Reading comprehension

General task
❖ Read a passage
❖ Answer questions
❖ Multiple-choice
❖ May re-read text

Reading comprehension:
very useful skill

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Reading comprehension

“No world outside the passage”

●Answer all questions about the information in a passage
on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage.
● Do not pick an answer simply because it is a true
statement.

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Reading comprehension

Example: question about a word meaning

Important: how the word is used in the passage
Words: different context → different meaning
coach (bus; trainer), record (achievement; item; vinyl)
❖ Many choices might correctly define the word.
❖ You need the answer(s) that fit(s) the context:
• Observe how the word is used in the passage.
• Plug in the possible answers and check if they work.

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Reading comprehension

Active reading

Underline:
❖ Key words
❖ Sentences that contain the main idea

❖ Is the author taking a side?

• Mark with + or -
• Remind yourself later what his or her position is
❖…

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Reading comprehension

Holy Grail search vs. Understanding

Few questions
Many questions
● read them before
● analyze the passage
the passage
carefully before
● search for answers
reading and trying to
inside the passage
answer the questions
● stop reading when
answers are found

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Reading comprehension

Read questions carefully

(Unlike reading passages which can be skimmed/
summarized)
❖ Read all answer choices before selection.
✦ Even if you think the first answer is correct
❖ Make sure to understand the question exactly.
✦ What is being asked?
✦ What kind of response is required?
• A number?
• An adjective?
•…

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Reading comprehension

Evaluate each answer separately

❖ Read one answer at a time—do not look at the other
answers simultaneously.
❖ Don’t be misled by choices that are partially true or
partially answer the question.
❖ Often more than one choice rings true.
❖ Only 1! will specifically and best answer the question…
…unless the question asks for several choices ;)
❖ where evaluating each answer separately is even
more crucial!

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Reading comprehension

Question types: wide variety

❖ What was it about?
• General idea
• Essential info
❖ Details
• Word meaning
• Purpose
• Inference
❖ “Editorial”
• Insert a sentence
• Complete the summary
• Complete the table
❖ Assess evidence to support or weaken points made in
text
❖…
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Reading comprehension

Several formats
❖ Select one answer
❖ Select more than one answer
• Select all that apply
❖ Choose correct column in a table for each option
❖ Match answers
❖…

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Reading comprehension

Vocabulary

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

Which of the answer options is closest in meaning to а

word or phrase in the passage.

Understand the meaning of the word as it is used in the

passage.

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Reading comprehension

Example

The stone was promptly dispatched to Cairo's Institute of

Egypt for further study by Napoleon's scholars, where it
was christened 'The Rosetta Stone', for obvious reasons.
Although it quickly became clear that the same message
was indeed engraved in three different languages, only the
bottom script, in Greek, could be read. The top script
consisted of fourteen rows of hieroglyphics, followed by
thirty-two rows of an undecipherable Egyptian writing that
was simply termed 'demotic'.

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Reading comprehension

Question
The word promptly in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. purportedly
B. secretly
C. forcefully
D. hastily

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Reading comprehension

Answer: (D) hastily

Promptly = without delay
Hastily = fast
Purportedly = apparently happened
Secretly = without other people knowing
Forcefully = done with physical force

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Reading comprehension

Detail

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

Identify factual information.

✤Usually given 1! time in the passage
✤Not about a general theme or idea

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Reading comprehension

Sample prompts
● According to the paragraph, which of the following is true of
DETAIL?
● The author's description of DETAIL mentions which of the
following?
● According to paragraph 2, why did DETAIL do ________ ?
● According to the paragraph, how did DETAIL do ________ ?

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Reading comprehension

Example

Finally, for a fear to truly be a phobia, it must be recurring. That is, if the
man on the plane had flown before without incident and continued to use
planes after this one panic attack without experiencing further bouts of
unreasonable fear, then he would not be said to be suffering from a
phobia. A true aviophobic could never contemplate flying in any form
without experiencing severe symptoms of acute nervousness. In this
case, the man's single onset of severe panic would most likely be viewed
as symptomatic of some other mental disorder, perhaps brought on by
unrelated stresses in his life. Obviously, the fact that phobias are
recurring fears, or rather, that they involve constant fear of the object of
the phobia, should not be taken to mean that the fear can never be
overcome. A person who is suffering from a phobia may, either through
great effort of will, or, more likely, through a course of psychiatric
treatment, conquer his phobia and cease to be frightened of whatever it
was he was formerly afraid of.
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Reading comprehension

Question

According to the author what might be one cause of a

single instance of a phobic-like episode?
A. Seeing plane crashes on the news
B. Watching too much violent television
C. Possessing a desire for public attention
D. Having too much stress in one's life

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Reading comprehension

Answer: (D) Having too much stress

Stated directly in the text.
(A), (B) and (C) are not mentioned in the passage.

