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Quick Reference Guides

Quick Reference Guides

The Reading Comprehension Quick Reference Guide provides tips to consider before and during your practice with reading comprehension passages and practice tests.

Before practicing passages or a practice test:

  1. Read the questions/prompts from multiple passages and identify patterns. Common types of questions/prompts include

    1. questions that ask about facts for which you can scan (e.g., dates and names)

    2. questions that include NOT

    3. questions that ask about cause or effect

    4. questions that ask about the purpose of the passage

    5. questions that ask you to make inferences or ask about implications

  2. Read the answer choices from multiple passages and identify patterns.

  3. Read a few passages without trying to answer the questions/prompts.

    1. Identify some genres of passages (e.g., informative, argumentative, persuasive, narrative/story, etc.)

General/While taking practice exams and actual exam:

  1. Read the questions and answer choices first.

    1. Can you identify patterns that might be useful?

    2. Are there any questions that ask for facts for which you can scan (e.g., years or names)?

    3. Do the answer choices include repeated words or phrases that might help you focus on information in the passage?

  2. Eliminate 1 or 2 answer choices.

    1. There are usually 1 or 2 answer choices that are obviously wrong.

  3. Take notes.

    1. If the exam allows, take notes on scratch paper about patterns or key information in the questions, answer choices, and the passage.

  4. Skim and scan.

    1. Skimming is reading only part of a paragraph or the passage. Do this to identify the paragraph in which an answer can be found.

    2. Scanning is looking for specific words or short phrases. Scan the passage when answering questions about easily identifiable facts (e.g., years and names).

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