GIÁO TRÌNH đọc Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Đại Học Đà Nẵng

How To Master Skills For Reading Comprehension
A manual for Third-Year Students

The Danang University of Foreign Language Studies
Department of English


2


Contents
To the Student .......................................................................................................................................................... 5
PART I. Building supporting skills .................................................................................................... 7
PRACTICE WITH SKIMMING TECHNIQUE .............................................................................................................. 9
EXERCISE R1: Choose the best heading.................................................................................... 9
EXERCISE R2: Match the Headings ........................................................................................ 10
PRACTICE WITH SCANNING TECHNIQUE ........................................................................................................... 18
EXERCISE R3: Do short-answer questions ............................................................................... 18
EXERCISE R4: Do true/false/not-given questions ..................................................................... 20
EXERCISE R5: Do multiple choice questions ........................................................................... 22
EXERCISE R6: Do multiple matching ...................................................................................... 23

Reading Mini-test 1 ............................................................................................................ 27
PRACTICE WITH REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 30
EXERCISE R7: Locating referents within a sentence ................................................................. 31
EXERCISE R8: Locating multiple referents within a passage ..................................................... 32
PRACTICE WITH DEALING WITH UNFAMILIAR VOCABULARY ................................................................. 34
EXERCISE R9: Guess the meanings of the boldfaced word(s) in a sentence. ............................... 35
EXERCISE R10: Find the meanings of the boldfaced words in a paragraph. ................................ 38

Reading Mini-test 2 ............................................................................................................ 38

PRACTICE WITH INFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 41
EXERCISE R11: Inferring in Yes / No / Not Given question type ............................................... 41
EXERCISE R12: Inferring in multiple choice question type ....................................................... 44
EXERCISE R13: Inferring for other task types .......................................................................... 48
PRACTICE WITH SUMMARIZING SKILL ................................................................................................................ 50
EXERCISE R14: Completing a summary with main ideas .......................................................... 50
EXERCISE R15: Filling in gaps with words given ..................................................................... 52
EXERCISE R16: Filling in gaps without words given ................................................................ 54
PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING TEXT ORGANIZATION ........................................................................ 56
EXERCISE R17: Inserting sentences into a passage ................................................................... 56

READING PRACTICE TEST 1 ................................................................................................................... 61
PART II Getting ready for exam ......................................................................................................... 69
PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING MEANING FROM CONTEXT.............................................................. 70
EXERCISE R18 Understanding words in context ....................................................................... 70
EXERCISE R19 Choosing the best synonym ............................................................................. 75
EXERCISE R20 Understanding the author's meaning ................................................................. 79

Reading Mini-test 3 ............................................................................................................ 80
PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING THE CONNECTION OF IDEAS .......................................................... 84
EXERCISE R21 Locating referents within a passage .................................................................. 84
EXERCISE R22 Locating multiple referents within a passage..................................................... 85


EXERCISE R23 Understanding transition words ....................................................................... 85
EXERCISE R24 Inserting sentences ......................................................................................... 87

Reading Mini-test 4 ............................................................................................................ 88
PRACTICE WITH UNDERSTANDING DETAILS AND RECOGNIZING PARAPHRASES .......................... 93
EXERCISE R25 Finding facts .................................................................................................. 95

EXERCISE R26 Understanding exceptions ............................................................................... 96
EXERCISE R27 Determining whether statements are the same or different ................................. 98
EXERCISE R28 Locating restated information.......................................................................... 98
EXERCISE R29 Choosing the restatement of boldfaced sentences.............................................. 99
EXERCISE R30 Choosing the restatement of boldfaced sentences in paragraphs ....................... 101

Reading Mini-test 5 .......................................................................................................... 103
PRACTICE WITH MAKING INFERENCES AND DRAWING CONCLUSIONS............................................ 108
EXERCISE R31 Identifying inferences ................................................................................... 109
EXERCISE R32 Checking if an inference is correct................................................................. 110
EXERCISE R33 Identifying inferences in paragraphs .............................................................. 110
EXERCISE R34 Making inferences ........................................................................................ 111
EXERCISE R35 Drawing conclusions .................................................................................... 113
EXERCISE R36 Reviewing inferences ................................................................................... 114

Reading Mini-test 6 .......................................................................................................... 116
PRACTICE WITH SUMMARIES AND CHARTS ................................................................................................... 120
EXERCISE R37 Understanding summaries ............................................................................. 120
EXERCISE R38 Identifying summary ideas ............................................................................ 121
EXERCISE R39 Organizing information into charts ................................................................ 125

Reading Mini-test 7 .......................................................................................................... 128

READING PRACTICE TEST 2 ................................................................................................................. 132
PASSAGE 1: Resources and Industrialism in Canada ............................................................. 132
PASSAGE 2: Migration from Asia ........................................................................................ 134
PASSAGE 3: Layers of Social Class....................................................................................... 136
PASSAGE 4: Sea Rising Levels ............................................................................................ 139
PASSAGE 5: Exotic and Endangered Species ........................................................................ 141

VSTEP READING TEST SAMPLE........................................................................................................ 144

4


To the Student
This book is designed to help third-year students of the College of Foreign Language Studies,
the University of Danang, to develop their reading comprehension skills.
The book is divided into three major parts. The first part is to help students build up
techniques that help them do a reading comprehension test effectively like skimming,
scanning, looking for main ideas, locating referents, guessing unfamiliar vocabulary, and the
like. Some might view the techniques are not necessary, but its helpfulness is not questionable
as they do reflect what a reader does in their real-life reading activity. In addition, it includes
most of the question types learners might meet in standardized reading comprehension tests,
and so it certainly helps learners prepare themselves for these tests.
While the first part of the book aims to equip learners with necessary reading skills so that
they can deal with any reading material that they encounter in both their daily and academic
life, the second part of the book focuses mainly on helping students answer multiple-choice
questions in a reading test. The skills learned in the first part can be repeated in the second
part, but with a totally different goal. The goal is for students (1) to review the skills, but more
importantly (2) to apply the skills learned in dealing with text passages with multiple-choice
questions.
At the end of each part, there is a practice test. The practice tests are also there to help
students check their progress with the skills they have learned. The final part of the book
presents a sample VSTEP reading test. VTSEP is the standardized test administered by the
Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, which students are expected to take to
complete their graduation requirements.

