McGraw-Hill Education GRE 2019

the author’s goal is probably to introduce: the author believes that the 16th- and

17th-century trading companies are relevant to the development of the modern

corporation, and he will most likely go on to clarify that surprising new idea in the

rest of the passage.

Principle 4: Understand the Role of Evidence

Once you have identified the main purpose, the next step is to understand the role

that the rest of the information in the passage plays. To do so, you must keep the

following point in mind: everything the author says will somehow relate to his main

point.

In a short passage, this information may constitute only a few sentences,

whereas in a longer passage, it may comprise several paragraphs, but the

general point still stands: as you read through the rest of the passage, you want

to understand why the author is presenting the information that he does. For

example, is he trying to qualify a claim? Is he trying to provide evidence for his

theory? Is he trying to address a rebuttal to his theory?

This advice is especially helpful for long passages and for dense scientific

passages. For long passages, where time constraints can prevent you from reading

the entire passage, focus on the first and last sentence of each paragraph, and use

those sentences to understand the role the paragraph plays in the overall passage.

If a question refers you to the details of that paragraph, you can go back and read it

more carefully.

For dense scientific passages (or any passage that contains information that is

difficult to absorb), do not read and reread the supporting information. Instead,

make sure that you have an idea of why the author is introducing that content, and

if necessary, go back to that information later if a question addresses it.

So how can you identify when the author is providing supporting evidence? Just

as there are important contextual clues for identifying main purpose, there are also

important contextual clues for the introduction of evidence.

Clues to Introducing Evidence

For example

For instance

Indeed

Because of

As a result of

Since

Illustrated by

Shown by

Evidence for

Let’s extend the previous excerpt to see these contextual clues in action.

... Because the volume of shipments during the 16th and 17th centuries was
so low compared to modern standards, most historians contend that colonial
era trade is irrelevant to the origins of the modern corporation. However,

CHAPTER 6 ■ READING COMPREHENSION 127

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