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Reading comprehension

Purpose

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

Understand why detail/idea/argument is used.

Good writing: everything has a reason for being included.

The question is not why the entire passage is organised as it

is—but what are logical connections between certain
sentences/paragraphs.

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Reading comprehension

Often: “why” in the question

Other possibilities:
● "The author begins paragraph # with________ in order to..."
● "The author uses _______ as an example of..."

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Reading comprehension

Example

Thus, American slaves soon found that music was one of the few methods of
expressing themselves that their masters would permit and even encourage, as
many of the slave owners found it pleasant to have slaves who could play music
for them in the evenings. However, the plantation owners naturally wished to
listen to music from their own culture, as well as to what they considered slave
work songs. As a result, many slaves learned to play Western instruments and
began to pick up Western songs, such as European dance music. European
dance music at that time was characterized by harmony, or the playing of notes
simultaneously to create a pleasing sound, an element previously lacking in the
slave songs. It did not take long for blacks to begin experimenting with ways in
which harmonic elements could be fused with the more tribal rhythms of the
music of their own culture. The result of these experiments was the first type of
jazz, known as the blues. The blues took their name from the reliance on blue
notes, which are notes that are played at a lower pitch than would normally be
expected in classical European music.

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Reading comprehension

Question

Why does the author mention European dance music in

paragraph 2?
A. To describe one influence that helped turn African slave songs
into jazz
B. To argue that European dance music was inferior to jazz's
antecedents
C. To provide an example of a type of music that contrasts
sharply with jazz
D. To explain why slave owners found the music of their slaves
refreshing

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Reading comprehension

Answer: (A) To describe influence...

Point of the passage: trace the development of jazz music.
(B) is illogical: European dance music was one of jazz’s
antecedents
(C) is wrong: The author does not explicitly compare
European dance music to jazz
(D) is incorrect: European dance music was familiar to the
slave owners, not new and refreshing

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Reading comprehension

Negative factual info

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

Choose single wrong option:

❖Detail or idea that is not in the passage
❖Stated inaccurately

Read over all paragraphs carefully.

Try to find the option saying something you cannot
recall reading.
Verify it is indeed not in the text.

The prompt features "EXCEPT" or “NOT.

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Reading comprehension

Example

Their demise also resulted in the extinction of a half-dozen species of

forest insects and the severe crippling of other animal populations
such as the wild turkey: these all relied on the American Chestnut as
a source of habitat and food. Affected wildlife attempted to adapt to
their disrupted environment by looking to other species of trees, such
as the Acorn, and seed-bearing plants for food. This placed great
ecological pressure on those species, as none could equal the
American Chestnut in its ability to provide a consistently abundant
crop of nuts. The problems the American Chestnut blight engendered
thus show the ripple effects that can occur within any ecosystem
when new elements are introduced in an unsound manner.

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Reading comprehension

Question

According to paragraph 3, all of the following were results of the

wide disappearance of American Chestnut trees EXCEPT:
A. The loss of creatures who required the tree's resources for their
survival.
B. Overuse of other types of trees by wildlife attempting to
compensate for the change.
C. A reduction in the total output of harvested nut crops within
many major American forests.
D. Macro-changes to the environment in which the trees previously
flourished.

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Reading comprehension

Answer: (C)
The American Chestnut produced lots of nuts so the loss of the trees
does mean a loss in tree nuts; however, there is no mention of its nuts
being a harvested crop.
(A): a restatement of the first sentence in paragraph 3—some insects
became extinct and the wild turkey population drastically declined due
to the loss of the American Chestnut as a food and habitat source.
(B): restates what is in the second and third sentences of the paragraph.
(D): covers the last sentence in the paragraph—the loss of the American
Chestnut caused changes, had negative effects, upon the land and
animals within the environment of where the American Chestnut had
thrived

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Reading comprehension

Insert a sentence

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

Decide where a new sentence fits best among places

marked in the text.

