READING COMPREHENSION in Exams, Tests - Strategies, Tips and Tricks - Building Reading Skills

In this lesson, you will learn strategies for READING COMPREHENSION exercises in exams and tests. Also see - MOST COMMON MISTAKES IN ENGLISH & HOW TO AVOID THEM: ★★★ Also check out ★★★ ➜ PRESENT SIMPLE TENSE Part 1: ➜ ALL TENSES Playlist: ➜ PARTS OF SPEECH Playlist: ➜ ALL GRAMMAR LESSONS: ➜ VERBS: ➜ NOUNS: ➜ PRONOUNS: ➜ ADJECTIVES: ➜ ADVERBS: Transcript: Hello and welcome back. This lesson comes from a request by Aditya from Maharashtra, India. Aditya says he is preparing for a competitive exam and he has to do reading comprehension exercises as part of the exam, and he wants to know the best way to do these. Before we start, if you want to request a lesson, just leave a comment. In your comment, tell me your name, and I will mention you in the video. OK, in this lesson I will give you some important tips and strategies for reading comprehension exercises. I will give you a reading plan that you can follow, and there are exercises in this lesson for you to practice. Alright, now my teaching experience is mostly with exams like the IELTS and TOEFL, but the tips that I give you in this lesson will help you in any exam situation. So the first thing is: when it comes to reading in an exam, budget your time. That means: you should know how many reading passages there are in the exam, how many exercises there are and how much time you have. In the IELTS exam, for example, there are three reading passages and you have one hour to do all of them. So then divide your time amongst those passages – for IELTS, you might spend roughly 20 minutes per passage. In some exams, one passage might be shorter or easier, and another passage might be longer or more difficult. In that case, obviously, you should plan to spend less time on the short passage, and more time on the long passage. And you should time yourself – if you are allowed to wear a watch in your exam, look at your watch and keep track of the time. If you plan for 20 minutes per passage, stick to that plan. Now, if you’re not allowed to wear a watch, then use the clock in the room or hall, or ask the invigilators how much time you have left. Alright, that’s the first thing: budgeting your time. So now the exam starts – and you have the first reading passage in front of you – what do you do? Well, I’ll tell you what you should NOT do – don’t start at the beginning and read slowly to the finish. Many students do this – and the problem is that when you get to the end, you will have forgotten a lot of the details in the middle, and when you read the questions, you have to go back and read the passage again to find the answers. Instead, here’s the plan that you should follow: your first step in reading should be to skim the passage. What does that mean? Well, skimming is actually something that we do with milk. It’s when you heat or boil milk, and the fat rises to the top in the form of cream. Removing that layer of fat is called skimming. When it comes to reading, skimming means to read the surface of the text quickly to understand the overall message. So if there’s a heading or title to the passage, and if there are subheadings, read all of these first. They will tell you the subject of the text. Then read the first sentence of each paragraph – they will give you a good idea of the overall message. Let’s practice this. You see two paragraphs on the screen, but only the first sentence in each paragraph is visible. Stop the video, read the sentences and try to understand the main topic in each paragraph. Alright, so what do you think the topic of the whole passage might be? It could be the negative effects of social media on children. What about the first paragraph? What is it about? Well it says that using social media can affect a child’s writing skills. And the second paragraph? It says that some people don’t agree with this – that is, the first paragraph – for two reasons: scientific reasons and practical reasons (pragmatic).