5

6


PART I

BUILDING
SUPPORTING
SKILLS

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8


Building Support Skills

PRACTICE WITH SKIMMING TECHNIQUE
Skimming is a fast reading technique. It involves selective reading of the most important
parts of the text in order to:
•
•
•

find out how the text is organized – that is, the way it is divided into sections or
paragraphs.
get a general idea of what the text is about.
decide if the text is interesting and whether you should read it in more detail.

Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading. People often skim
when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time. Use skimming when you
want to see if an article may be of interest in your research.
• Read the title, subtitles and subheadings to find out what the text is about.
• Look at the illustrations to give you further information about the topic.
• When you are skimming a passage for a general understanding, don’t try to understand
every word. Jump from paragraph to paragraph, finding the main point in each paragraph
before moving on to the next paragraph, like jumping across stepping-stones in a river.
The main point of each paragraph is often, though certainly not always, the first sentence
in each paragraph. The sentence with the main point is often called the ‘topic sentence’.
Taken together, the topic sentences of a passage should provide a reasonable summary of
the passage.
When you are looking at sentences to understand the main points, try to find the main words
in the sentence, namely the subject, the verb and the object of the main clause. Try to ignore
the other words, particularly the relative clauses and adverbial clauses.
Examples:
Whale oil, rendered from the blubber, was used originally for lamp fuel and later as a
principal ingredient of soaps, margarine, paint oils and lubricants.
While skimming, it is enough to understand that: (This) oil was used for (something).
Tea plants are grown on tea plantations, called gardens or estates, in areas that have a
great amount of rainfall and rich loamy oil.
It is enough to understand that tea plants are grown on/in somewhere/somehow. If you
later find a question that relates to this sentence, you can come back and read it more
intensively.

EXERCISE R1: Choose the best heading
1. Which of these three headings states the main idea in the paragraph that goes below? Use
the highlighted key words to help you decide.
A. Population figures for China
B. Assessing China’s farmland

C. Global population and the future
The world’s population is forecast to reach 7.5 billion by 2020, and growing prosperity,
especially in China, is fueling a rising appetite for meat and cereals. Yet it is becoming
harder to find new farmland, water is increasingly scare and crop-yield growth is slowing.
Already 167 million children are malnourished. Are hungry times ahead?
1. How did the highlighted words help you?
2. How do the verb tenses help you find the answer?
3. Can you explain why the other headings are attractive, but wrong?
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Practice with skimming technique

2. Look at these three headings. As quickly as possible decide which of the headings best
matches the paragraph, taken from a reading passage below.
A. Britain’s modern motorway system
B. Roman principles relevant today
C. 6,000 km of Roman roads
Between 43 AD and 81 AD Roman Britain acquired 6000 km network of technically
advanced, hard bearing and straight highways linking towns of importance. Today
Britain’s motorway system is only half that length. The basic Roman philosophy of
building a road to cope with different types and volumes of vehicles and using local
materials where possible still applies today.

EXERCISE R2: Match the Headings
Questions 1-3
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-C from the list of heading below

Tactics for heading matching
1. Read all the headings and underline or highlight the key words.

2. Read the first paragraph of the passage, marking the topic sentences and
related phrases and vocabulary.

3. Re-phrase the main idea of the paragraph in your mind.
4. Read the list of headings to see if there is a match between the key words and
the headings and the words you have marked in the paragraph.

5. Choose the heading that best summarizes the main idea of the first paragraph.
6. Go on to the next paragraph and repeat the process.
7. If you think two headings fit one paragraph, mark both of them and rule one of
these out later.

List of headings
i. The destruction of the library
ii.
Collection methods
iii.
Replacing lost books
iv.
The library’s original purpose
v.
Storage methods

The Old Library of Alexandria
A. The ancient library of Alexandria, which served as the intellectual and cultural hub of Egypt
for 250 years, was tragically destroyed in 43 B.C. Now there is widespread speculation
about its true beginnings. The most popular theory is that Plolemy I Sorter (who ruled from
304 to 282 BC) gathered a vast selection of books on kingship, ruling and the world’s
people, so he might be better understand trade terms and how to lead his subjects.
B. Ptolemy I longed to possess all the literature in the world. The manuscripts to take the form

of scrolls kept in pigeonholes, the best of them wrapped in jackets of leather or linen. They
are likely to have remained in the groups in which they were acquired rather than being
properly categorized. Parchment wasn’t used until later, when the first books began to be
written and kept in wooden chests in Roman times.
10


Building Support Skills

C. As the library expanded, Ptolemy’s successors used increasingly unscrupulous techniques
to obtain manuscripts. One source claims that every ship sailing into Alexandria’s harbour
was routinely searched and, if a book was found, it was confiscated and taken to the library.
There it was examined and a decision made whether to keep it and make a replacement
copy, to be given to its rightful owner together with adequate reimbursement, or to just
return the original copy outright.
Your Answer:
1. Section A ………..

