BOOK III

READING COMPREHENSION
Chapter 1
Introduction to Reading Comprehension

A. Introduction

This part of the exam tests your ability to read and answer questions about passages
written in formal written English. It usually contains five passages (eight on the long form).
After each passage there are usually from eight to twelve questions referring to that
passage for a total of fifty questions (approximately 75 on the long form). The passages
vary in length from about seven lines to about thirty-five.
In July 1995, Section 3 of TOEFL changed somewhat. The first part of the section, which
consisted of thirty individual vocabulary items, was eliminated. More vocabulary-in-
context items have been added. These ask about the meaning of words in the passages. The
passages have become somewhat longer, and the time limit has been extended by 10
minutes.

B. Sample items

A bird’s territory may be small or large. Some males claim only their nest and the area
right around it, while others claim for longer territories that include their feeding area.
Gulls, penguins, and other waterfowl nest in huge colonies, but even in the biggest colonies,
each male and his mate have small territories of their own immediately around their nests.
Males defend their territory chiefly against other males of the same species. In some
cases, a warning call or threatening pose may be all the defense needed, but in other cases,
intruders may refuse to leave peacefully.
1. What is the main topic of this passage?
A. Birds that live in colonies
B. How birds defend their territory
C. The behavior of birds
D. Territoriality in birds
2. According to the passage, male birds defend their territories primarily against
A. female birds
B. birds of other species
C. males of their own species
D. carnivorous mammals
3. It can be inferred from the passage that gulls and penguins
A. do not claim a feeding area as part of their territories
B. share their territories with many other birds
C. leave their colonies during their nesting season
D. do not build nests
4. In line 4, the word “their” refers to
A. male birds’
B. a male bird and his mate’s
C. gulls’
D. the colonies’

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 5. The word “intruders” in line 11 is closest in meaning to
A. invaders
B. youngsters
C. defenders
D. guests

C. The passages

The passages cover a wide range of topics, but in general can be classified as follows:
1. Science and Technology (40 percents) includes astronomy, geology, chemistry,
physics, mathematics, zoology, botany, medicine, engineering, mechanics, and so on.
2. North American history, government, geography, and culture (20 percent)
3. Art (15 percent) includes literature, painting, architecture, dance, drama, and so
on.
4. Social science (10 percent) includes anthropology, economics, psychology, urban
studies, sociology, and so on.
5. Biography (15 percent)

Some passages may be classified in more than one way. For example, a biography might
be about the life of a historical figure, an artist, or a scientist. If there is a national context
for any of the passages, it is American or occasionally Canadian. Therefore, if a passage is
about history, it will be about the history of the United States or Canada.
Although the passages deal with various topics, the style in which they are written is
similar, and they usually follow fairly simple patterns of organization. The vocabulary used
in the Reading Comprehension portion is fairly sophisticated. There will almost certainly
be words that you do not recognize. Sometimes you can guess the meaning of these words
by context. However, it is not necessary to understand all the vocabulary in the passages in
order to answer the questions.

D. The Questions

Type of question Explanation Example

(percentage on
test)
Main Idea/ Main These ask you to identify an answer “What is the main idea of the
Topic/ Main choice that correctly summarizes the passage?”
Purpose author’s main idea, the subject of the “What is the passage primarily
questions whole passage, or the author’s about?”
(10 percent) reason for writing the passage. “Why did the author write the
passage?”
Factual Questions These ask you to locate and identify “According to the passage, where
(24 percent) answers to questions about specific did..? Why did..?” “Which of the
information and details in the following is true, according to the
passage passage?”
Negative These ask which of the answer “Which of the following is NOT true
Questions choices is NOT discussed in the about...” “All of the following are true
(9 percent) passage. EXCEPT…”
Scanning These ask you to find the place in the “Where in the passage does the
Questions passage that some topic is author first discuss…”
(4 percent) mentioned.

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 Inference These ask you to draw conclusions “The author implies that which of the
Questions based on information in the passage. following is true?” “Which of the
(12 percent) following can be inferred from the
passage?”
Vocabulary-in- These ask you identify the meaning “The word ‘__’ in line 5 is closest in
context Questions of a word or phrase as used in the meaning to…”
(26 percent) passage.
Reference These ask you to identify the noun to “The word ‘it’ in line 15 refers to…”
Questions which a pronoun or other “In line 20, the word ‘there’ refers to
(10 percent) expression refers. which of the following?”

