Timing is a
choice; you can always finish on time
If you have trouble with timing, it's a mistake in
strategy. Your job is to choose according to the timeline we provide in this
chapter. Again, choose the best answer according to our timeline--even when
you're not comfortable and even when you're guessing. This alone will raise
your score.
When you sit down and take your seat after you’re
finished registering and the examiner allows you to start the exam, you’re
going to see the instructions for the reading section. They’re going to be read
out loud to you. That’s going to give you some time to psychologically prepare
yourself and become comfortable with what’s going to come next: the
all-powerful reading section.
After the instructions are finished, your first reading
will appear. It will consist of 700 words and it will take up the whole screen
of your monitor, so you’re not going to see any questions. You will need to
scroll down through the reading and then click next before you start to see the
questions. The reason is to give you a chance to look at the reading. It
doesn't mean that you should read the whole essay though. (We’ll learn more
about what to do here later.)
Remember
(from the TOEFL overview section) that you'll receive either 3 or 4 readings on
your TOEFL. Each reading will contain approximately 700 words and require you
to answer 14 questions within 20 minutes. You’ll see a timer on the upper-right
hand corner of your exam. It’s there to help make sure that you don’t spend too
much time on any one question and it’s going to count from 60 or 80 minutes
down to 0 (depending on if you get that extra experimental reading or not;
explained in our TOEFL overview section). Once it hits 0, your answers will be
recorded and you will move on to the listening section never to return to the
reading again. Consequently, to succeed, look at that timer and monitor your
time as you answer the questions to answer all of them (or at least guess on
them) before time runs out.
Answering
on the Toefl Reading
As you answer, you will always be able to jump to
different questions. For example, let’s say you’re answering questions 1, 2, 3,
4, and then 5. Then, you think to yourself,
“Wait a second, I think I understand 3 better. Let me go
back and change the answer.”
You will be able to do that. When you finish the
last question (number 42 or 56), you’re going to see a chart that shows you the
questions that you answered and didn’t answer. You’ll be able to double-click
on a question to jump directly to it in the reading. You'll also be able to
jump around a bit for the questions in the reading you're succeeding at during
the exam. I’m explaining this to let you know that you can bounce around once
you finish the reading to double check your answers. But, of course, we’ll
learn to be focused and exact as we answer so that we won’t need to do this.
When you finish the first reading, you’re going to move
on to another reading and so on and so on until you complete your set: either 3
or 4.
Attacking the Toefl Reading
First,
you don’t want to read the whole passage before you start answering the
questions; if you do, it will be a very inefficient and time-wasting way to
read. Instead, acquire a basic idea of the reading and prepare your mind for
what you’re going to read about by first reading the title. Then, read the
first sentence (which is the all important topic sentence) of every paragraph.
Do this to get a quick introduction to the reading before you read it in
detail. Below is a picture to get a visual idea of this; it's that important
that we created an image to make it absolutely clear. The black boxes represent
the title and pargraphs and the red lines represent what you will read.
Only spend 1 minute doing this. Anymore than that and it
will be too much time; spend all of the time that you can answering the
questions since that’s where your score comes from. To finish within 1 minute,
you might have to read only pieces of the first sentences (subject, verb,
object only) since they can be quite big.
After you read the first sentence, read question number
1, not the answers but the question. Establish an idea of what it’s asking
about. Then, start reading the passage from the very beginning in search of the
answer to that question. In this way, you will concentrate only on what’s
important and what will earn you a higher score. We read the first sentences in
the first minute to picture the idea of what the passage is about as we work to
answer the question; it helps. This challenges students when they aren’t used
to it. However, everyone who’s tried it sticks with this method of attack
because it works.
Once you answer question number 1, go onto question
number 2 in the same way. The TOEFL questions proceed in chronological order,
so the answer to number 1 is in the beginning of the passage and the answer to
number 12 is towards the end.
