Tips for TOEFL iBT Reading Component

The Reading Section measures your capability to read and have an understanding of academic texts (passages) in English. Reading is a important skill in academic environment. Students have to read a lot and fully understand the information presented in their textbooks or 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:

1. Reading to find information
2. Essential understanding
3. Reading to learn

Read, Read, Read. Read in English consistently. Focus on educative texts from university textbooks or any other resources. Do not stick with a couple of topics you’re keen on. Read from various subjects — science, social science, business, arts, geography, history, economics, and others. Academic texts, aside from textbooks, could possibly be seen in number of posts and academic magazines online or college libraries.

Discover thereason for the passage. Understanding the purpose of the reading you will easily find what the author is trying to accomplish. The purpose of the passage for most of the readings is embedded in the introductory paragraph which can be one of the most important paragraphs within the text. Many of the passages in TOEFL iBT attempt to do the following:

To Explain — to provide the information on a specific topic in explanatory manner. These texts contain mostly factual information.

To Resolve — it aims at finding solution for many sort of dilemmas or questions that need solutions. Usually there would be a discussion.

To persuade — to influence the reader on the credibility of particular perspective or idea. There’d be opinions and support with proof in those type of passages.

Increase vocabulary. When reading wide variety of texts on several topics you should make a word list. Organize your list in topics for better results. Example topics might be online business, geography, technology and others. Make flashcards to help you learn those word lists. Use the words learned in your writings and speaking.

Figure out how to skim the text. Skimming means looking at the text quickly to obtain very first basic impression on what the text is all about, what its main idea is. Skimming corresponds with Reading to get information objective in TOEFL iBT. You ought to develop your ability to skim quickly but at the same time to determine all major points within the passage. Take notes. See also our skimming techniques.

Read right after skimming. Simply skimming isn’t enough. Read the passage once again. Now read it much more carefully, bear in mind that you have limited time. Take notes. Find out the passage type — classification, cause/effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, etc.
guess the meaning of unfamiliar words in the paragraphs, the context will help accomplish that. Next, look at those words in the dictionary. Guessing the words from the context brings great advantages — you’ll save time and it does not disturb your comprehension of the texts.

Highlight some of the pronouns (he, him, they, them, etc.) inside the texts. Discover to which nouns in the certain text the highlighted pronouns direct.

Practice making general inferences and conclusions based on what’s implied in the text.
Learn to organize the data presented in the passage in charts and tables. Produce charts with categories and put the important data from the passage inside proper category. In TOEFL iBT you will not be required to create charts. Rather, charts are supplied and you’re asked to categorize the information in pre-defined categories.

Take it easy! You don’t have to know about the main topics of the TOEFL iBT Reading passage. Everything needed to give perfect answers is in the text. The definition of some of the subject-specific words is accessible during the test. Those words are colored and underlined.

Be fast but try to avoid thinking about the time. Concentrate on what you read along with what exactly the questions ask for.
guess. There is no penalty for an wrong answer in TOEFL iBT. Do not leave blank answers. In each case they don’t bring you points. If you notice you’re running out of time, just take a guess and mark answers for all remaining questions. There is 25 percent chances to guess the correct answer.

Stop thinking of Reading. Once your section time is over, just stop thinking about the Reading section. Get prepared for the Listening part. If you have not done well in the Reading, you can compensate it with the next components. Therefore, stop considering the Reading.

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