2. Section B …………

3. Section C…………

Questions 4-9
Look at the passage ‘Difficulties Commonly Experienced by Overseas Students’. There are
six sections 4-9. Choose the most suitable heading for each section from the list of headings
below. Write the appropriate numbers (i-viii) in the lines. There are more headings than
sections, so you will not use all of them. You may use any of the headings more than once.
List of headings
i.
Personal Finances

ii.
Language and Communication
iii.
Being Different and Apart
iv.
Cultural Adjustment
v.
Study-Related Concerns
vi.
Family Support
vii.
Getting Around
viii.
Living Independently

Difficulties Commonly Experienced by Overseas Students
The problems experienced by overseas students are now generally well-documented. The
issues that cause the greatest difficulty can be summarized as follows:
4. ………………………………………………………………………………….

This involves getting used to the new country and different way of life, customs, and values. In
addition, students also have to deal with the sense of loss (missing family, friends, familiar food
and places). These issues are usually referred to by the term ‘culture shock’.
5. …………………………………………………………………………………….

Managing on a limited budget is a challenge for most, but it is especially so for people living
in an unfamiliar environment. Students may have to pay for education and living expenses, find
a reasonable place to live and, in some cases, a part-time job to supplement any scholarship or
money from home.
6.

…………………………………………………………………………………

Many students are not used to looking after themselves. At home, parents and family usually
assist them in coping with shopping, cooking, personal finances and generally managing their
affairs. Overseas, all of these things must be done without the family’s support.
7. …………………………………………………………………………………..

Even some of the students who have been educated in an English language school have
problems communicating freely at university level. Many students find reading and writing in
English especially difficult. Participating in classroom discussion, and asking questions of staff
often produce difficulties.
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Practice with skimming technique

8. …………………………………………………………………….

Differences in the style and traditions of learning between Western and Asian countries
frequently cause difficulty. Many overseas students find it difficult to adapt to Western notions
of independent thinking and learning. Students from some countries may also have difficulty
because they lack experience in using well-equipped libraries and laboratories.
9. …………………………………………………………………………..

This refers both to experiences of racial intolerance and the relatively low level of contact that
overseas students have with local people. Students often report being uncomfortable about
generalized discrimination, e.g. graffiti. The lack of meaningful contact with locals will be
discussed in a later section of this book.

Questions 10-19
Look at the passage ‘How to Revise for Exams’. There are ten sections 10-19. Choose the
most suitable heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate
numbers (i-x) in the lines.
List of headings
i. Structuring exam essays
ii. Your attitude
iii. How to remember
iv.
Concentration
v. Practicing long exam essays
vi.
Stress and self confidence
vii.
How to revise
viii. Have a balanced timetable
ix. Reviewing study material
x. Working with others

How to Revise for Exams
Students learn and study in different ways. No one way best suits all students. We make the
following suggestions, but they need to be interpreted flexibly.
10. …………………………………………………………………….

Start with a positive frame of mind. Remind yourself why exams are necessary (to measure
student performance and to assess student potential), and why you are going to do well in
your exam (because you have been reasonably hard working and have prepared intelligently).
11. . …………………………………………………………………….

Reduce stress and increase self-confidence. Make yourself familiar with the format of the

exam. Most tests follow the pattern of earlier years. So, study past exam papers, noting exam
format, the choice of questions and the time limits.
12. …………………………………………………………………….

Review systematically. Go through all of your learning materials (class and reading notes,
handouts, essays, etc.), making a careful index under major and minor headings.
13. …………………………………………………………………….

Revise actively, not passively. Revision means more than “re-viewing” and passing your eye
across pages of notes. Active revision means using a questioning approach: do you understand
what your notes mean? Follow up any points you do not understand.
14. …………………………………………………………………….
12


Building Support Skills

Learn how to recall and use your knowledge. Practice remembering your ideas and making
use of your knowledge. Learn to joint ideas together by making connection between
information from various sources.
15. …………………………………………………………………….

The organization of essays is very important. One page of well structured answer is worth ten
pages of aimless text. But good exam technique only comes with practice. To do well at short
exam answers you need to practice noting and organizing your thoughts quickly.
16. …………………………………………………………………….

Get used to writing continuously for long period without a break under exam conditions. This
will help you to develop writing skills and to manage your most important resource _ time.
17. …………………………………………………………………….

Don’t day dream or drift into a negative frame of mind. Concentration depends on practice,
but it also depends on keeping fit and healthy. Remember to take regular breaks for fresh air,
physical exercise and refreshment. Avoid excessive tea, coffee and alcohol.
18. …………………………………………………………………….

Consider the value of cooperative revision. Most students revise alone, and may become
depressed because they feel they are falling behind. Others find it best to work in a revision
group. Working with fellow students reminds you that you are not alone and is mutually
supportive.
19. …………………………………………………………………….

Maintain a balanced review time table. Don’t revise only a few topics to the exclusion of all
others. Spread your revision over two or more subjects each day. Take a day off now and then
as a reward. Remember, you are building yourself up to peak performance on the day of the
exam.

Questions 20-25
Look at the passage ‘Job Sharing’. There are six sections A-F. Choose the most suitable
heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i-x)
in the lines. There are more headings than sections, so you will not use all of them. You
may use any of the headings more than once.
List of headings
i.
Characteristics of job sharers
ii.
Employer acceptance of job sharing
iii. Sharing work vs sharing jobs
iv.
Rejection of job sharing by industry
v.

