Hidden Discoveries Reading Passage Competition
Reading is a crucial skill in life. Regardless of your age, you are required to understand the passage(s) from readings and analyze the importance of it (them). Nearly all colleges in the United States include SAT or ACT as a part of the application (As much as this is still true in many institutions, an article by Time magazine reports something else. Furthermore, here is the list of all institutions that do not require standardized tests.). Moreover, the graduate schools have GREs; the law schools used LSATs; and the medical schools require MCATs. All the standardized tests assess the reading abilities through a series of questions that are often based on passage-based readings.
So, if it is such a mundane skill on exams, then why is this topic on the Hidden Discoveries website? The sad truth is that many people do not read critically, and they only attempt to do so for standardized tests. This is very unfortunate because critical reading should be part of a daily routine, like eating breakfast or brushing teeth before heading to bed. Many people think that they know how to read, but usually, they only extract the basis theme and idea out of it. For instance, when they are confronted with questions that go deeper than what the title suggests, they are at loss of words, and in some occasions, they even argue why such discussion is necessary. In fact, there is nothing wrong with living without critically analyzing what you read.
But it does help a lot to be a versatile man... or "Renaissance man" as da Vinci was.
So, I created this self-competition as a way to resolve that issue. This competition is different because it is only for one's improvement. This competition is not for certain colleges, graduate schools, or other places. It only seeks to improve people's skills, and that distinguishes it from other similar contests. Be part in this competition to become a better reader and increase your knowledge!
Topics involved in the Reading Passage Competition
1) Philosophy
2) Literature
3) Law
4) History
5) Anthropology
6) Sociology
7) Psychology
8) Economics
9) Biology
10) Chemistry
11) Mathematics
12) Physics
13) Astrology
14) Gender Studies
15) Art - Painting & Sculpture
16) Music
17) Media and Culture
18) Politics
19) Technology
20) Others
Rules
1. This contest will occur whenever student prefers. There is no opponent except the person himself/herself.
2. Rules:
- Another key point is that I'll pick which side that I'll write on. This side does not necessarily reflect on my belief. I think it is important that you get to experience various opinions, not all which you will agree on, because that is what standardized tests often involve.
- 400 to 700 words
- All passages are written by myself. I will put up a full paper including the passage (I won't just write the passage. I will write a full research paper with sources).
- Each passage is followed by 7 multiple choiced (A to D) questions.
- The contestant receives 9 minutes per passage.
- There are total of 10 passages so the whole contest is 90 minutes
- There is 5 minute break after 3rd section, 6th section, and 8th section.
Sample Documents
iPod Full Paper (with citations)
Filmmaking Passage with Questions
Filmmaking Full Paper (with citations)
Improving Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary
Along with the HDRPC, people can improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension by reading efficiently (another term for critically). But, the question is, how can we read efficiently? An another important factor is time.
Obviously, if we can read a large-size book in regular basis, that would put us in much better shape for our skills in reading and vocabulary. The problem is that we do not always have time to do so, and we want a method that works fast, and finishes as well. So, the best option is to read newspapers, journals, and magazines.
In this page, I am going to write an article I read, and type up vocabulary that often appears in many standardized tests, especially SAT. Even if you are not preparing for these tests, you should take time to learn these vocabulary, and read an article. The best part about these articles is that by reading them, you get to expose yourself to fields unknown to you, and learn new vocabulary on the way. If you have time, vocabulary should not be memorized, but instead, it should be learned by reading sentences that have them.
I want to mention couple of notes about these articles and words. First of all, I will not put any link to access articles. I simply put the title and the source it was found (i.e. newspaper title, and so forth), but it is the reader's responsibility to seek out the source that they want to read. Many of them are widely available in internet, but some are not. You have to search in Google. :)
Second, the vocabulary words are from definitely good lists. Note that I will not put any definition, so it is again the reader's job to form a study guide or look them up in dictionary and learn them. Vocabulary words are given in the order they appear in the article. Thirdly, the articles are taken from various disciplines, so you can choose the area that interests you the most OR choose the area that you are weak and focus there.