As we discussed
earlier, timing is important and it’s very easy for students to run out of
time. Follow this guideline carefully and you will never have that trouble
again. That's right: you will never have trouble again.
1st Reading
80 min - 79 min :
read the first sentences
79 min - 72:40 min :
answer questions 1 - 5
72:40 min - 66:20 min :
answer questions 6 - 10
66:20 min - 60 min :
answer questions 11 - 14
2nd Reading
60 min - 59 min :
read the first sentences
59 min - 52:40 min :
answer questions 1 - 5
52:40 min - 46:20 min :
answer questions 6 - 10
46:20 min - 40 min :
answer questions 11 - 14
3rd Reading
40 min - 39 min :
read the first sentences
39 min - 32:40 min :
answer questions 1 - 5
32:40 min - 26:20 min :
answer questions 6 - 10
26:20 min - 20:00 min :
answer questions 11 - 14
4th Reading
20 min - 19 min :
read the first sentences
19 min - 12:40 min :
answer questions 15 - 19
12:40 min - 6:20 min :
answer questions 20 - 24
6:20 min - 0 min :
answer questions 25 - 28
You should be able to tell that
through this timing guideline, you have more time to answer the final questions
of the reading than the first questions. The final questions demand the most
time and concentration, so don’t change this.
Also, this timing structure is set up for when you
do have an extra experimental reading. If you don't, simply start from 60
minutes and follow the timing precisely.
Toefl Reading Question Types and Strategies
Below
is a lecture that I recorded to explain the basics of the question types that
you'll find on the TOEFL readings and the strategies to answer them. This is a
very important part of your preparation because these strategies will help you
to answer faster, easier, and more accurately. Consequently, pay careful
attention, listen more than once, and take great notes.
Practices
Toefl Reading
Water in the Desert
Desert areas of the world are not completely void
of precipitation, but rainfall in these regions is known to vary greatly.
Typically, scientists use an annual rainfall amount of four inches as the
dividing line between desert and non-desert areas. While these arid regions may
receive a similar amount of rainfall each year, how that rainfall affects
surface water and groundwater resources is largely dependent upon the area’s
topographical characteristics. For example, landforms such as flats and
depressions common to deserts are known to collect water, but these features
constitute only a small percentage of the desert landscape.
It
is interesting to note that these arid lands in fact contain some of the
earth’s largest systems of rivers. In the cases of these river systems, the
sources of the rivers lie outside the arid region itself, and hence they are
known as “exogenous” rivers and systems. These exogenous systems play a
critical role in nourishing life in the world’s most parched regions. For
example, annual flooding of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates rivers has long
supplied residents with water and brought in fertile silt to help agriculture.
With the advent of modern technology, however, this flooding is largely managed
by human hands, which has required more governmental cooperation among nations in
crafting treaties and agreements regulating the use of these river basins.
In addition to human intervention, the flow of exogenous
rivers is impacted by the season. Ironically, it sometimes takes a number of
months for the effect of a rainy season outside a desert area to be felt within
it, so by the time the peak flow finally arrives, it may in fact be the driest
time of the year. While this additional water does aid the irrigation for
agriculture, weather changes during the dry season like higher temperatures and
lower humidity may make the cultivation of some crops even more challenging
than it is during the normal growing season.
In contrast to exogenous rivers, those identified as
“endogenous” systems begin and end within the arid region. Water in these
systems generally comes from groundwater springs, but many of these rivers are
fed by water coming from limestone massifs, such as the Atlas Mountains in
Morocco. Rivers of this variety tend not to reach the sea, but instead end up
draining into inland basins, where most of it is simply lost to evaporation or
disappears into the ground.