Definition of job sharing
vi.
Finding a job share partner
vii.
Ingredients of successful job sharing
viii. Creating employment through job sharing
ix. Women sharing work
x. Job sharers as bosses

Job Sharing
Section A
Job sharing refers to a situation in which two people divide the responsibility of one full-time
job. The two people willingly act as part-time workers, working enough hours between them to
fulfil the duties of a full-time worker. If they each work half the hours of the job, for example,
they each receive 50 per cent of the job's wages, its holidays and its other benefits. Of course,
13


Practice with skimming technique

some job sharers take a smaller or larger share of the responsibilities of the position, receiving
a lesser or greater share of the benefits.
Job sharing differs from conventional part-time work in that it is mainly (although not
exclusively) occurring in the more highly skilled and professional areas, which entail higher
levels of responsibility and employee commitment. Until recently, these characteristics were
not generally seen as compatible with anything less than full-time employment. Thus, the
demands of job sharing are reciprocated by better pay and conditions and, ideally, more
satisfaction than conventional part-time work.
Section B
Job sharing should not be confused with the term work sharing, which pertains to increasing

the number of jobs by reducing the number of hours of each existing job, thus offering more
positions to the growing number of unemployed people. Job sharing, by contrast, is not
designed to address unemployment problems; its focus, rather, is to provide well-paid work
for skilled workers and professionals who want more free time for other pursuits.
Section C
As would be expected, women comprise the bulk of job sharers. A survey carried out in 1988
by Britain's Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) revealed that 78 per cent of sharers were
female, the majority of whom were between the ages of 20 and 40 years of age. Subsequent
studies have come up with similar results. Many of these women were re-entering the job
market after having had children, but they chose not to seek part-time work because it would
have meant reduced wages and lower status. Job sharing also offered an acceptable transition
back into full-time work after a long absence.
Section D
Although job sharing is still seen as too radical by many companies, those that have chosen to
experiment with it include large businesses with conservative reputations. One of Britain's
major banks, the National Westminster Bank, for example, offers a limited number of shared
positions intended to give long -serving employees a break from full -time work. British
Telecom, meanwhile, maintains 25 shared posts because, according to its personnel
department, "Some of the job sharers might otherwise have left the company and we are now
able to retain them”. Two wide-ranging surveys carried out in the country in 1989 revealed
the proportion of large and medium -sized private -sector businesses that allow job sharing to
be between 16 and 25 per cent. Some 78 per cent of job sharers, however, work in public sector jobs.
Section E
The types of jobs that are shared vary but include positions that involve responsibility for
many subordinates. Research into shared senior management position suggests that even such
high -pressure work can be shared between two people with little adjustment, provided the
personalities and temperaments of the sharers are not vastly different from one another. A
1991 study of employees working under supervisory positions shared by two people showed
that those who prefer such a situation do so for several reasons. Most prevalent were those
who felt there was less bias in the evaluation of their work because having two assessments

provided for a greater degree of fairness.
Section F
The necessity of close cooperation and collaboration when sharing a job with another person
makes the actual work quite different from conventional one-position, one-person jobs.
However, to ensure a greater change that the partnership will succeed, each person needs to
know the strengths, weaknesses and preferences of his or her partner before applying for a
position. Moreover, there must be an equitable allocation of both routine task and interesting
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Building Support Skills

ones. In sum, for a position to be job-shared well, the two individuals must be well-matched and
must treat each other as equals.
Your Answer:
20. Section A: ……………….
23. Section D: ……………….

21. Section B: …………….
24. Section E: ……………

22. Section C: ………………
25. Section F: ………………

Questions 26-31
Look at the passage ‘Parenting Responsibility’. There are six sections A-F. Choose the most
suitable heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate
numbers (i-ix) in the lines. There are more headings than sections, so you will not use all of
them. You may use any of the headings more than once.
List of headings

i. The presumptions of policy makers
ii. Need for more equitable parenting policies
iii. The impact of dual employment
iv. Comparison of employed and non-employed mothers
v. The benefits of balanced responsibility
vi. The unchanged role of the female parent
vii. The effect of stress on the female parent
viii. Disadvantages of parental equality
ix. The experts' view of the male parent's role
x. Commitment of mothers to their paid jobs
xi. Origins of anxiety in working mothers

Parenting Responsibility
Section A
There are still significant gaps between women and men in terms of their involvement in
family life, the tasks they perform and the responsibilities they take. Yet, at least in developed
Western countries, both women and men express a desire for greater equality in family life. It
is evident that in terms of attitudes and beliefs, the problem cannot simply be thought of in
terms of women wanting men to share more equally and men being reluctant to do so. The
challenge now is to develop policies and practices based on a presumption of shared
responsibility between men and women, and a presumption that there are potential benefits
for men and women, as well as for families and the community, if there is greater gender
equality in the responsibilities and pleasures of family life. These are becoming key concerns
of researchers, policy makers, community workers and, more importantly, family members
themselves.
Section B
Despite the significant increase in the number of women with dependent children who are in
the paid workforce, Australian research studies over the last 15 years are consistent in
showing that divisions of labour for family work are very rigid indeed (Watson 1991). In
terms of time, women perform approximately 90 per cent of child care tasks and 70 per cent

of all family work and only 14 per cent of fathers are highly participant in terms of time spent
on family work (Russell 1983). Demo and Acock (1993), in a recent US study, also found that
women continue to perform a constant and major proportion of household labour (68 per cent
to 95 per cent) across all family types (first marriage, divorced, step-family or never married),
regardless of whether they are employed or non-employed in paid work.
15


