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1. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
Improving Reading Comprehension
on the GMAT

2. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
 GMAT Test Structure
 Common RC challenges on the GMAT
 Mastering the Passage
 Getting the Big Picture
 Getting to the credited response
 Pacing
Topics

3. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
GMAT Test Section # of Questions Question Types Duration
Analytical Writing
Assessment
1 Topic Analysis of an Argument 30 Minutes
Integrated Reasoning 12 Questions Multi-Source Reasoning
Graphics Interpretation
Two-Part Analysis
Table Analysis
30 Minutes
Quantitative 31 Questions Data Sufficiency
Problem Solving
62 Minutes
Verbal 36 Questions 1) Reading Comprehension
2) Critical Reasoning
3) Sentence Correction
65 Minutes
Total Time Excluding breaks and tutorials - 3 hours 7 minutes
GMAT Format & Timings

4. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
 Length of the Passages
 Comprehension
 Confusing answer choices
 Time Management
 Subject of the Passage - Boredom
RC Challenges

5. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
• Identify the Topic and Author’s side
• Look for Transition Words
• Clue words
• Pronouns
• Comparison Words
Mastering RC

6. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
More selective than most chemical pesticides in that they ordinarily destroy only unwanted species, biocontrol agents (such as
insects, fungi, and viruses) eat, infect, or parasitize targeted plant or animal pests. However, biocontrol agents can negatively affect
non-target species by, for example, competing with them for resources: a biocontrol agent might reduce the benefits conferred by a
desirable animal species by consuming a plant on which the animal prefers to lay its eggs.
Another example of indirect negative consequences occurred in England when a virus introduced to control rabbits reduced the
amount of open ground (because large rabbit populations reduce the ground cover), in turn reducing underground ant nests and
triggering the extinction of a blue butterfly that had depended on the nests to shelter its offspring. The paucity of known extinctions
or disruptions resulting from indirect interactions may reflect not the infrequency of such mishaps but rather the failure to look for
or to detect them: most organisms likely to be adversely affected by indirect interactions are of little or no known commercial value
and the events linking a biocontrol agent with an adverse effect are often unclear.
Moreover, determining the potential risks of biocontrol agents before they are used is difficult, specially when a nonnative agent is
introduced, because, unlike a chemical pesticide, a biocontrol agent may adapt in unpredictable ways so that it can feed on or
otherwise harm new hosts.
Passage - 1

7. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. explaining why until recently scientists failed to recognize the risks
presented by biocontrol agents.
B. emphasizing that biocontrol agents and chemical pesticides have
more similarities than differences.
C. suggesting that only certain biocontrol agents should be used to
control plant or animal pests.
D. arguing that biocontrol agents involve risks, some of which may not
be readily discerned.
E. suggesting that mishaps involving biocontrol agents are relatively
commonplace.
Passage - 1

8. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
2. The passage suggests that the author would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about the use
of biocontrol Agents?
A. Biocontrol agent should be used only in cases where chemical pesticides have
proven ineffective or overly dangerous.
B. Extinctions and disruptions resulting from the use of biocontrol agents are likely
to have increasingly severe commercial consequences.
C. The use of biocontrol agents does not require regulation as stringent as that
required by the use of chemical pesticides.
D. The use of biocontrol agents may even finally supersede the use of chemical
pesticides in controlling unwanted species.
E. The risks of using native biocontrol agents may be easier to predict than the
risks of using nonnative biocontrol agents.
Passage - 1

9. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
The wealth of morphological, phonetic, and word similarities among certain languages has lead linguists to recognize the unity of the well-defined
family of languages called the Aryan or Indo-European family. Yet even this latter term is largely a misnomer. This group of languages spreads over an
enormous range virtually without interruption, reaching from Central Asia to the fringes of westernmost Europe. The westernmost terminus of the
family is Celtic, while its easternmost representatives were the Tokharian languages, a pair of tongues once spoken by the residents of the Tarim
River Basin in Western China and unearthed in documents written more than a thousand years ago.
So remarkable and definite are the similarities among these languages that linguists are convinced they all derived from an earlier language spoken
by some community in the prehistoric past. While we know that Latin began as a rustic dialect in the province of Latium, no one knows where proto-
Aryan was first spoken. Some speculate that it was first used in Southern Russia, while still others point to the Iranian plateau as a potential cradle.
Though some philologists believe that the Old Indic and Persian of the Avesta contain the most archaic features of Aryan found to date, this does not
necessarily fix the habitat of these early Aryan-speaking peoples closer to Asia than to Europe. Consider Icelandic. Though this language has strayed
far from its original source, it preserves
many of the characteristics discarded by those who remained behind.
Passage - 2

10. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
Q.1. The author mentions Icelandic in order to
A. provide support for the contention that early Aryan-speaking peoples did
not necessarily live in Asia
B. provide another example of the archaic features found in the Avesta.
C. provide evidence for the inception of proto-Aryan
D. counter the speculation that proto-Aryan was first spoken in Russia
E. provide an alternative explanation for the similarities found in early
languages
Passage - 2

11. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
Q.2. Which of the following does the passage imply about the
Tokharian languages?
A. They date to a far earlier period than does Celtic.
B. They possess many of the same features as did the Old Indic and
Persian of the Avesta.
C. They were once spoken over a far greater range than they are today.
D. They undermine the accuracy of the name “Indo-European” for their
particular family of languages.
E. They are remarkebly similar to the languages spoken by current
residents of the Tarim River Basin.
Passage - 2

12. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
Pacing

13. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
Early passages matter the
most
Don’t Stuck on killer
Questions
3rd Passage
If you excel at RC
Final passage affects the
least
2nd passage matters less than
1st

14. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
 Introduction - GMAT Verbal
 RC Challenges and overcoming
 Transition words
 Comparison words
 No pronoun ambiguity
 Active Reading
 Power of Process of Elimination
Summary

15. ‘Saraswati before Lakshmi’
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