Chapter 3:
Reading A: Humanities
Reading passages and questions test your ability to
comprehend and analyze academic information. Most questions are multiple-choice
with four options (select one from A, B, C, or D). Some questions may ask you
to select more than one option or to fill in a table.
Reading passages test your understanding of main ideas and
details, as well as the organization of the passage or of specific parts of the
passage. They also test your understanding of the relationship between
different ideas and your ability to make inferences (messages implied by the
passage).
How should you use this chapter? Here are some
recommendations, according to the level you’ve reached in TOEFL Reading:
- Fundamentals. Start
with a topic-focused chapter, such as this one. Start with a topic that is
a “medium weakness”—not your worst area but not your best either. At first,
work untimed and check the answer after each question. Review the solutions
closely, think carefully about the principles at work, and articulate what
you’ve learned. Redo questions as necessary. As you improve, time yourself and
do all of the questions for a passage at once, without stopping.
- Fixes. Do
one passage and set of questions untimed, examine the results, and learn your
lessons. Next, test yourself with timed sets. When doing timed sets, don’t
check your answers until you’re done with the whole set.
- Tweaks. Confirm
your mastery by doing a passage and question set under timed conditions. Concentrate
on your weaker topic areas. Aim to improve the speed and ease of your process.
As soon as you’re ready, move to mixed-topic practice.