Though rivers and lakes are present
in desert areas, groundwater makes up a much larger percentage of the total
water in these regions. However, only a small portion of these underground
deposits ever reach the hydrologic cycle; i.e., it never enters the constant
movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the earth that
characterizes most of the planet’s other water resources. The groundwater that
does enter into this cycle usually does so by feeding the flow of streams or by
maintaining water levels in lakes. Water taken in this way from groundwater
stores is then refilled by surface flows and rainwater. International
organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank have both funded
efforts to survey existing groundwater in arid lands and to create effective
methods to draw usable water from these sources. These efforts are particularly necessary due
to the lack of clear understanding in these regions about just how much
groundwater exists. What is known, however, is that these groundwater deposits
are very unevenly distributed, and that much of this water can be found deep
beneath the earth’s surface.
These groundwater deposits are found
underground in open spaces between, inside, and among rocks and sediment. These
water-laden layers of earth are known as “aquifers.” In general, limestone and
sandstone aquifers tend to be deep and large, which contributes to their
relatively high concentration of minerals. They are usually not replenished because
they became saturated more than 10,000 years ago and do not need to be. These
deep aquifers are sometimes called “fossil waters” to denote the fact that this
water has been present for so long. On the other hand, shallow aquifers found
in sand or gravel are much less extensive, but they can quickly be replenished.
1.
According to paragraph
1, what do scientists use to determine whether or not an area is labeled a
desert?
a. The amount of
annual rainfall
b.
The lack of groundwater
resources
c.
Topographical
characteristics
d.
The absence of flats
and depressions in the landscape
2.
The word “depressions”
in the passage is closest in meaning to...
a.
Rifts
b.
Dunes
c.
Ranges
d. Basins
With
the advent of modern technology, however, this flooding is largely managed by
human hands, which has required more governmental cooperation among nations in
crafting treaties and agreements regulating the use of these river basins.
3.
Which of the sentences
below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in
the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave
out essential information.
a.
Government involvement
in the creation of treaties and agreements enhances flood-controlling modern
technology of river basins.
b.
Technology has allowed
for better human management of floods, making river basin regulation agreements
largely unnecessary.
c. Humans have
been able to use technology to control flooding, which has made international
cooperation on the use of river basins more necessary.
d.
More modern technology
will lead to better flood management because intergovernmental treaties
regarding river basins allow for cooperation.
4.
The word “arid” in the
passage is closest in meaning to....
a.
Moist
b. Dry
c.
Deserted
d.
Airy
5.
In paragraph 3, the
author mentions all of the following about the flow of exogenous rivers EXCEPT:
a.
The impact of
the flow is often felt in the driest seasons.
b.
The flow can be an aid
in the cultivation of crops.
c.
The effects of the
flow are not felt immediately.
d. The flow is
unaffected by the season of the year.
6.
According to paragraph
4, what distinguishes an endogenous river from an exogenous river?
a.
An endogenous river
flows into a limestone massif.
b. The source of an
endogenous river is within the desert region.
c.
The endogenous river
does not reach the sea.
d.
Endogenous rivers have
a higher saline content than exogenous rivers.
7.
The word “stores” in
the passage is closest in meaning to...
a.
Locations
b. Accumulations
c.
Caves
d.
Discoveries
8.
According to paragraph
5, what are some international organizations now doing in desert areas?
a.
They are
creating new methods for drawing these resources to river basins.
b. They are paying
for efforts to survey existing groundwater resources.
c.
They are giving
monetary grants to individual inhabitants of arid lands.
d.
They are trying to
equalize the uneven distribution of groundwater.
9.
Why does the passage
mention in paragraph 5 the fact that the exact extent of groundwater resources
is still unknown?
a.
To highlight the lack
of scientific research being done in desert areas.
b.
To illustrate the
importance of freshwater to the inhabitants of deserts.
c. To explain why
the recent actions of the United Nations and others are needed.
d.
To show how
groundwater can affect the flow of exogenous rivers.
10. The word “replenished” in the passage is closest in meaning
to...
a. Refilled
b.
Rejuvenated
c.
Reinvigorated
d.
Rescinded