Practice with skimming technique

Section C
Divisions of labour for family work are particularly problematic in families in which both
parents are employed outside the home (dual-worker families). Employed mothers adjust their
jobs and personal lives to accommodate family commitments more than employed fathers do.
Mothers are less likely to work overtime and are more likely to take time off work to attend to
children's need (VandenHeuvel 1993). Mothers spend less time on personal leisure activities
than their partners, a factor that often leads to resentment (Demo and Acock 1993).
Section D
The parental role is central to the stress-related anxiety reported by employed mothers, and a
major contributor to such stress is their taking a greater role in child care (VandenHeuvel
1993). Edgar and Glezer (1992) found that close to 90 per cent of both husbands and wives
agreed that the man should share equally in child care, yet 55 per cent of husbands and wives
claimed that the men actually did this. (These claims are despite the findings mentioned
earlier that point to a much lower participation rate by fathers). A mother's wanting her
partner to do more housework and child care is a better predictor of poor family adjustment
than is actual time spent by fathers in these tasks (Demo and Acock 1993). It is this desire,
together with its lack of fulfilment in most families, that brings about stress in the female
parent.
Section E
Family therapists and social work researchers are increasingly defining family problems in

terms of a lack of involvement and support from fathers and are concerned with difficulties
involved in having fathers take responsibility for the solution of family and child behaviour
problems (Edgar and Glezer 1986). Yet, a father accepting responsibility for behaviour
problems is linked with positive outcomes.
Section F
Research studies lend strong support to the argument that there are benefits for families
considering a change to a fairer or more equitable division of the pleasures and pains of
family life. Greater equality in the performance of family work is associated with lower levels
of family stress and higher self esteem, better health, and higher marital satisfaction for
mothers. There is also higher marital satisfaction for fathers, especially when they take more
responsibility for the needs of their children - fathers are happier when they are more involved
(Russell 1984).
26. Section A: ……………….
29. Section D: ……………….

16

27. Section B: …………….
30. Section E: ……………

28. Section C: ………………
31. Section F: ………………



Practice with scanning technique

PRACTICE WITH SCANNING TECHNIQUE
Scanning is the method to use when you need to search a passage quickly to locate the specific
information you need to answer each question.

When you are scanning to locate some specific information (e.g. names, places, dates, specific
phrases), it is not necessary to read and understand every word in the passage. When you look
at each sentence, you need to understand only enough to answer the question: Is it what I am
looking for or not? So, you only need to understand the topic of each sentence. For example,
you see this sentence:
Example
Like perfumes, cosmetics were originally used as an adjunct to religious ritual, the
ceremonial aspects gradually being lost as both men and women adorned themselves
with cosmetics.
You locate the subject of the sentence ‘cosmetics’ and that is enough. It is not necessary to
read all the details. You know that this sentence probably does not contain the information
you need, so you quickly move on to the next sentence. This is scanning.
Hints and tips for better scanning.
•
•
•

•

Don't try to read every word. Instead let your eyes move quickly across the page
until you find what you are looking for.
Use clues on the page, such as headings and titles, to help you.
If you are reading for study, start by thinking up or writing down some questions
that you want to answer. Doing this can focus your mind and help you find the
facts or information that you need more easily.
When scanning, guide your eyes across the page by using your first 3 fingers, or
your index finger alone, or even the tip of a pen or pencil. This will prevent your
eyes from wandering about on the page. You can increase your general reading
speed too, by following your finger with your eyes across the page as you read.
Many studies prove how much quicker people read when guiding their eyes

across the page. You might be surprised to discover how much faster you will be
reading.

You can use the scanning technique to find answers the following types of question in a
reading comprehension test.
• short-answer questions
• true/false/ not given questions
• sentence completion
• multiple choice

EXERCISE R3: Do short-answer questions
Tactics for doing short-answer questions
• Read the instructions carefully.
• Underline or highlight the key words in each question and decide what kind of
information you need to look for.
• Start with the first question and read the passage quickly to see if you can find
words that are the same as the key words or have a similar meaning.
• Read around these words to find the answer.
• Decide exactly which words/or numbers you should write as the answer.
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Building Support Skills

Questions 1-4
Scan the passage about libraries. Which sentence contains the information you need to answer
the questions below? Write the number of the sentence from the passage next to each question.
(1) Libraries are quite difficult to define. (2) If you ask most people to define a library, they
will probably say that it is a building with a lot of books. (3) Strictly speaking, a library does
not have to be a building: it can be a room, or indeed any area where material is kept. (4)

Equally, a library is not merely a collection of books: there are journals, newspapers, CDROMs, microfilm, audio-visual materials and so on. (5) So, to be more accurate we can say
that a library is a collection of information or material.
(6) Libraries are organized in three ways. (7) Most libraries will use one or more of the three
main classification systems that have been developed to detail the material in the collection.
(8) They are referred to as the Dewey Decimal System, the Universal Decimal Classification
and the Library of Congress System.
(9) Nowadays libraries are under threat for a number of reasons. (10) The primary challenge,
as never before, is funding. (11) Hardware and personnel costs increase each time technology
expands. (12) Equally, there are challenges in the skills needed by users and resource
professionals.
(13) It is difficult to predict the future of libraries. (14) Our basic concept of libraries will
almost certainly, it would appear, change dramatically in that we will not think of them (and
access them) as physical places, which is the prevailing concept at the moment. (15) But
beyond that, it is difficult to predict both usage patterns and preferred systems of data
recording and retrieval.
1. What kinds of materials does a library collect?
___________
2. What is the most accurate way to define ‘library’?
___________
3. What is the main problem that libraries are facing?
___________
4. What aspect of libraries is sure to change?
___________