Lastly, some articles will have one or two vocabulary. Others will have much more. It is important to note that less vocabulary it has, the easier it is to read. So, I recommend that you balance between easy and hard articles to keep yourself motivated. Enjoy!
"Sesame Street." Newsweek
V: chastise
"Freedom and Moral Force." The Wall Street Journal
V: fervor, digression, revile, refute, cynicism, utopian, vindication, impious, posterity, secular, resiliency, amiable, fortify
"Weak medicine." The Economist
V: momentous, avert, laggard, envisage, susceptible)
"Extinct Beavers Back in U.K. After 400 Years." National Geographic
V: quarantined
"Today's work ethic just no longer works." The Boston Globe
V: subversive
"Introducing the Fuel-Efficient Cow." Discovery News
V: bovine
"Music in the Meltdown." The New Republic
V: montage, conjure, inveterately, precept, zeal, unabashed, whim, guileless, veracity, bereavement, umbrage, polemical, overtly, idiosyncratic, caricature, melancholy, demurred, vapid, abhor
"One Woman's Journey to Save Child Slaves." Smithsonian
V: inadvertent
"Adam Smith in Tennessee." The New Republic
V: vignette
"A Definition of Irreversible Coma." Journal of the American Medical Association
V: noxious, prudent, ascertain, demise, credulity
"Your Body Is a Wonderland... of Bacteria." Science
V: bane, variegated
"When is a pandemic not a pandemic?" Nature
V: pandemic
"McDonald's Ending Promotion on Jackets of Children's Report Cards." The New York Times
V: vigilant
"Crisis in the Hot Zone." The New Yorker
V: disseminated, reconnaissance, convalescence, permeated, voluble
"South Korea's Bulldozer Heads for the White House." The Wall Street Journal
V: despotic, bolster, tangible
"What New Things Are Going to Kill Me?" Time
V: rudimentary, congenital
"Give Me Technology: Rhetorical Strategies in Scientific Writing." e.g. University of Washington's Online Journal of 100-Level Writing (this is a website)
V: elucidate, sporadic, conduit, pathos, meticulously, reconciles, disparaging
"The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Darling." (book review) The New York Times
V: penance, prosaic
"A Hotter Zone." The New York Times
V: solemn, malady, sleuthing, pedantic, decorous, intrepid, apocalyptic
"BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Tons of Smallpox Unaccounted For." The New York Times
V: excruciating, melodramatic, cursory, eradication, delineates
"Foundation of New World Order Is Uncertainty." The Wall Street Journal
V: averse, pristine, protracted, volatility
"Sri Lanka after the war: Victory's rotten fruits." The Economist
V: oratorical, impunity, plight
"Can the Spam." The Economist
V: unsolicited, deluge
"The UN's secretary-general: The score at half-time." The Economist
V: cacophonous, alleviate, querulous, chagrin, vulnerable
"Solar energy: seeing Red." The Economist
V: propagating
"Drug-resistant infections: Fighting superbugs." The Economist
V: scourge
"Pierce's Erratic Play Sums Up Giant's Dysfunction." The New York Times
V: erratic, culminated
"In String of Bad News, Omens of a Long Recession." The New York Times
V: avant-garde, precursor, plausible
"Storefronts in Virtual Worlds Brining In Real Money." The New York Times
V: premise, coalesces
"TV Guide, Once Master of the Airwaves, Tries to Survive in a Competitive Category." The New York Times
V: revamping, endemic
"Amid a Sculptural Physicality, a Poet Walks and Talks Onstage." The New York Times
V: ambiguous, precarious, deft
"Weak patchwork of Oversight Lets Bad Hospitals Stay Open." The New York Times
V: advocates
"In Hard Times, Russia Moves In to Reclaim Private Industries." The New York Times
V: lucrative, rebuffed, coveted, peril, absolved, anomaly
"'Not the World's Most Social Person,' Perhaps, but She Loves This Town." The New York Times
V: reprobate, recluses