Best TOEFL Reading Strategies
The most troublesome section in the TOEFL is the reading section. Reading sections consists of 14 questions for 20 minutes. So ideally if you have 1 minute per question, you get only 6 minutes to read lengthy and tough prose. The TOEFL is a combination of your English level and the strategies.
Let’s consider some best tricks to make sure you crack the reading section smoothly:
1. Experimenting on different strategies:
While taking the practice, make sure you try out different ways to understand which one suits best for you.
a)Directly read the first question before even going through the paragraph. After this, read the text carefully until you find a relevant answer to the question. Now go back and read the first question and find the option that matches the text. Continue with the next question in the same way. Know the most repeated GRE words!
b)Read the complete passage before answering any question. If you are getting panicky with time confusing yourself between text and questions, this might help.
c)G-Strategy: Read the first question and find the answer in the first paragraph. In most cases, the sequence of the questions and the flow of data in the text is similar.
2. Smart Skim Techniques:
– Skim the text to look for the highlighting idea.
– Take short notes on each paragraph to get a brief idea about what the passage focuses on. The idea behind this is that you won’t feel lost. Moreover, it is easier to frame the ‘ Summary Questions’.
– Once you complete the smart skim technique, directly go to the questions and find answers faster by only glancing
through the appropriate paragraph. This saves a lot of time while answering the questions. To get more tips to read Writing tips for GRE
3.Enhance your reading speed :
Time and speed is an important factor to ace your TOEFL score. It is very important to judge the amount of time spent in reading the comprehension so that you do not have to hurry to mark the answer. Time yourself when you study for the test and note the duration of time it takes you to go through a given passage. It is normal that you slow down when your level of comprehension drops down. When you understand less, you need to slow down and read more carefully.
Make a habit of encountering unknown words everyday and translate them into English to English dictionary. You will not only get a clear English explanation for the word you do not understand, but you will also acquaint yourself with synonyms (similar words) and antonyms (opposite words).
Since you are practicing for the Reading section of the TOEFL, try to read every text completely without emphasizing on each word. After getting a gist of the whole text and tried to understand everything by yourself, then you may look up words. This is very similar to the actual testing situation. Your vocabulary will improve and so will your confidence. By the time you get to your test day, you will have a much larger English vocabulary to pass you through.
5.The number line theory:
This theory used in the TOEFL is very helpful to navigate to your words or sentences asked in the questions. You just need to number every fifth line in your passage and read it carefully to know the reference of your context. You have practiced and studied enough, and it is now time to demonstrate your excellent English reading skills!
That being said, when starting your actual TOEFL, take a deep breath and do not let the Reading section tire you out.
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