Tests understanding of:

❖Logic in the text
❖Connections from one sentence to another

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Reading comprehension

Example

Their demise also resulted in the extinction of a half-dozen species of

forest insects and the severe crippling of other animal populations
such as the wild turkey: these all relied on the American Chestnut as
a source of habitat and food. (A) Affected wildlife attempted to adapt
to their disrupted environment by looking to other species of trees,
such as the Acorn, and seed-bearing plants for food. (B) This placed
great ecological pressure on those species, as none could equal the
American Chestnut in its ability to provide a consistently abundant
crop of nuts. (C) The problems the American Chestnut blight
engendered thus show the ripple effects that can occur within any
ecosystem when new elements are introduced in an unsound
manner. (D)

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Reading comprehension

Question

Where would the following sentence best fit?

In fact, is it widely believed that the scope of its devastation

far eclipses even that of the fungal disease, also
accidentally introduced, that ravaged Dutch Elm trees
across Europe and North America, from 1910 to 1928.

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Reading comprehension

Answer (D)
Expands upon the last sentence.
(C): kinda breaks the flow [could still be OK]
(A) or (B): disrupts description of effects of the demise

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Reading comprehension

Essential info

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

A sentence is highlighted in the text or is referred to from

the question
Choose answer option = highlighted sentence
❖Correct sentence: simpler than highlighted
•But still conveys all the important information
❖Incorrect sentence:
•Leaves out an important detail
•Represents detail/concept inaccurately
•Changes the original meaning of the sentence
•...

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Reading comprehension

Example

Men are more likely to manifest recessive biological traits than

women are, because some traits are what scientists call Xlinked.
This means that the genes responsible for expressing the
recessive trait are found only on the X chromosome. Men are
much more likely to express these recessive traits, because the
male genome consists of an X and a Y chromosome, whereas the
female genome consists of two X chromosomes. If the male X
chromosome contains any genes capable of expressing
recessive traits, those genes will therefore be free to manifest
themselves, as there will be no corresponding genes to interfere
with them.

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Reading comprehension

Question

Which of the following best expresses the essential information in the

highlighted sentence?

A. The two X chromosomes in the female genome makes women more likely
to express recessive traits than men because the male genome has two
different chromosomes.
B. The two different chromosomes in the male's genetic make-up, instead of
the same two chromosomes in the female genome, makes men likely to
have more dominant traits than women.
C. Women are less likely than men to have recessive traits due to the
differences between their genes.
D. The male genome is comprised of an X and a Y chromosome which
allows recessive traits to be more readily found in men than in women as
the female genome has two X chromosomes.

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Reading comprehension

Answer (D)
All correct info is included: Men will likely have more
recessive traits than women because the male genome has
an X and a Y chromosome. The two X chromosomes in the
female genome makes women less susceptible.
(A): mixes up the genders, saying women will have more
recessive traits while it is men.
(B): states men will have more dominant traits while it
should be recessive traits.
(C): does not give enough details [could still be OK]

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Reading comprehension

Another example

In the history of European painting, there is a shift in pictorial

representation that occurs around the year 1420 CE. As a result
of this shift, paintings became more realistic and vivid.
Subjects appear in much brighter light, which is depicted in a
photographically 'correct' manner. Up until recently, there was
no satisfactory art historical explanation for how, all of a
sudden, painters began to see light in a different way, but it is
now widely believed that 400 years before the invention of
photography, painters were using simple cameras to reproduce
realistic images on canvas.

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Reading comprehension

Question

Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential

information in the highlighted sentence in the passage?

(A) Only recently have art historians acknowledged the reason

why painting shifted around 1420 CE.
(B) 400 years before the invention of photography, painters
were painting photographic-like images on canvas.
(C) The theory of optics has become widely accepted in art
history circles.
(D) Art historians now believe that the discovery of simple
cameras is responsible for the shift in pictorial representation
around 1420.

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Reading comprehension

Answer (D)
The essential info was: the use of simple cameras by
painters in order to paint more realistic images.

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Reading comprehension

Reference

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

Vocabulary:
Highlighted word (usually a pronoun)
❖What does it refer to?
❖What word the pronoun is replacing?

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Reading comprehension

Example

The astrological nature of the Mayan use of astronomical

data explains in part why so few written records exist of that
data. The Mayans believed that the passage of the sun
continued throughout the night, only, then it was traveling
through the underworld. This was believed to be a perilous
journey, with many demonic figures lurking in the darkness,
waiting to ambush the sun to prevent it from returning to the
sky at dawn.

