How To Master Skills For Reading Comprehension A manual for Third-Year Students The Danang University of Foreign Language Studies Department of English 2 Contents To the Student. Building supporting skills. 7 PRACTICE WITH SKIMMING TECHNIQUE. 9 EXERCISE R1: Choose the best heading.
9 EXERCISE R2: Match the Headings. 10 PRACTICE WITH SCANNING TECHNIQUE. 18 EXERCISE R3: Do short-answer questions. 18 EXERCISE R4: Do true/false/not-given questions.
20 EXERCISE R5: Do multiple choice questions. 22 EXERCISE R6: Do multiple matching. 23 Reading Mini-test 1. 27 PRACTICE WITH REFERENCES.
30 EXERCISE R7: Locating referents within a sentence. 31 EXERCISE R8: Locating multiple referents within a passage. 32 PRACTICE WITH DEALING WITH UNFAMILIAR VOCABULARY. 34 EXERCISE R9: Guess the meanings of the boldfaced word(s) in a sentence.
35 EXERCISE R10: Find the meanings of the boldfaced words in a paragraph. 38 Reading Mini-test 2. 38 PRACTICE WITH INFERENCES. 41 EXERCISE R11: Inferring in Yes / No / Not Given question type.
41 EXERCISE R12: Inferring in multiple choice question type. 44 EXERCISE R13: Inferring for other task types. 48 PRACTICE WITH SUMMARIZING SKILL. 50 EXERCISE R14: Completing a summary with main ideas.
50 EXERCISE R15: Filling in gaps with words given. 52 EXERCISE R16: Filling in gaps without words given. 54 PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING TEXT ORGANIZATION. 56 EXERCISE R17: Inserting sentences into a passage.
56 READING PRACTICE TEST 1. 61 PART II Getting ready for exam. 69 PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING MEANING FROM CONTEXT. 70 EXERCISE R18 Understanding words in context.
70 EXERCISE R19 Choosing the best synonym. 75 EXERCISE R20 Understanding the author's meaning. 79 Reading Mini-test 3. 80 PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING THE CONNECTION OF IDEAS.
84 EXERCISE R21 Locating referents within a passage. 84 EXERCISE R22 Locating multiple referents within a passage. 85 EXERCISE R23 Understanding transition words. 85 EXERCISE R24 Inserting sentences.
87 Reading Mini-test 4. 88 PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING DETAILS AND RECOGNIZING PARAPHRASES. 93 EXERCISE R25 Finding facts. 95 EXERCISE R26 Understanding exceptions.
96 EXERCISE R27 Determining whether statements are the same or different. 98 EXERCISE R28 Locating restated information. 98 EXERCISE R29 Choosing the restatement of boldfaced sentences. 99 EXERCISE R30 Choosing the restatement of boldfaced sentences in paragraphs.
101 Reading Mini-test 5. 103 PRACTICE WITH MAKING INFERENCES AND DRAWING CONCLUSIONS. 108 EXERCISE R31 Identifying inferences. 109 EXERCISE R32 Checking if an inference is correct.
110 EXERCISE R33 Identifying inferences in paragraphs. 110 EXERCISE R34 Making inferences. 111 EXERCISE R35 Drawing conclusions. 113 EXERCISE R36 Reviewing inferences.
114 Reading Mini-test 6. 116 PRACTICE WITH SUMMARIES AND CHARTS. 120 EXERCISE R37 Understanding summaries. 120 EXERCISE R38 Identifying summary ideas.
121 EXERCISE R39 Organizing information into charts. 125 Reading Mini-test 7. 128 READING PRACTICE TEST 2. 132 PASSAGE 1: Resources and Industrialism in Canada.
132 PASSAGE 2: Migration from Asia. 134 PASSAGE 3: Layers of Social Class. 136 PASSAGE 4: Sea Rising Levels. 139 PASSAGE 5: Exotic and Endangered Species.
141 VSTEP READING TEST SAMPLE. 144 4 To the Student This book is designed to help third-year students of the College of Foreign Language Studies, the University of Danang, to develop their reading comprehension skills. The book is divided into three major parts. The first part is to help students build up techniques that help them do a reading comprehension test effectively like skimming, scanning, looking for main ideas, locating referents, guessing unfamiliar vocabulary, and the like.
Some might view the techniques are not necessary, but its helpfulness is not questionable as they do reflect what a reader does in their real-life reading activity. In addition, it includes most of the question types learners might meet in standardized reading comprehension tests, and so it certainly helps learners prepare themselves for these tests. While the first part of the book aims to equip learners with necessary reading skills so that they can deal with any reading material that they encounter in both their daily and academic life, the second part of the book focuses mainly on helping students answer multiple-choice questions in a reading test. The skills learned in the first part can be repeated in the second part, but with a totally different goal.
The goal is for students (1) to review the skills, but more importantly (2) to apply the skills learned in dealing with text passages with multiple-choice questions. At the end of each part, there is a practice test. The practice tests are also there to help students check their progress with the skills they have learned. The final part of the book presents a sample VSTEP reading test.
