TOEFL PREPARATION

COURSE
Reading Comprehension
Leonor Rosales Arellano
Aulas 2-250
lrosales@itesm.mx
TOEFL Reading Section
The TOEFL Reading section has five passages with
academic content.
You will have to answer about 10 questions of each
passage .
Overview items: main idea,main topic and mail purpose
Vocabulary
Referent Pronoun
Detail and Factual information
Inferences
Negative questions
Organization of passage





Passages
1. Science and technology: astronomy,
geology, chemistry, physics, mathematics,
zoology, botany, medicine, engineering and
mechanics.
2. North American history, government,
geography and culture
3. Art: literature, painting, scultpure, architecture,
dance and drama

Social science: anthropology, economics,
psychology, urban studies and sociology
5. Biography.

Very often, youll see that the topics overlap.

General strategies for reading
section
Use your time wisely. You have 55
minutes to read five passages and 50
questions. Read each passage in 10
minutes and use the last five minutes to
go back to difficult questions.
DONT LEAVE BEFORE THE TIME IS
OVER.
Strategies
Acquire a large vocabulary of formal and
academic English. Reading passages are
written in formal English and are general
and academic.
Answer the Vocabulary Appendix on pages
427-454. Check answers in
www.heinle.com
Practice general reading strategies such as
skimming and scanning.
Strategies
Skim the passage before you start reading
to get the main idea.
Then, identify the types of questions you
will need to answer. This is, read the
questions first. Dont read the options, just
focus on the information you need to
concentrate on.
Build Good Reading Skills: Skim
and Scan
Skimming means reading quickly for
general meaning. You skim reading
material to find out the main topic, the
main idea and the general organization of
the passage.
Build Good Reading Skills: Skim
and Scan

Scanning means knowing what information you
need to find before you read. You scan when
you are looking for a fact of detail , a particular
vocabulary word or the referent of a pronoun.

General strategies
Choose the best answer to each question
from the four answer choices listed in the
test book.
Figure out if the answer is too general, too
specific, irrelevant, incorrect or correct.
Eliminate wrong answers.

Overview items: Main idea
Almost every reading passage will have a
question about the main idea, topic, subject,
primary idea, or main idea.
Strategy
Since the TOEFL passages are written in a
traditional organized manner, it is not difficult to
find the main idea by studying the topic
sentence, which is most probably found at the
beginning of the paragraph
Overview items: Main topic
When there is no main idea question, we could
have to answer a main topic question. The
passage will ask you what the passage is
generally about.
Strategy
Scan the nouns in the passage, some of them
should belog to the same semantic field and will
help you determine the main topic.
Overview items: Purpose
Purpose
The purpose is the reason why the author wrote the
passage
Strategies:
Focus on the first and last paragraph.
Identify key words in the passage that could give
hints of the purpose of the passage.
Answers are usually written in infinitive.
Overview items: Tone and
attitude
Tone and attitude items require you to
determine the authors feelings.
Strategy:
Scan for the adjectives in the passage. They will
show if the authors feelings were positive,
negative or neutral. See page 343.
Overview item: Organization of
the passage
Some questions ask about the organization of the
passage or the relation between two paragraphs:
How is the information in the passage organized?
Strategy
Recognize signal words (transition words) in the
passage and identify the organization patterns they
represent.
Read the first line of each paragraph.
Look the words that show the relationship between
the paragraphs.


Transition words:
Transitions indicate relations,
whether within a sentence, paragraph, or paper.
This list illustrates "relationships" between ideas,
followed by words and phrases that can connect them.
Addition:
also, again, as well as, besides, coupled with,
furthermore, in addition, likewise, moreover, similarly
Consequence:
accordingly, as a result, consequently, for this reason,
for this purpose,
hence, otherwise, so then, subsequently, therefore,
thus, thereupon, wherefore

Generalizing:
as a rule, as usual, for the most part,
generally, generally speaking, ordinarily, usually
Exemplifying:
chiefly, especially, for instance, in particular, markedly,
namely,
particularly, including, specifically, such as
Illustration:
for example, for instance, for one thing, as an
illustration,
illustrated with, as an example, in this case
Emphasis
above all, chiefly, with attention to, especially,
particularly, singularly

Similarity:
comparatively, coupled with, correspondingly, identically,
likewise, similar, moreover, together with.

