STRATEGIES FOR READING
Compiled by Cyrus Faizee
All content of this document has been brought from the below source:
Milada Broukal, TOFEL Reading Flash (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Peterson’s, 2002).
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General Strategies
● Read as widely as possible. Read on as many topics as you can. The more you read the better a reader you will be. You will in this way be exposed to a greater vocabulary.
● Read carefully and critically. Ask yourself reading comprehension questions as you are reading.
What is the main idea?
What are the details?
What can be inferred?
What conclusions can be drawn?
What can this word mean?
What is the purpose of author?
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Strategies for Answering Reading Comprehension Questions
● Read the question first. Read the question, not the answer choices. When you know the kinds of questions you must answer, it will be easier to find the answers.
● Skim or read the passage quickly. Do not read the word for word or in detail. Read quickly to find the main idea and general organization.
● Go back to the passage to answer questions. If you know the answer, you do not need to go back to the passage.
● Leave the difficult questions until last.
● Take a guess when you do not know the answer. If you do not know the answer, take a guess. When you are taking a guess, first use a process of elimination. How you can eliminate the wrong answer on a multiple-choice item?
All multiple-choice questions on the TOEFL follow the same principle. There is one stem and four answer choices. One choice is correct, and the three incorrect choices are distracters. In other words, they distract you, or take your attention away from the correct answer.
Stem . . .
(A) Incorrect
(B) Correct
(C) Incorrect
D) Incorrect
One of the distracters is almost correct, and the other two are more clearly incorrect. You can eliminate these two clearly incorrect choices.
Stem . . .
(A) Almost correct
(B) Correct
(C) Incorrect
(D) Incorrect
If you cannot decide between the almost correct answer and the correct answer, take a guess. You may have an intuitive or unexplained feeling that one answer is correct. Use your intuition when you cannot decide.
If you do not know the answer and do not have feeling about the correct answer, use a guess letter (A, B, C, or D). Use the same letter to answer every item you do not know. Using the same letter will give you a better chance to get a correct answer.
● Answer all questions. Never leave any item unanswered. If you have no time left, use your guess letter.
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