Study tips - reading

These study tips have been adapted from the ETS information sheet.

The best way to improve reading skills is to read frequently and to read many different types of texts in various subject areas (sciences, social sciences, arts, business, etc.). The Internet is one of the best resources for this, but books, magazines, and journals are very helpful as well. It is best to progress to reading texts that are more academic in style, the kind that would be found in university courses.

Here are some suggestions for ways to build skills for the three reading purposes included in the TOEFL iBT.

1. Reading to find information

• • Scan the passages to find and highlight key facts (dates, numbers, terms) and information.
• • Practice this frequently to increase reading rate and fluency.
  

2. Reading for basic comprehension

• - Increase vocabulary knowledge, perhaps by using fl ashcards.
• - Rather than carefully reading each word and each sentence, practice skimming a passage quickly to get a general impression of the main idea.
• - Build up the ability to skim quickly and to identify the major points.
• After skimming a passage, read it again more carefully and write down the main idea, major points, and important facts.
• • Choose some unfamiliar words in the passage and guess the meaning from the context
  (surrounding sentences).
• • Select all the pronouns (he, him, they, them, etc.) in a passage and identify which nouns they refer to in the passage.
• • Practice making inferences and drawing conclusions based on what is implied in the passage as a whole.
  

3. Reading to learn

• • Identify the passage type (e.g., classification, cause-and-effect, compare-and-contrast, problem-and-solution, description, narration, etc.)
• • Do the following to organize the information in the passage:
  

  • Create an outline of the passage to distinguish between major and minor points.
  • If the passage describes the order of a process or is a narration, create an outline of the steps in the process or narration.
  • If the passage categorizes information, create a chart and place the information in appropriate categories.
  Note: In the TOEFL iBT test, test takers do not have to create such a chart. Instead, a chart with possible answer choices is provided for them, and they are required to fill in the chart with the correct choices. Practicing this skill will help test takers think about categorizing information, and be able to do so with ease.
  • Create a written or oral summary of the passages using these charts and outlines. Note: This is not measured in the Reading section, but practicing summarizing skills is useful for the integrated task in the Writing and Speaking sections.
  • Paraphrase individual sentences in a passage, and then progress to paraphrasing an entire paragraph.

  Note: The Reading section measures the ability to recognize paraphrases. The ability to
  paraphrase is also important for the integrated tasks in the Writing and Speaking sections of the test.