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GMAT Reading Comprehension: Isolating Key Information

If all of us had an unlimited amount of time to answer reading comprehension

questions on the GMAT, then wed probably all do quite well; after all, the

information needed to answer the questions correctly lies in the passage. The time

limit on the test means we have to sift through a large amount of information ratherquickly. We simply do not have enough time to leisurely read the passage. Rather,

an active approach is best.

Before answering the questions, we should be able to isolate the key information in

the passage; not only will a big picture understanding of the passage help us with

questions concerning the main idea, but they will increase our accuracy on detail

questions as well. Below is a sample GMAT passage with the key elements in bold. It

should serve as an example of how to isolate the main ideas from a passage:

Western analytical philosophy has contributed two major elementsto the theory of the political good. It is unfortunate that the

value of the first element,personalism, has been diluted by its closeassociation with thesecond element, valuational solipsism.

Personalism was developed in response to the belief that nations,states, religions, or any other corporate entity have interests that transcendthe interests of the individuals that comprise them. The centraltenet of personalism, therefore, is that institutions are good or badinsofar as they are good or bad for the individuals that are affectedby them. Institutions are not good, for example, because they preservethe nations culture or because they protect the natural world,unless preserving the nations culture or protecting the natural worldis good for the individual. As a philosophical assumption, personalismis most useful in countering arguments for practices that harm

individuals in the name of the greater good, or the society at large.The personalist credo basically states that when it comes to interests,there are no interests but human interests.

However, an excessive devotion to the theory of personalism maylead one to fall into the trap of valuational solipsism.The wordsolipsism derives from the Latin for lone self and the theory of valuationalsolipsism takes the isolated individual as the sole judge ofvalue. The problem with this viewpoint is obvious. By using the individualas the measure of the good, valuational solipsism neglects toconsider the whole range of social values that are part of the politicalexperience. These values include citizenship, status, and community,none of which can exist without reference to other individuals.

Instead, political theories are based entirely on non-social values suchas happiness, material welfare, and utility, which are not dependenton interactions with others. Such a view obscures a fundamentalquality of the political good.

Now that weve bolded the key elements in the passage, lets try to paraphrase

those elements in a numbered outline:

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1. The Western theory of the political good has two elements: personalism and

valuational solipsism.

2. Thesis: The value of personalism is in danger of becoming weakened by its

close association with valuational solipsism.

3. Personalism measures the good of a nation based on the good it brings to the

people.

4. An excessive devotion to personalism may result in the trap of valuational

solipsism, the idea that the individual is the sole judge of value.

5. Valuational solipsism is bad because it neglects the social values, like

community, that contribute to the political experience, thus obscuring the

fundamental qualities of the political good.

Notice that most of the key information comes in the first and third

paragraphs. It would be a mistake to characterize this passage as a simpledescription of two elements of political theory. While the second paragraph is

devoted to describing the first element, the rest of the passage tries to

explain the reason forand the unsettling consequences ofthe close

association between the two elements of political theory. Explaining the

relationship between the two is really the purpose of the passage, and we get

most of that information in the third paragraph, which is more densely

marked up than the second paragraph.