Questions 5-9
Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. Decide what kind of answer, or which
words from the question, you are looking for.
Meanwhile people in the Third World can only envy the level of health risk faced by those of
us who can turn on a tap or flush a toilet. Most cities in Africa and many in Asia – Dakar,
Kinshasa and Chittagong, for example, have no sewerage of any kind. Streams, gullies and

ditches are where most human excrement and household waste end up.
People draw their drinking water from a standpipe which only operates for a few hours each
day. Women still wash clothes and bathe their children in a muddy stream. In Nairobi,
Jakarta, Bangkok and elsewhere, families are forced to purchase water from a vendor, paying
ten times the rate charged to houses with main connections (in Khartoum it is 18 times more
expensive). In some parts of Sudan, half of household income is spent on water. As city
populations rapidly expand, water and sanitation services are put under pressures –
unimaginable to those who build them. But at least fear of epidemic – repeating the terrible
ravages of cholera in nineteenth century Europe – encourages action in city halls. Lagos, for
example, used to be a watchword for urban filth. Now there is a monthly “sanitation day” on
which moving around the city is banned: everyone must pick up a shovel and clean their
neighbourhood.
But until very recently, the sanitary environment inhabited by more than 60 per cent of Third
World people – the countryside – was left to take care of itself. The woman carrying her
container to the well, washing her laundry in the stream, leaving her toddlers to squat in the
compound, had ever seen a pipeline nor a drain; no faucet graced her village square, let alone
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her own backyard. At the end of the 1970s, 1.2 billion people in the Third World were
without a safe supply of drinking water and 1.6 billion without any proper means of waste
disposal.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Give two examples of cities which have no sewerage.
Where is half of the household income spent on water?
What must Lagos inhabitants do on “sanitation day”?
Where do more than 60 per cent of Third World people live?
In the 1970s, how many people had no proper means of waste
disposal?

Questions 10-15
Read the passage very quickly and answer the following questions as briefly as possible, writing
the answers in the spaces.

The Sydney Harbour Tunnel
A. Construction started in January 1988 and was completed by 31 August 1992. The tunnel
took more than 300 contractors and subcontractors combining for a total workforce of more
than 4,500 employees having a peak of 800 at any one time. When completed it will have a
total staff of 30 excluding toll collectors. It required the excavation of about 1.8 million
cubic metres of rock, mud and sand; land tunnels – more than 320,000 cubic metres; trench
for marine tunnel – almost 700,000 cubic metres, casting basin – almost 800,000 cubic
metres. The tunnel is one of more than 70 immersed tube tunnels around the world. Its total
length is 2.3 km. It is Australia’s longest road tunnel and its first under water.
B. Land tunnels on the northern side commenced in February 1988 with the drilling of a pilot
tunnel from the harbour edge up towards Mount Street bridge above the Warringah
Expressway using tunnel borers, road headers, excavators and rock hammers. Land tunnels
on the south side commenced in October 1988, with identical procedures.
C. Dredging commenced in January 1989 when grab dredger Goomai commenced bulk
dredging at the southern end of the tunnel trench, and trailing hopper suction dredger
Resolution commenced operations in the central half of the immersed tube trench in mid
February 1989. 650,000 cubic metres of silt, clay and sand were removed leaving only
sandstone to be cleared by the cutter suction dredge Kunara. She crushed a total of 37,000
cubic metres of sandstone. Each dredge was equipped with at least two position fixing

systems. These systems generated a horizontal position derived from microwave, infra-red
and laser-based measurement systems.
10. How long did it take to construct the tunnel?
11. What was the total number of people involved in building the
tunnel?
12. How many underwater tunnels are there in Australia?
13. Where was the pilot tunnel drilled?
14. When were the land tunnels begun?
15. How much sandstone did the dredge Kunara crush?

EXERCISE R4: Do true/false/not-given questions
You decide whether the statement agrees with or contradicts the information in the passage, or
whether there is no information about the statement. The answers are in passage order but they
may be grouped together in one part of the passage or spread across the passage.
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Building Support Skills

How do I know the statement is true, false, not given.
• True: The statement agrees with what is in the passage → i.e. says the same thing
using different words
• False: The statement contradicts what is in the passage → i.e. says the opposite
• Not given: There is no information of this piece of information in the passage.
Tactics for true/false /not given questions
•

Read the statements very carefully.

•

Underline or highlight the key words or phrases in the first statement and
quickly read the passage for these. This is done to help you find the idea or
information and get started in the right part of the passage.

•

Read around the words in the passage and see whether the information agrees
with the statement, contradicts it or whether nothing is said about it.

•

Decide whether the answer is True, False or Not Given

Questions 1-3
Read the article below and the three statements. Decide which statement is true/false/not given.