Restatement:
in essence, in other words, namely, that is, that is to say,
in short, in brief, to put it differently.

Contrast and Comparison:
contrast, by the same token, conversely, instead, likewise,
on one hand, on the other hand, on the contrary, rather,
similarly, yet, but, however, still, nevertheless, in contrast
Sequence:
at first, first of all, to begin with, in the first place, at
the same time, for now, for the time being, the next
step, in time, in turn, later on, meanwhile, next, then,
soon, the meantime, later, while, earlier,
simultaneously, afterward, in conclusion, with this in
mind,
Summarizing:
after all, all in all, all things considered, briefly, by and
large, in any case, in any event,
in brief, in conclusion, on the whole, in short, in
summary, in the final analysis,
in the long run, on balance, to sum up, to summarize,
finally
Overview items: Transition
Some questions might ask you what would the following
or preceding paragraph could be about.
How to identify the question?
The paragraph preceding the passage probably..
What is most likely in the paragraph following the
passage?
Strategy
The answer can be found in the first line of the
passage for a preceding question.
The answer can be found in the last line of the
passage for a following question.

Detail and Factual information
items
Detail items ask for specific information in the
passage.
Questions about information in the passage:
According to the passage, what.
According to the author, which
The author states in the passage that

Strategies for Detail Questions
TOEFL items follow an order, so you should not
waste time rereading the passage.
Answer choices will be a restatement of the
information in the passage.
Locate a key word in the question. Scan the
passage. Once you find it, read one sentence
before and one sentence after.
Negative items
Negative items ask you to determine which of the
four choices is not given in the passage. These
items contain the words NOT, EXCEPT, or LEAST
likey.
Questions about information that is NOT in the
passage:
All of the following are mentioned in the passage
EXCEPT.
Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the
passage?

Strategies for Negative Questions
Look for the information given in the
passage and eliminate those options.
Choose the option NOT mentioned in the
passage.
Check your time. If more that two minutes
have passed, eliminate the options you
found and guess. Use the last five minutes
to go back to this question.
Inferences items
Some TOEFL items ask you about
information that is given in the passage
and you are required to make inferences.
In order to answer them you must read
between lines and make conclusions
based on the information in the passage.
Strategies for Inference Items
Carefully read the sentence that contains the
keyword.
The answer to the question will be
information NOT given in the passage.
Incorrect answers will be information from the
passage but restated.
Vocabulary items
Vocabulary items ask about the meaning of
words or phrases in context. Some clues that
can help you find the meaning of words are:
Synonyms
Examples
Contrast
Word analysis
General context
Synonyms
TOEFL passages are written for academic
purposes and the author must use
synonyms and avoid repetition of words.
Search in the text. It is probable that the
author used a synonym close to the
vocabulary word in the question.
Word analysis
Sometimes you can figure out the meaning of
the vocabulary word by knowing the meaning of
the root and the prefixes and suffixes of a word.
Example:
Unwillingly
Un (means no)
Will (means want to)
-ing (suffix for a noun)
-ly ( suffix for an adverb)
Contrast
If the vocabulary word is in a contrast
sentence, you might be able to figure out
its meaning by finding the opposite word.
Example:
Although buisiness partnership enjoy certain
advantages over proprietorships, there are
drawbacks as well.
Examples
If you do not know the meaning of the word,
check if the author gives an example. Possible
words that will give you an example are:
For example
For instance
Such as
i.e (this is)
e.g. (example given)
Punctuation marks: parenthesis () or hypens - -
General context
You can guess the meaning of a word
through general context.
The barges headed across the lake
A barge is probably which of the following?
A) a train
B) a plane
C) a bicycle
D) a boat

Reference items
Referece words are words in the passage that
refer to back concepts mentioned earlier in the
passage.
Reference questions could be about:
Subject pronoun: I, you, he
Object pronoun: me, them
Possessive pronoun: mine, his, ours
Demonstrative pronoun: this, that, those
Indefinite pronoun: someone, anyone
Specified item: this concept, that dilema
Strategies for Referece Items
Find the pronoun on the passage.
Look for nouns that come before the pronoun.
Read the part of the passage before the
pronoun carefully.
Eliminate any wrong answers.