بخش خواندن تافل - راهکارها

Before you can ace a test, you have to understand what it’s testing. The TOEFL reading section is a test on how well you can read and understand passages in written English. On the TOEFL reading section, you’ll get three to four passages. These passages are written like textbooks; you won’t see anything weird, like poetry.

Each passage will be followed by 12-14 questions. That’s 36-56 questions in total. The questions will only ask you about information in the passage. It’s a test of reading comprehension, not outside knowledge. Most of the questions will be multiple-choice, but you’ll also get a few special type called ‘reading to learn questions,’ which you’ll learn about later in this lesson. There won’t be any essays.

Now that you know what’s on the test, it’s time to dive into strategy. Let’s start with the passages. After all, you have to read the passages before you can start answering questions about them! Here are some tips for managing the reading passages on the TOEFL:

1) Read for the main idea, not the details

Skim the passage quickly to get the main idea. After you’re done, try to summarize the main idea in one sentence, and then go straight on to the questions. This is good strategy because you don’t get any points for understanding the passage; you only get points for answering questions. Most of the details in the passage won’t show up in the questions, so you don’t need to worry about them.

It’s true that some questions will ask you about details. But for those questions, you can always go back to the passage to check the details as necessary. It’s faster and easier to work this way than to try to read for every little detail the first time around.

2) Don’t get hung up on words you don’t know

Even if there are several words in the passage that you aren’t familiar with, don’t panic. Instead of sticking on individual words, focus on the meaning of the sentence as a whole. If you can understand that, you’re set.

Once you’ve read each passage, you’ll turn to the questions. You’ll get the best results from doing the questions from easy to hard and using the correct strategy for each type. Here’s the list, from easier to harder question types. The easiest questions will probably be

1) Questions about word meaning

These are the ‘In context, ——– most nearly means…’ questions. If you’re not prepared for these, they can really wreck your day, but once you know how to manage them, they’re some of the easiest questions on the whole test. The key to getting them right is this: they’re about word meaning in context, NOT dictionary definitions. English words can have several different meanings depending on how they’re used in a particular sentence. The word meaning questions on the TOEFL are testing whether you can figure out which particular meaning is being used in this particular case.

To answer these questions, go back up to the sentence and read it through. Underline the word you’re being asked about and think of a synonym or another word you could replace it with. Then go back to the answer choices and pick the best match for your word. This will make sure you’re thinking about the way the word is used in context, not the dictionary definition.

2) Questions with paragraph references

After you zoom through the word meaning questions, move on to the questions that will tell you specifically which paragraph they’re referring to. They should start with something like ‘In paragraph two…’ These questions are still fairly easy because they tell you exactly where in the passage to look for the answer.

3) Other ‘normal-looking’ questions

After the paragraph reference questions, tackle any other standard multiple-choice questions (one question, four answer choices). Then go on to…

4) Insert-a-sentence questions

These questions ask you to insert a sentence at one of four places in a given paragraph of the passage. For these questions, you’ll have to read the paragraph carefully. Look at transition words, like ‘then,’ ‘next,’ and ‘also’ to help you fit the sentence in. Then take your best guess and read through the paragraph again with the sentence added to see if it makes sense.

5) Reading to learn questions

These questions are easy to spot: they’ll have a great big chart. Reading to learn questions ask you to organize the main ideas of the passage into either a category chart or a summary. Each passage will have one reading to learn question. These are the hardest of the question types, and you’ll need to understand the passage as a whole, so save them for last. If you want more tips on reading to learn questions, there’s an entire lesson specifically dedicated to them in this course.

In this lesson, you got some strategy tips for the TOEFL:

On the passages, skim for the main idea first, but don’t get hung up on details or individual words you don’t know.

Do the easy questions first. Start with word meaning questions. Then move on to questions that refer to a specific paragraph, other multiple-choice questions, and sentence insertion questions. Finally, do the reading to learn questions last.

For word meaning questions, always look at the way the word is used in the passage. Don’t just pick the answer choice you think is the best definition overall.

For all questions, every answer should be based in the passage. The passages won’t ask you about any outside information; every answer is somewhere in the passage.

Now test your knowledge and try some sample questions on the quiz!