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Reading comprehension

Question

The word it in the passage refers to

A. night
B. sun
C. passage
D. data

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Reading comprehension

Answer (B)
The sentence describes the path taken by the sun.
The other answer choices, though they are all words that
appear in the paragraph, do not refer to things that are
traveling.

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Reading comprehension

Inference

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What to do?

Words
❖ "infer"
❖ "imply"
❖ "suggest"
in the question prompt something that is only
suggested, not directly stated.

● Understand all the concepts in the text.

● Deduce what the author is trying to imply.

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Reading comprehension
Example

Derived from the penicillium mold, penicillin is one of the most

powerful antibacterial agents ever developed. Penicillin and its
derivatives have saved countless millions of lives by reducing once
lethal infections to the status of minor inconveniences. Countless
others have kept limbs that once would have needed amputating to
stop the spread of an infection because penicillin stopped that
spread in its tracks. The history of the discovery of such a wondrous
medicine is long and complicated, but the man who normally gets
the credit for discovering it is Alexander Fleming, who published
papers on penicillin in 1928. It is well-known that several others,
including a French medical student and a Costa Rican scientist, had
noted the mold's antibacterial properties prior to Fleming. However, it
was Fleming who drew the attention of the Western scientific
establishment to the mold, and whose work eventually led to
penicillin being developed into a potent medicine.

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Reading comprehension

Question: What can be inferred from paragraph 1?

A. Mortality rates from infections are much lower today

than they were in the 1920s.
B. Penicillin has proven very useful but can also have
potentially deadly side effects.
C. Alexander Fleming was disorganized in several
aspects of his professional life.
D. A Costa Rican scientist should really get the credit for
first discovering penicillin.

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Reading comprehension

Answer (A)
Penicillin wasn't discovered until 1928, hence people in
the 1920s died more often from infections that are now
commonly treated by penicillin.
(B): The focus is on penicillin, not on the side effects.
(C): Fleming is mentioned in connection with the
discovery, not because of his work habits.
(D): a French student also recognized the mold’s
properties, but neither scientist went so far as to share
their findings with the scientific community.

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Reading comprehension

General Idea

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Reading comprehension

What to do?

❖ Summarize
❖ Get overall
• Gist
• Substance
• Essence
❖ Evaluation of a situation

NB: Author’s
• View
• Opinion
• Attitude
• Feeling
•…
not yours!
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Reading comprehension

Example

For all her strong capitalist sympathies, Ayn Rand displayed in her fiction
many indications of an ideology that had been shaped by the very
communist ideals that she purported to reject. This theory, discussed by R.
Merren in his groundbreaking classic “The Marxist Beneath,” raises some
interesting questions about the role of communal living in Rand’s novel Atlas
Shrugged. In Atlas Shrugged, the denizens of “Galt’s Gulch” are able to work
in their chosen fields, achieving great success and being rewarded for that
success by financial gain. However, the “gain” is nominal, really more
symbolic than anything else. And the freedom to pursue one’s gifts is
granted, in part, by the harmony that comes from a system in which
everyone’s strengths and talents are encouraged. Merren argues
persuasively that, although Rand was justifiably adamant about her aversion
to the Soviet Communist regime under which she grew up, her writing
displays an adherence to communist ideals dressed in the clothes of
capitalism.

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Reading comprehension

Question

Which of the following situations is most similar to R. Merren's view of Ayn

Rand, as presented in the passage?

(A) An actor is publicly opposed to appearing in a certain type of film, but

later in his career accepts a role in one.
(B) A professor is very critical of a student's work in a class, but chooses
not to give a failing grade because she respects the student's viewpoint.
(C) A politician votes for the passage of several laws, but he does not
personally support all elements of them.
(D) A small startup company advertises its rejection of the norms of
corporate culture, but all its employees work in cubicles.
(E) An author writes a series of books along a certain theme, but later
distances herself from the ideas in that series.

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Reading comprehension

Answer (D)
A: She didn’t change what she was willing to do.
B: She doesn’t criticize communism; she does not include
it in her writing due to respect.
C: This is perhaps the reverse; she supports communism
rejection, but on some level also adheres to its principles.
D: What the company says is partially undermined by
what it does.
E: She did not distance herself from the ideas in her
books.

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