TOEFL IBT READING SECTION

TOEFL iBT Reading section tests the candidate's ability to understand academic texts and passages to succeed in university settings. The academic reading section aims at three main features:
1. Reading to find infornation
  • Tests the candidate's ability to find information and key facts in the text by just scanning it
  • Tests the candidate's ability to increase fluency in reading
2. Basic comprehension
  • tests the candidate's ability to understand the general topic or main idea, the major points, important facts and details, contextual vocabulary and word references (words that refer to other words in the text)
  • Tests the candidate's ability to make deductions about what is meant in the text but not explicitly stated
3. Reading to learn
  • Tests the candidate's ability to understand the organization and the purpose of the text/passage
  • Tests the candidate's ability to understand how the ideas are related
  • Tests the candidate's ability to categorize the information into charts or a summary in order to recall main points and important details
  • Tests the candidate's ability to make conclusions about the relationship between the ideas throughout the text/passages

TOEFL iBT Reading Section Organization

TOEFL iBT Reading Section Organization
The reading section consists of 3 to 4 passages. It cannot be predicted whether the particular session will contain 3 or 5 texts. However, if the reading section contains more passages it would be at the expense of the listening part of the test and it will be containing fewer lectures to listen to and vice versa. Each text in the reading is about 700 words with 12 to 14 questions related to the text.The 1st passage stands alone and you will have 20 minutes to read it and answer the questions. The 2nd and 3rd passages share a total time of 40 minutes, so if you are a bit slow for the second passage you will not be stopped when the 20th minute ends and you could catch up with the third passage. You should be very careful about the time as the system will cut you off right after it ends.
The texts are taken from university-level textbooks readings with just minor changes and cover variety of different subjects and topics. The test takers are not expected to be familiar with the topics. The questions are designed in a way that all information needed for providing correct answer is present in the texts. The texts/passages are classified into three major categories:
  • Exposition - explains a topic/subject
  • Argumentation - presents a point of view about a topic and provide arguments to support it
  • Historical
Sometimes, texts introduce several prospective or points of view about the topic which candidates should notice while reading. Test takers are asked at least one question to demonstrate their understanding of the general organization of the text. The text could be organized in several common types:
  • Classification
  • Compare and contrast
  • Cause and effect
  • Problem and solution
Sometimes, a definition of a difficult word or phrase in the text could be provided. The word or phrase that contains a definition is underlined and differently colored. Test takers have to click on the word so that the definition appears in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.

 toefl ibt reading - Type of questions

Type of questions
The questions in the Reading part are organized around three major question formats:
  1. Multiple-choice format - questions with four choices with a single answer
  2. Sentence insertion - questions asking to insert a sentence into the text (where the sentence fits best) at one of four provided choices.
  3. Reading to learn questions - contain more than four choices and more than one possible correct answer. Test takers are expected to sort information provided in the question into a category chart or summary. Summary and chart questions are worth more than 1 point. Those questions are marked with the exact number of points they are worth. Chart questions could be with five (worth up to 3 points) or seven options (worth up to 4 points). For the chart questions there is a possibility for gaining partial credit.

 REMEMBER


  1. The allotted time for the different parts of the reading is for reading the text and answering the questions.
  2. Test takers are not expected to be familiar with the topics presented in the reading part. All information needed for providing the correct answer is contained in the texts.

TOEFL - CRACKING THE READING SECTION

When approaching the Reading section of the TOEFL Test, follow these steps:
1. Actively read the passage,looking for the purpose, structure and main idea
2. Attack the questions based on question types
3. Find the answer to the question in the passage
4. Use process of elimination to eliminate bad answers

Inside the TOEFL® Test: Listening Questions - Making Inferences

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Inside the TOEFL® Test: Reading Questions - Sentence Simplification

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​Inside the TOEFL® Test: Reading Questions - Insert Text

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​Inside the TOEFL® Test: Reading Questions - Factual and Negative Factual Information

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Inside the TOEFL® Test: Reading Questions - Prose Summary and Fill in a Table

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​Inside the TOEFL® Test: Reading Questions - Inference and Rhetorical Purpose

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​​INSIDE THE TOEFL® TEST: READING QUESTIONS - VOCABULARY