The TOEFL consists of four sections and each one requires particular preparation so that you are ready to get your best score on test day. A high score will help you go on to pursue your career in college or graduate school. One of the best ways to prepare for every section of the test is to take a preparation course with experienced tutors.

There are specific types of questions that require specific strategies. Preparation classes can guide you through them so that you are comfortable and confident when you do the iBT TOEFL. The first section of the test is Reading. You will be given 60-80 minutes to read passages and answer questions. What else do you need to know? Keep reading to find out.

1. The Format of the Reading Section

A TOEFL preparation course will make sure that you have the tools you need to succeed. The first step to doing well on the test is to understand what your tasks are. Here is the format of the Reading Section:

• Three or four passages

• Approximately 700 words per passage

• 12 – 14 multiple choice questions per passage

• 20 minutes to read each passage and answer the corresponding questions

When you know the tasks and the amount of time you have to complete them, your practice will be more productive.

In a TOEFL course you will also get individual attention to help you prepare

2. What Does the Reading Section Assess?

The idea of the Reading section is to test your ability to understand the type of reading you will have to do in college. There are a few different types of passages. They are as follows:

• Expository: passages that explain a subject

• Argumentative: passages that support a specific perspective and use evidence to support the argument

• Historical: passages that describe past events

The passages come from introductory level college textbooks in many different subject areas. Everything you need to know to answer the questions will be in the given text and you do not have to have specialized knowledge to answer the questions.

The test is multiple choice and a preparation course will help you identify the right answers

3. TOEFL Test Preparation Gives You Strategies for All Types of Questions

Now you know what you have to do, but wait! There is more to learn about the questions on the test. This is where TOEFL test preparation is especially important. Here is the breakdown of the questions for each passage.

• Basic Information or Main Idea: questions that ask you about facts or vocabulary (these make up the majority of the questions)

• Inference: questions that ask you to identify implicit arguments or ideas

• Rhetorical Purpose: questions about how the author makes and supports an argument

• Insert Text: questions that ask you to identify a sentence that would fit into a specific part of the passage.

• Reading to Learn: one question that asks you to identify important ideas through a short prose summary, or by filling in a table

There are also three types of questions that may or may not appear: Negative factual information, reference, and sentence simplifications. If you want to learn more about these questions and strategies to answer them, a TOEFL course can help.

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