Is reading the questions first a good strategy in Reading Comprehension?

Business & Management
#1

CAT aspirants often face the dilemma of going through a plethora of suggestions and advice on how to take on various sections of the exam paper. A very common one that many receive about tackling the Reading Comprehension section is that one should have a look at the questions beforehand and then proceed towards reading the passage.

Now, without passing judgement on any particular strategy that might have helped many secure better marks in the section that they might have done otherwise, there are some demerits attached with it.

Some of them can be as follows:

  1. You start reading with a pre-conceived mindset:

Once you approach the passage with a mindset already conceived about answering some question, you miss out a lot of things that may help you understand the core message of the passage better.

  1. It is more time consuming:

Trying to find out answers from the passage instead of looking towards the core message at first will often confuse you as you might find yourself looking for some keywords rather than the whole passage and the missing out on some important points.
This will increase your overall time for the task, which you could have managed by understanding the message and eliminating the available options till you find the most appropriate one.