The purpose of this blog is to explore different reading techniques that can help improve your score in a reading comprehension test.
Firstly, at the risk of pointing out something really obvious, the purpose of reading comprehension is to test your comprehension (i.e. understanding) of a text. It is not a general knowledge test - it does not depend on any knowledge except understanding the words printed on the page. Sometimes we need to 'read between the lines' - the author will hint at something rather than tell you directly. But at some level, the answer will be in the text, either directly stated or in the form of subtle clues. This applies equally to multiple choice style tests - even though you don't need to provide evidence to support your choices, you must still be thinking it. If you are persistently getting a low score even though you understand the passage, a good tip is to underline evidence. Can’t find anything to underline? - then think again about your answer.
If on the other hand you don't understand the passage, it could be due to a lack of vocabulary. For this I advise reading every day and following some of the advice in my earlier blog: 10 Ways to Build up your Vocabulary.
Understanding different reading techniques can also help improve your score. You may have heard of skimming, scanning and reading for detail. I prefer to call it - Skim, Scan, Scrutinise. Not only does it make very pleasing alliteration, but 'scrutinise' totally sums up the way you need to be thinking when doing reading comprehension. The Cambridge Dictionary defines 'scrutinise' as:
"to examine something very carefully in order to discover information"
Study the following table:
Here is the same table in printable format, together with a poster to stick near your study area:
Then practise! Reading comprehension sample tests can be downloaded from school websites that have a selective entrance procedure. Often they don't come with example answers. Therefore, I have designed PowerPoint presentations for a range of tests, exploring techniques and with example answers. They are designed for self-study and can be found in the SHOP. Browse now.
That's all! Have a great week.