How to Read Tough Science Passages

In the past, we’ve done some one-off review of parts of RC passages, but this time I’ve got a full one for you. In this article, we’ll look at how to get through this thing (and what to avoid). Next week, we’ll do a question or two.

I chose this passage from the free set of questions that comes with GMATPrep (that is, it doesn’t actually show up in the practice CAT itself). It’s a longer passage, so give yourself approximately three minutes total to get through.

The Passage

A meteor stream is composed of dust particles that have been ejected from a parent comet at a variety of velocities. These particles follow the same orbit as the parent comet, but due to their differing velocities they slowly gain or fall behind the disintegrating comet until a shroud of dust surrounds the entire cometary orbit. Astronomers have hypothesized that a meteor stream should broaden with time as the dust particles’ individual orbits are perturbed by planetary gravitational fields. A recent computer-modeling experiment tested this hypothesis by tracking the influence of planetary gravitation over a projected 5,000-year period on the positions of a group of hypothetical dust particles. In the model, the particles were randomly distributed throughout a computer simulation of the orbit of an actual meteor stream, the Geminid. The researcher found, as expected, that the computer-model stream broadened with time. Conventional theories, however, predicted that the distribution of particles would be increasingly dense toward the center of a meteor stream. Surprisingly, the computer-model meteor stream gradually came to resemble a thick-walled, hollow pipe.

Whenever the Earth passes through a meteor stream, a meteor shower occurs. Moving at a little over 1,500,000 miles per day around its orbit, the Earth would take, on average, just over a day to cross the hollow, computer-model Geminid stream if the stream were 5,000 years old. Two brief periods of peak meteor activity during the shower would be observed, one as the Earth entered the thick-walled pipe and one as it exited. There is no reason why the Earth should always pass through the stream’s exact center, so the time interval between the two bursts of activity would vary from one year to the next.

Has the predicted twin-peaked activity been observed for the actual yearly Geminid meteor shower? The Geminid data between 1970 and 1979 show just such a bifurcation, a secondary burst of meteor activity being clearly visible at an average of 19 hours (1,200,000 miles) after the first burst. The time intervals between the bursts suggest the actual Geminid stream is about 3,000 years old.

Here’s how to read

When you’re reading an RC passage, think about:

(1) What words or parts of the sentence are so complex that I’m going to ignore them for now?

(2) When can I stop reading and start skimming?

(3) When do I have to start paying close attention again?

Below, I go through each paragraph, noting various things. Normal text means: I did read this but didn’t pay extra attention to it. Boldface text really stood out for me: my brain perked up and paid attention.

I did technically read the strikeout text”my eyes looked at the words”but I actively avoided thinking about what they mean or how they fit into the overall message.

Let’s try paragraph 1:

Notice a few things. First, most of the bold words are normal words”not the crazy technical ones. Second, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on at the end of that first paragraph; the information is getting pretty detailed. And I don’t care! It’s okay not to understand that level of detail at this point. I know that the conventional theories and the computer-model test agree on one thing but something else was surprising. That’s good enough for now.

Paragraph 2

Most of the sentences were pretty detailed and confusing. I still don’t get the whole enter and exit thing, but that’s okay for now.

Paragraph 3

So the predicted activity did seem to match reality in some way, but the Geminid is only about 3,000 years old.

Taking Notes

Here’s one example of a possible set of notes (but these will vary widely!)

The two question marks in parentheses are used to indicate There’s more detail here that I don’t quite understand”I’ll come back to it if / when I get a question about it.

Our notes are so skimpy! Notice how much we don’t know. This is exactly where we want to be at this point in the passage. We have the big picture and we have a pretty good idea of where to go if we get asked about certain topics. The computer model vs. the conventional theories? Mid-to-late paragraph 1. A surprising result? End of paragraph 1. Something about the amount of activity or how old the MS is? Prediction or hypothetical is paragraph 2 and reality is paragraph 3.

Really? That’s all I need?

Yes”for now. You’re not actually done reading, though. When you get a question about a particular detail, you will go back and read that information to try to figure out the answer. You’re just deferring”you’re going to get into the detail later, not right now during the initial read-through.

Why? There’s just not enough time. Luckily, we know that we aren’t going to get asked about all of these details “ only some of them. So why bother to learn those annoying details unless and until we know that we need them?

Check back next week, when we’ll be tackling a question from the passage. In the meantime, happy studying!

Key Takeaways for Reading the Passage

(1) Half of the battle on RC is knowing what to read and what not to read. Concentrate on the core: the main subjects and verbs. Skim over the modifiers and details on the first read-through; you’ll come back to these later (IF you get a question about them).

(2) The bigger the words and the more complicated the sentences, the more likely we’ll want to skim. They’re going to use technical terms, such as cometary in paragraph 1, and they’ll toss in long modifiers to slow us down. A recent computer-modeling experiment? How about just an experiment?

(3) Anticipate whenever you can. Astronomers have hypothesized A recent experiment tested this hypothesis. Okay, they’re probably going to tell me whether the results helped or hurt the hypothesis. I’m going to keep an eye out for that.

* GMATPrep text courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.