E. Strategies for Section 3

 As with the other sections, be familiar with the directions and examples for Section
3 so that you can begin work immediately.
 For each passage, begin by briefly looking over the questions (but not the answer
choices). Try to keep these questions in mind during your reading.
 Read each passage at a comfortable speed.
 Answer the questions, referring to the passage when necessary.
 Eliminate answers that are clearly wrong or do not answer the questions. If more
than one option remains, guess.
 Mark difficult or time-consuming answers so that you can come back to them later if
you have time. Erase all these marks before the end of the test.
 Don’t spend more than about 10 minutes on any one reading and the questions
about it.
 When only a few minutes remain, don’t start guessing blindly. Skim the remaining
passage or passages quickly then answer the first question in each set. Then answer
any questions with line numbers. After that, read the remaining questions, and if
you can’t find the answer quickly, choose the one that seems most logical to you.
 When there are only a few seconds left, fill in all remaining blanks with your guess
letter.

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 Chapter 2
MAIN IDEA, MAIN TOPIC, AND MAIN PURPOSE QUESTIONS

After almost every passage, the first question is an overview question about the
main idea, main topic, or main purpose of a passage. Main idea questions ask you to
identify the most important thought in the passage.
Sample Questions
 What is the main idea of the passage?
 The primary idea of the passage is . . .
 Which of the following best summarizes the author’s main idea?

When there is not a single, readily identified main idea, main topic questions may be
asked. These ask you what the passage is generally “about”.
Sample Questions
 The main topic of the passage is . . .
 What does the passage mainly discuss?
 The passage is primarily concerned with . . .

Main purpose questions ask why an author wrote a passage. The answer choices for
these questions usually begin with “to infinitives”.
Sample Questions
 The author’s purpose in writing is . . .
 What is the author’s main purpose in the passage?
 The main point of this passage is . . .
 Why did the author write the passage?

Sample Answer Choices

 To define . . .
 To relate . . .
 To discuss . . .
 To propose . . .
 To illustrate . . .
 To support the idea that . . .
 To distinguish between _____ and _____
 To compare _____ and _____

Don’t answer the initial overview question about the passage until you have answered the
other questions. The process of answering the detail questions may give you a clearer idea
of the main idea, topic, or purpose of the passage.

The correct answers for main idea, main topic, and main purpose questions correctly
summarize the main points of the passage; they must be more general than any of the
supporting ideas or details, but not so general that they include ideas outside the scope of
the passages.
Distracters for this type of question have one of these characteristics:
1. They are too specific.
2. They are too general.
3. They are incorrect according to the passage.

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 4. They are irrelevant (unrelated) to the main idea of the passage.

If you’re not sure of the answer for one these questions, go back and quickly scan the
passage. You can usually infer the main idea, main topic, or main purpose of the entire
passage from an understanding of the main ideas of the paragraphs that make up the
passage and the relationship between them.

OTHER OVERVIEW ITEMS

Several other items test your overall understanding of the passage. These are often the last
question in a set of questions.

a.) Tone items ask you to determine the author’s feelings about the topic by the
language that he or she uses in writing the passage. Look for vocabulary that
indicates if the author’s feelings are positive, negative, or neutral.
Sample Questions
 What tone does the author take in writing this passage?
 The tone of this passage could best be described as . . .
Sample Answer Choices
 Positive  Unfavorable
 Favorable  Angry
 Optimistic  Defiant
 Amused  Worried
 Pleased  Outraged
 Respectful  Neutral
 Humorous  Objective
 Negative  Impersonal
 Critical

If you read the following sentences in passages, would the tone of those passages
most likely be positive or negative?
1. That was just the beginning of a remarkable series of performances by this
brilliant actress.
2. Despite some minor problems, this device has a number of admirable features.
3. This practice is a waste of time and money.
4. At the time his poems were first published, they were very popular, but today
most critics find them simplistic and rather uninteresting. The italicized words in
sentences 1 and 2 show a positive tone; in 3 and 4, the italicized words indicate a
negative attitude. Notice that sentence 2 contains negative words (minor problems)
but the overall meaning of the sentence is positive. Sentence 4 contains positive
language (very popular) but overall, the tone is negative. (Words such as despite,
but, although, however, and similar words can “reverse” the tone of the passage.)

Most TOEFL reading passages have a neutral tone, but sometimes an author may
take a position for or against some point. However, answer choices that indicate
strong emotion—angry, outraged, sad, and so forth—will seldom be correct.

b.) Attitude questions are similar to tone questions. Again, you must understand the
author’s opinion. The language that the author uses will tell you what his or her
position is.
What is the author’s attitude toward smoking on airplanes as expressed in the
sentence below?

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 Although some passengers may experience a slight discomfort from not smoking on
long flights, their smoking endangers the health of all the passengers and crew.