The Four-minute Mile
One of the great sporting achievement of the 20th century was when the runner Roger Bannister
broke the four minute mile record. In being the first to do so, he denied his Australian rival,
John Landy, the chance of achieved immortality in the fields of athletics. Media interest in the
50th anniversary of the event, including the publication of two books on the subject, highlight
the significant of the achievement.
T / F/ NG
1. John Landy ran a mile in under minutes before Roger Bannister. ___________
2. Fifty years have passed since the four-minute mile was broken. ___________
3. Roger Bannister was English.
___________

Questions 4-11

Urban Heat
In 1818, Luke Howard published The Climate of London in which he identified an emerging
problem: urban development was having a direct impact on the local weather. The early 1800s
was a time of great expansion for London and Howard noticed that temperatures in the city
were gradually becoming higher than those in rural areas. We now refer to these areas as
Urban Heat Islands. The difference in temperature is usually greater at night and the
phenomenon occurs in both winter and summer. Experts agree that this is due to urban
development, when open green spaces are replaced with asphalt roads and tall brick or
concrete buildings. These materials retain heat generated by the Sun and release it through the
night. In Atlanta, in the US, this has even led to thunderstorms occurring in the morning rather
than, as is more common, in the afternoon, Officials there are advising builders to use lightcoloured roofs in a bid to reduce the problem.
Large cities around the world are adopting strategies to combat this issue and it is not
uncommon to find plants growing on top of roofs or down the walls of large buildings. In
Singapore, the government has pledged to transform it into a ‘city within a garden’ and, in
2006, they held an international competition calling for entries to develop a master plan to
help bring this about. One outcome was the creation of 18 ‘Supertrees’. These metal
constructions are made to resemble very tall trees and range in height from 25m to 50m. Each
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one is a vertical freestanding garden and is home to exotic plants and ferns. Their structure
allowed the designers to create an immediate rainforest canopy without having to wait for
trees to reach such heights. They contain solar panels used to light the trees at night and also
containers to collect rainwater, making them truly self-sufficient.
Decide if the following statements are True, False or Not Given according to the text:
T / F/ NG
4. Luke Howard invented the term ‘Urban Heat Island’.
_________

5. City temperatures are higher than country temperatures regardless of the _________
season.
6. Experts have failed in their efforts to create heat-reflecting concrete and _________
brick.
7. Atlanta has experienced more dramatic weather change than other areas of _________
the US.
8. Roofs that are dark in colour help address the issue of Urban Heat Islands. _________
9. Singapore’s Supertrees are made entirely from natural materials.
_________
10. The designers of the Supertrees originally planned to plant very tall trees.
_________
11. The Supertrees require regular maintenance.
_________

EXERCISE R5: Do multiple choice questions
Tactics For Multiple Choice Questions
•

Underline or highlight the key words in the question and the four questions.

•

Quickly read the sentences that contain the main ideas in each paragraph of the
passage.

•

Rule out any options in the questions that you think are definitely wrong.

•

Decide which option is correct.

Questions 1-5
Look through the questions below, scan the passage and then choose the best answers.
The first black literature in America was not written but was preserved in an oral tradition, in
a rich body of folklore, songs and stories, many from African origins. There are humorous
tales, Biblical stories, animal stories, and stories of natural phenomena, of good and bad
people, and of the wise and foolish. Many reflect how African Americans viewed themselves
and their lives. The lyrics of blues, spirituals, and work songs speak of suffering and hope, joy
and pain, loved ones, and religious faith, and are an integral part of the early literature of
black people in America.
The earliest existing written black literature was Lucy Terry’s poem “Bars Fight”, written in
1746. Other eighteenth-century black poets include Jupiter Hammon and George Moses
Horton. The first African American to publish a book in American was Phillis Wheatley.
Black poetry also flourished in the nineteenth-century, during which the writings of almost
forty poets were printed, the most notable of whom was Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first black
American to achieve national acclaim for his work. Dunbar published eight volumes of poetry
and eight novels and collections of stories.
More than three dozen novels were written by blacks between 1853 and 1899, but
autobiography dominated African-American literature in the nineteenth-century, as it had in
the eighteenth. In the twentieth century, however, fiction has presided, with Charles W.
Chestnutt, America’s first black man of letters, successfully bridging the two centuries. He
began publishing short fiction in the mid-1880s, wrote two books that appeared in 1899, and
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Building Support Skills

had three books published between 1900 and 1905. He was a pioneer of the “new literature”

of the early 1900s, which aimed to persuade readers of the worth and equality of African
Americans.
1. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as part of the oral tradition of
African Americans?
(A) humorous tales
(B) tales of adventure
(C) biblical stories
(D) animal stories
2. According to the passage, the lyrics of blues and spirituals are often concerned with
(A) the pain and joy in life
(B) loved ones and animals
(C) religion and nature
(D) wise and foolish people
3. According to the passage, an important part of early African-American literature was
(A) Novels
(B) Short fiction stories
(C) Biographies
(D) songs
4. According to the passage, when did the first written African-American literature appear?
(A) In the 1600s
(B) In the 1700s
(C) In the 1800s
(D) In the 1900s
5. According to the passage, who was the first African American to receive national
recognition for his writing?
(A) Paul Dunbar
(B) George Horton
(C) Lucy Terry
(D) Phillis Wheatley

EXERCISE R6: Do multiple matching
Tactics for multiple matching
• Read the whole text once. If there are no section headings, it may help to add
your own.
• Read the questions and highlight the key words. Answer any if you can
immediately and underline the relevant parts of the text. You do not need to
read these again.
• Read each section of the text carefully, looking for answers to all the remaining
questions.

Questions 1- 14
You are going to read a magazine interview with five woman MPs (Members of Parliament).
For questions 1-14 choose from the list of women (A-E) in the box. Some of the women may
be chosen more than once. When more than one answer is required, these may be given in any
order. There is an example at the beginning (0).
Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.
A
Edwina Currie
D
Tessa Jowell
B
Harriet Harman
E
Anne Coffey

C Diana

Which of the woman MPs:
Is also a writer?
Complain about the attitude of male MPs to women?

think there will be no problem with female MPs in the future?
mention women’s difficulties in other areas as well?
thinks it is an advantage to be an older woman in Parliament?
complains about the arrangements for children in Parliament?

