How do you improve reading comprehension for literature or college exams?

Answer 1

There are several techniques to improve reading comprehension for exams and in college (in general).

Improving reading comprehension for literature and college exams requires both strategic approaches and regular practice. Here are five tips to help you enhance your skills:

1. Active Reading

1. Annotate: While reading, make notes in the margins, highlight key ideas, underline important passages, and write down questions or insights. This helps you engage with the material actively.
2. Summarize: After finishing a section or chapter, write a brief summary in your own words. This reinforces your understanding and retention.

2. Improve Vocabulary

1. Context Clues: Pay attention to unfamiliar words and try to deduce their meanings from the context. Expanding your vocabulary helps you understand more complex texts.
2. Use a Dictionary: When encountering difficult words that context can't clarify, look them up. Make a habit of learning and reviewing these new words.

3. Ask Critical Questions

1. Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How: While reading, ask these questions about the text. Identifying the main themes, characters, and conflicts will enhance your understanding of the content.
2. Make Predictions: Anticipate what might happen next in the text. This keeps you engaged and allows you to assess your understanding as the narrative unfolds.

4. Practice Close Reading

1. Focus on Details: Pay attention to literary devices such as metaphors, symbolism, and tone. Analyze how the author’s choices contribute to the overall meaning of the text.
2. Reread: If a passage is particularly dense or important, read it more than once. This helps you grasp nuances you may have missed initially.

5. Review and Discuss

1. Review Notes: Go over your notes and summaries regularly, especially before exams. Repetition helps solidify information in your memory.
2. Discuss with Others: Engage in discussions with classmates or study groups. Explaining concepts and hearing others' perspectives can deepen your understanding.

By applying these strategies consistently, you'll enhance your reading comprehension, making it easier to analyze and retain information for literature and college exams. I hope this helps. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out. Take care!

-Dr. Christal-Joy J. Turner

Answer 2

To improve reading comprehension for literature, high-school English, or for SSAT, PSAT, ACT, or the GRE, Dr. Suzanne H. Stevens advises the follow suggestions based on her book's excerpts from "Classroom Success for the LD and and ADHD Child," published by John F. Blair, Winston-Salem, NC, 1997) :

The ADHD, LD, Asperger's Spectrum, Autism, and other participants affected with split-brain disabilities pose problems for teachers, parents, administrators, college-bound students, neurologists, economists, sociologists, and occupational-therapists.

According to 1950s up until the 21th century, this growing enigma remains ever-salient---"What causes learning disabilities" ?

Originally, 1968 researchers presented society with the inconsistencies: "A brain severed . . . . between the two halves of their brain (epileptics . . . . ) (to) control their seizures"(Stevens 310-311). in short, the brain is cut into two hemispheres, the left hemisphere, the logical side, rationality, and controlling executive functioning part, and deals with abstract information that is complex, extremely organized, and analytical. Therefore, the left hemisphere is like a computer because is the site of logic (Stevens 311). Whereas the left hemisphere allows the person to process words, numbers, and to assign a crew to execute plans, set sequences, and organize priorities because this abstract data are centered in the as the logic center (logos). The right hemisphere is the imaginative, emotional, concrete, tangible and 3-dimensional space/reality, and the routines and formulistic control of music, dance, gardening, jogging, weaving, sewing, painting the creative, artistic, spontaneous, kinesthetic

Answer 3

I recently helped a student raise his SAT score from 200 to 500 in a month. He had low reading comprehension, not being able to follow what was going on in the text. It's important to remember that reading comprehension is a side effect, not a goal to be achieved.

Imagine you got a letter from your beloved. Would you be motivated to attend to every letter as quickly as possible? Probably yes. Will you be inattentive? Probably no. You will catch on every word because you know what he or she is saying. That's what J.R.R. Tolkien called "the love of language" or philology. We can drastically improve our reading comprehension by loving the text first and then trying to understand it.

For example, you open the 1st chapter of the Lord of the Rings. Unless you love what's written there about the time-keeping lore of the Shire, you will be lost after the first page. However, if you love it, you will hang on to every word.

We must always start with the idea that the text is here to reveal to us something interesting, mysterious, and engaging. We must love it first. If you are interested to learn more about my approach, please read my article here

https://eugeneterekhin.substack.com/p/philology-vs-linguistics-the-love