The author opposes smoking during flights. He admits that there is some argument
in favor of smoking— some passengers may feel discomfort—but this is not as
important as the fact that smoking can be dangerous to everyone on the flight. The
use of the word although shows this.

Sample Questions
• What is the author’s attitude toward . . . ?
• The author’s opinion of ________ is best described as . . .
• The author’s attitude toward ________ could best be described as one of . . .
• How would the author probably feel about . . . ?

Another type of attitude question presents four statements and asks how the author
would feel about them.
• Which of the following recommendations would the author most likely support?
• The author would be LEAST likely to agree with which of the following
statements?
• The author of the passage would most likely be in favor of which of the following
policies?

c.) Organization items ask about the overall structure of a passage or about the
organization of a particular paragraph.

Sample Question
• Which of the following best describes the organization of the passage?

Sample Answer Choices

• A general concept is defined and examples are given.
• Several generalizations are presented, from which a conclusion is drawn.
• The author presents the advantages and disadvantages of ________.
• The author presents a system of classification for ________.
• Persuasive language is used to argue against ________.
• The author describes ________.
• The author presents a brief account of ________.
• The author compares ________ and ________.

d.) Items about previous or following paragraphs ask you to assume that the
passage is part of a longer work: What would be the topic of the hypothetical
paragraph that precedes or follows the passage? To find the topic of the previous
paragraph, look for clues in the first line or two of the passage; for the topic of the
following passage, look in the last few lines. Sometimes incorrect answer choices
mention topics that have already been discussed in the passage.

Sample Questions
• What topic would the following/preceding paragraph most likely deal with?
• The paragraph before/after the passage most probably discusses . . .
• It can be inferred from the passage that the previous/next paragraph concerns . . .
• What most likely precedes/follows the passage?

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 Chapter 3
FACTUAL QUESTIONS, NEGATIVE QUESTIONS AND SCANNING QUESTIONS

FACTUAL QUESTIONS
Factual questions ask about explicit facts and details given in the passage. They
often contain one of the wh- question words: who, what, when, where, why, how much and
so on.
Factual questions often begin with the phrases “According to the passage . . .” or
“According to the author . . .” When you see these phrases, you know that the information
needed to answer the question is directly stated somewhere in the passage (unlike answers
for inference questions).
To answer factual questions, you have to locate and identify the information that the
question asks about. If you are not sure from your first reading where to look for specific
answers, use the following scanning techniques
 Focus on one or two key words as you read the stem of each question. Lock these
words in your mind.
 Scan the passage looking for the key words or their synonyms. Look only for these
words. Do NOT try to read every word of the passage.
 It may help to use the eraser end of your pencil as a pointer to focus your attention.
Don’t reread the passage completely – just look for these words.
 When you find the key words in the passage, carefully read the sentence in which
they occur. You may have to read the sentence preceding or following that sentence
as well.
 Compare the information you read with the four answer choices.

The order of detail questions about a passage almost always follows the order in
which ideas are presented in the passage. In other words, the information you need to
answer the first detail question will usually come near the beginning of the passage; the
information for the second will follow that, and so on. Knowing this should help you locate
the information you need.
Correct answers for detail questions are seldom the same, word for word, as
information in the passage; they often contain synonyms and use different grammatical
structures.
There are generally more factual questions – twelve to eighteen per reading section
– than any other type except (on some tests) vocabulary-in-context questions.

NEGATIVE QUESTIONS
These questions ask you to determine which of the four choices is not given in the
passage. These questions contain the words NOT, EXCEPT, or LEAST (which are always
capitalized).

 According to the passage, all of the following are true EXCEPT . . .

 Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?
 Which of the following is the LEAST likely . . .

Scan the passage to find the answers that ARE correct or ARE mentioned in the
passage. Sometimes the three distracters are clustered in one or two sentences; sometimes
they are scattered throughout the passage. The correct answer, of course, is the one that
does not appear.

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 Negative questions often take more time than other questions. Therefore, you may
want to guess and come back to these questions if you have time.
There are generally from three to six negative questions per reading section.

SCANNING QUESTIONS
These questions ask you to find where in the passage some particular information
or transition is located. They are easy to identify; the answers are usually line numbers.
They are usually easy to answer too. Scanning questions are often the last question in a set
of questions about a passage. Use the same techniques for scanning given in Part A about
detail questions.
Sample Questions
 In what line does the author shift his focus to _____?
 Where in the passage does the author first discuss _____?
 A description of _____ can be found in . . .
 Where in the passage does the author specifically stress _____?
 In what paragraph does the author first mention the concept of _____?

In each reading section, there are generally from one to three scanning questions.

