Sep 29, 2017
Strategies for TOEFL iBT Reading Section
The very first component you should do once you sit for the TOEFL iBT exam is the Reading. The Reading Section measures your ability to read and have an understanding of academic texts (passages) in English language. Reading is a important skill in academic environment. Students should read a lot and understand the information presented in their books or any other reading materials. As we discussed in TOEFL iBT Format Section on i-Courses.org, three are the main reasons for academic reading in TOEFL iBT:
- Reading to find information
- Fundamental understanding
- Reading to learn
The Reading Section in TOEFL iBT consists of 3–5 texts; each text is about 700 words long. Every Reading text is accompanied by Twelve to fourteen questions related to the text. The main passage stands alone for a time of 20 minutes and the 2nd and 3rd passages share a total time period of 40 minutes for reading and answering the questions. The system will cut you off right after the time ends. Therefore, you have to be not only good at reading but also extremely fast. To the end of this document we will give some important suggestions on how to prepare for the TOEFL iBT Reading and how to behave at the reading test so that you can improve your final score.
Preparation Techniques
Read, Read, Read. Read in English regularly. Concentrate on academic texts from university books or other resources. Do not stick with one or two subjects that you will be interested in. Read from number of subjects — science, social science, small business, arts, geography, history, business economics, and others. Academic texts, in addition to textbooks, might be seen in variety of articles and academic publications on the web or college libraries.
Find the reason for the passage. Getting the purpose of the reading you will easily find what the author is trying to achieve. The purpose of the passage in most of the readings is a part of the introductory paragraph which is probably the most important paragraphs within the text. Many of the passages in TOEFL iBT will try to do the following:
To Explain — to provide the information on a certain subject in explanatory way. These texts contain mostly factual information.
To Resolve — it aims at discovering solution for many sort of dilemmas or questions that require answers. Generally there would be a discussion.
To convince — to persuade the reader on the credibility of specific perspective or idea. There would be opinions and support with evidence in those kind of passages.
Improve vocabulary. While reading wide range of texts on several subjects you must make a word list. Organize your list in topics for better results. Example topics could be enterprise, geography, technology and others. Make flashcards that may help you learn those word lists. Use the words learned in your writings and speaking.
Take notes. Through all sections of TOEFL iBT note taking is allowed. It’s a crucial element for success. It is not easy to remember all facts and details from a reading text in order to answer the questions. In addition, you don’t have enough time for it to look for these again inside the text. Therefore, the solution is called note taking. Any time skimming and reading the texts you’ll want to take note of all important facts and details to discover them fast and easily when you really need them. Discover also our effective note taking methods.
Learn to skim the text. Skimming usually means looking at the text quickly to acquire very first general feeling on what the text is all about, what its main idea is. Skimming corresponds with Reading to get information objective in TOEFL iBT. It is best to develop your skill to skim easily but while doing so to recognize all major points within the passage. Take notes. See also our skimming methods.
Read right after skimming. Simply skimming isn’t enough. Read the passage once again. This time read it much more cautiously, bear in mind that you’ve got limited time. Take notes. Identify the passage type — classification, cause/effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, etc.
Try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words in the passages, the context can help to accomplish that. Next, look at these words in the dictionary. Guessing the words from the context brings great advantages — you save time and it does not disturb your comprehension of the texts.
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