VTSEP is the standardized test administered by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, which students are expected to take to complete their graduation requirements. 5 6 PART I BUILDING SUPPORTING SKILLS 7 8 Building Support Skills PRACTICE WITH SKIMMING TECHNIQUE Skimming is a fast reading technique. It involves selective reading of the most important parts of the text in order to: • find out how the text is organized – that is, the way it is divided into sections or paragraphs. • get a general idea of what the text is about.
• decide if the text is interesting and whether you should read it in more detail. Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading. People often skim when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time. Use skimming when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research.
• Read the title, subtitles and subheadings to find out what the text is about. • Look at the illustrations to give you further information about the topic. • When you are skimming a passage for a general understanding, don’t try to understand every word. Jump from paragraph to paragraph, finding the main point in each paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph, like jumping across stepping-stones in a river.
The main point of each paragraph is often, though certainly not always, the first sentence in each paragraph. The sentence with the main point is often called the ‘topic sentence’. Taken together, the topic sentences of a passage should provide a reasonable summary of the passage. When you are looking at sentences to understand the main points, try to find the main words in the sentence, namely the subject, the verb and the object of the main clause.
Try to ignore the other words, particularly the relative clauses and adverbial clauses. Examples: Whale oil, rendered from the blubber, was used originally for lamp fuel and later as a principal ingredient of soaps, margarine, paint oils and lubricants. While skimming, it is enough to understand that: (This) oil was used for (something). Tea plants are grown on tea plantations, called gardens or estates, in areas that have a great amount of rainfall and rich loamy oil.
It is enough to understand that tea plants are grown on/in somewhere/somehow. If you later find a question that relates to this sentence, you can come back and read it more intensively. EXERCISE R1: Choose the best heading 1. Which of these three headings states the main idea in the paragraph that goes below? Use the highlighted key words to help you decide.
Population figures for China B. Assessing China’s farmland C. Global population and the future The world’s population is forecast to reach 7.5 billion by 2020, and growing prosperity, especially in China, is fueling a rising appetite for meat and cereals. Yet it is becoming harder to find new farmland, water is increasingly scare and crop-yield growth is slowing.
Already 167 million children are malnourished. Are hungry times ahead? 1. How did the highlighted words help you? 2. How do the verb tenses help you find the answer? 3.
Can you explain why the other headings are attractive, but wrong? 9 Practice with skimming technique 2. Look at these three headings. As quickly as possible decide which of the headings best matches the paragraph, taken from a reading passage below. Britain’s modern motorway system B.
Roman principles relevant today C. 6,000 km of Roman roads Between 43 AD and 81 AD Roman Britain acquired 6000 km network of technically advanced, hard bearing and straight highways linking towns of importance. Today Britain’s motorway system is only half that length. The basic Roman philosophy of building a road to cope with different types and volumes of vehicles and using local materials where possible still applies today.
EXERCISE R2: Match the Headings Questions 1-3 Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-C from the list of heading below Tactics for heading matching 1. Read all the headings and underline or highlight the key words. Read the first paragraph of the passage, marking the topic sentences and related phrases and vocabulary. Re-phrase the main idea of the paragraph in your mind.
Read the list of headings to see if there is a match between the key words and the headings and the words you have marked in the paragraph. Choose the heading that best summarizes the main idea of the first paragraph. Go on to the next paragraph and repeat the process. If you think two headings fit one paragraph, mark both of them and rule one of these out later.
List of headings i. The destruction of the library ii. Collection methods iii. Replacing lost books iv.
The library’s original purpose v. Storage methods The Old Library of Alexandria A. The ancient library of Alexandria, which served as the intellectual and cultural hub of Egypt for 250 years, was tragically destroyed in 43 B. Now there is widespread speculation about its true beginnings.
The most popular theory is that Plolemy I Sorter (who ruled from 304 to 282 BC) gathered a vast selection of books on kingship, ruling and the world’s people, so he might be better understand trade terms and how to lead his subjects. Ptolemy I longed to possess all the literature in the world. The manuscripts to take the form of scrolls kept in pigeonholes, the best of them wrapped in jackets of leather or linen. They are likely to have remained in the groups in which they were acquired rather than being properly categorized.
Parchment wasn’t used until later, when the first books began to be written and kept in wooden chests in Roman times. 10 Building Support Skills C. As the library expanded, Ptolemy’s successors used increasingly unscrupulous techniques to obtain manuscripts. One source claims that every ship sailing into Alexandria’s harbour was routinely searched and, if a book was found, it was confiscated and taken to the library.
There it was examined and a decision made whether to keep it and make a replacement copy, to be given to its rightful owner together with adequate reimbursement, or to just return the original copy outright. Section C………… Questions 4-9 Look at the passage ‘Difficulties Commonly Experienced by Overseas Students’. There are six sections 4-9. Choose the most suitable heading for each section from the list of headings below.
Write the appropriate numbers (i-viii) in the lines. There are more headings than sections, so you will not use all of them. You may use any of the headings more than once. List of headings i.
Personal Finances ii. Language and Communication iii. Being Different and Apart iv. Study-Related Concerns vi.
Family Support vii. Getting Around viii. Living Independently Difficulties Commonly Experienced by Overseas Students The problems experienced by overseas students are now generally well-documented. The issues that cause the greatest difficulty can be summarized as follows: 4.
This involves getting used to the new country and different way of life, customs, and values.