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 Chapter 4
INFERENCE QUESTIONS AND PURPOSE QUESTIONS

INFERENCE QUESTION
As in the Listening Comprehension section, there are questions in the Reading
Comprehension section that require you to make inferences. The answers to these
questions are not directly provided in the passage – you must “read between the lines”. In
other words, you must make conclusions based indirectly on information in the passage.
Many test-takers find these questions the most difficult type of reading question.
Inference questions may be phrased in a number of ways. Many of these questions
contain some form of the words infer or imply.

 Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

 It can be inferred from the passage that . . .
 The author implies that . . .
 Which of the following does the passage imply?
 Which of the following would be the most reasonable guess about _____________?
 The author suggests that . . .
 It is probable that . . .

There will probably be from five to eight of these questions per reading section

Sample Item
A star very similar to the sun is one of the nearest stars to Earth. That star is Alpha
Centauri, just 4.3 light-years away. Other than our own sun, the nearest star to the earth is
a tiny red star, not visible without a telescope, called Proxima Centauri.

It can be inferred from this passage that

(A) Proxima Centauri is similar to the earth’s sun.
(B) Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the earth.
(C) Alpha Centauri is invisible from the earth.
(D) Proxima Centauri is less than 4.3 light-years from the earth.

The correct answer is (D). Choice (A) is not a valid inference; Alpha Centauri is
similar to the sun, but Proxima Centauri is “a tiny red star.” Choice (B) also cannot be
inferred; the closest star to the earth is our own sun. Nor can choice (C) be inferred;
Proxima Centauri is invisible, but there is no information as to whether Alpha Centauri is.
Because Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light-years away, it can be inferred that Alpha Centauri, the
closest star, is less than that.

PURPOSE QUESTIONS
These questions ask why the author of a passage mentions some piece of
information, or includes a quote from a person or a study, or uses some particular word or
phrase.

Sample Questions
 Why does the author mention ____?
 The author refers to _____ to indicate that . . .
 The author quotes _____ in order to show . . .
 The phrase _____ in line _____ is mentioned to illustrate the effect of . . .

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Sample Answer Choices
 To strengthen the argument that _____
 To provide an example of _____
 To challenge the idea that _____
 To contradict _____
 To support the proposal to _____

There are usually from one to four purpose questions per reading section.

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 Chapter 5
REFERENCE QUESTIONS

Reference questions ask what noun (called the referent) a pronoun or some other
expression refers to. The correct answer is NOT always the noun that is closest to the
pronoun in the passage. Incorrect choices are usually other nouns that appear in the
passage. If you are unable to decide immediately which answer is correct, substitute the
four choices for the word that is being asked about. Which one is the most logical
substitute?

Two things to remember:

1. The referent almost always comes before the reference word in the passage.
2. The referent is NOT always the noun that is closest to the reference word in the
sentence.

You can identify “possible answers” in the text according to the type of reference word
that is highlighted. For example, if the pronoun he is being asked about, you would only
look for nouns that name a singular male person. Here’s a list of common reference words
and the kinds of nouns they refer to:

Reference Words Possible Referents

she her hers herself A singular female
he his him himself A singular male
it its its itself A singular thing, place, animal, action, idea
they their theirs themselves Plural persons, things, animals, places, actions, ideas
who whose Person(s)
which Things(s), place(s), animal(s), action(s), idea(s)
that (relative pronoun) Person(s),thing(s), place(s), animal(s), action(s), idea(s)
then Time
there Place
this that (demonstrative) Singular thing, action, idea
these those Plural things, actions, ideas

This, that, these, and those can also be used with nouns: this person, that time, those
animals, or these places.
After you have identified possible answers, you should read the sentence with the
answers in place of the reference. Which one is the most logical substitute? If you are not
sure, you can at least eliminate unlikely choices and guess.

Multiple-Choice Reference Items

A few reference items will ask you to choose to which one of four nouns a pronoun
or other word refers. Again, you should read the sentence with each of the four choices in
place of the highlighted word to decide which of the four answers is the most logical.

In general, reference questions tend to be the easiest type of reading question.

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Sample item
There is a poisonous, plant-like animal called the anemone that lives among coral
reefs. When small fish venture too close to the tentacles of these “living flowers”, they are
stung and eaten. For unknown reasons, the anemone makes an exception of the clown fish.
When in danger, the clownfish dashes among the anemone’s tentacles where other fish are
afraid to follow. The clownfish even builds its nest where the anemone can protect it.
1. The word “they” in line 2 refers to
(A) coral reefs
(B) small fish
(C) tentacles
(D) flowers

2. The word “it” in line 5 is a reference to the

(A) clownfish
(B) nest
(C) anemone
(D) exception

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