage mentions involves the bloody vendetta in Rossetti's short story "Hand and Soul." But the passage neither states nor suggests that Rossetti sought to advocate such behavior.
   
See also, these THREE related pages:

• GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions (Verbal Section)
• Top GMAT Tips — Verbal Section, Reading Comprehension Questions 
• GMAT Reading Comprehension — Strategies for Score Optimization