0
1
3
5
7
8

A
____
____
____
____
____

2 ____
4 ____
6 ____

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feels female MPs work together more than men do?
feels that her work has harmed her family?

thinks Parliament should change fundamentally?
thinks male and female MPs face the same type of difficulty?
live near the Houses of Parliament

9
10
11
12
13

____
____
____
____
____ 14 ____

Is There a Woman in the House?
Women have been taking up seats in Parliament since 1920. Sharon Garfinkle talks to female
MPs about the pressure and prejudice they still face today.
Edwinna Currie
This place is full of people whose way of thinking is amazingly old-fashioned. When my novel
was published, I was talking to a journalist friend when a male colleague came and put his arm
around me. I introduced him to the journalist and the MP said:” I’ve always said we shouldn’t
have women in this place. They aren’t suited for it. They ought to be at home looking after the
children.” The journalist’s mouth dropped open. My own feeling is that when we get 200
women here, this tone will disappear.
Being a Parliamentarian is a very demanding job. It means conflict between home and
occupation for both men and women. It is no ordinary job _ you must have a huge amount of
commitment and energy.
Harriet Harman

If Parliament is to include women, it has to be run in a different way. The issues for me are
different to the issues for male MPs because they might have a wife who’s taking responsibility
for their children, whereas I don’t. I became a new PM and a new mother at more or less the
same time. Both of these were overwhelming experiences. One of the critical things for me is
that my constituency and home are in London and only 15 minutes from the Parliament.
In the future women in the Parliament will not be an issue. We’ll be here in equal numbers and
on equal terms.
Diana Maddock
I knew that Parliament would be a strange place and I would be surrounded by arrogant men,
but the reality was 20 times worse. Gaining my seat has been quite an upheaval. I have a pager,
so my two teenage daughters can always get a message to me. As I’ve become more involved
with politics over the years it has played a greater part in their life. But they both did well in
their exams this year, so it can’t have affected them academically.
During my campaign newspaper described me as ‘nice, grey-haired granny type’. Yet I see
these characteristics as being important as it means I can relate to people.
Tessa Jowell
I do feel fortunate that I am a London MP and live at home. My little boy is very interested in
politics and like coming along. But it’s not a building which is terribly well organized for
children. There’s only one family room. I manage because my husband is incredibly supportive.
What I’m doing is what so many women up and down the country are doing with no recognition
at all. It is a fact that as women increasingly combine home and career they are under pressure
to strike a balance between the two jobs. There are some wonderful women in Parliament and
I think we’re working co-operatively more and more. That’s something women are better at
doing then men.
Anne Coffey
I think my career has made life very difficult for my 17-year-old daughter. She was 14 when I
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Building Support Skills

was elected and it was very disruptive for her since I had to leave her during the week. Her
exam results were terrible and I’m convinced that if she had had a more stable situation, she
would have done better.
I think it’s very difficult to escape from this type of guilt if you are a woman, but if I hadn’t
become a politician and stayed at home I would simply ended up reproducing my mother’s life.
If you put your children first, then you limit the world for yourself.
Nothing prepares you for the complexity and enormity of this place, and I had problems at first
due to ignorance of how things work.

Questions 15- 29
You are going to read a magazine article about supermarkets. For questions 1-15, choose
from the sections of the article (A-E). Some of the sections may be chosen more than once.
When more than one answer is required, these may be given in any order.

Supermarkets
Their secrets revealed….
Have you wondered why some stores smell of fresh bread or why some play music and others
don’t? We asked the experts at Supermarketing magazine to explain some of the hidden tricks
of the trade.
A. Fresh start
“Why are the fresh fruit and vegetables usually at the entrance to the store? It’s always
crowded, and they get squashed if I have to load heavy cans and packets on top.”
It’s simply because supermarkets make a high profit on fresh fruit and vegetables, and they
have discovered they sell more of them if they are near the entrance. According to the
research carried out by supermarkets, customers prefer fresh goods to come first. Maybe it’s
because many of us arrive at the store concentrating on the kinds of fruit and vegetables we
need. Once we’ve got that out of the way, we can relax and do the rest of the shopping at
leisure. Another reason is that if we see fresh goods first, the sight and the smell of all those
rosy apples and glossy aubergines give a “feel good” impression of freshness and quality

which we carry around the store.
Nowadays, trolleys should have a separate compartment where you can place fruit and
vegetables so they don’t get squashed.
B. On the scent
“Do they have to pipe smells of freshly baked bread around stores? I always end up with
buying an extra loaf of cake because the smell is just so tempting”
That’s what the store is counting on! It’s well-known in the retail food industry that smell is
the most powerful of human senses when it comes to influencing our choice of where we shop
and what we buy. For years, some stores have been piping smell of freshly baked bread and
real coffee through the air-conditioning to get appetites going. But this may be
counterproductive, the retail consultants Retail Dynamics point out: “If you are doing your
shopping at lunch or dinner time, when you are already hungry, the smell of baking may send
you straight to the bread counter and then out of the store so you can eat quickly.”
C. All change
“Why is it that supermarkets change their layout so often? Just when I have speeded up my
shopping by knowing everything is, they move the section!”
This is another way of trying to make you buy things you thought you didn’t need.
Supermarkets make most of their money out of fresh foods and “luxury” snacks and far less
on essentials like milk, sugar and bread. So everyday items are scattered around the store
25