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Introduction to

toefl iBT Reading

®

Section
 EQA INSTRUCTOR
Nguyen Thi Hong Hoa
Email: pnav2008@gmail.com
Mobile phone: 0904 308 639
BEFORE WE START
Fill in the blank below

Today a________,
tomorrow a
leader
- Margaret Fuller
 OVERVIEW
Length of Each Number of Timing
Passage Passages and
Questions

Approximately • From _____ to From _____ to

_____ words _____ passages _____ minutes
• From _____ to
_____ questions
per passage
1. The Language
2. The Questions
3. General strategies
The language
• Read the 3 following passages.
• Determine which one is TOEFL-level
language
Roger Rosenblatt’s book Black
Fiction, in attempt to apply literary
rather than sociopolitical criteria to its
subject, successfully alters the
approach taken by most previous
studies. As Rosenblatt notes,
criticism of black writing has often
served as a pretext for expounding on
Black history. Addison Galye’s recent
work, for example, judges the value of
Black fictions by overtly political
standards, rating each work according
to the notions of Black identity which
it propounds.
After a few agonizing minutes of
indecision I decided to abandon the car
and take a taxi. But even the taxi took
ages to get there because there was a
terrible traffic jam. I eventually arrived,
ten minutes late, hot, sweaty and really
stressed. When I walked into the
manager’s office, the first thing she
asked me was, ‘Did you have a good
journey?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘It was fine.’
But at least the story has a happy
ending because I got the job!
The response of most animals when
suddenly faced with a predator is to flee.
Natural selection has acted in a variety of
ways in different species to enhance the
efficacy of the behaviors, known as "flight
behaviors" or escape behaviors that are
used by prey in fleeing predators: Perhaps
the most direct adaptation is enhanced flight
speed and agility.
Adaptations for speed, however, are likely to
require sacrifices biter attributes, so we
might expect only some species to adopt a
simple fast flight strategy. Another way of
enhancing the effectiveness of flight is to
move in an erratic and unpredictable way.
Many species, like ptarmigans, snipes, and
various antelopes and gazelles, flee from
predators in a characteristic zigzag fashion.
1. The Language
2. The Questions
3. General strategies
1. Factual Information Qs 3-6 Qs/set
2. Negative Factual Information 0-2 Qs/set
Qs
3. Inference Qs 0-2 Qs/set
4. Rhetorical Purpose Qs 0-2 Qs/set
5. Vocabulary Qs 3-5 Qs/set
6. Reference Qs 0-2 Qs/set
7. Sentence Simplification Qs 0-1 Qs/set
8. Insert Text Qs 0-1 Qs/set
9. Prose Summary 1 Q/set
10. Fill in a table 1 Q/set
1. The Language
2. The Questions
3. General strategies
GENERAL STRATEGIES
• Learn how to read ACTIVELY
– 1PLUS – 1 – 1 – 1
– To find the main idea
– To find the structure of the passage
• Deal with difficult vocabulary
– By learning TOEFL words
– By guessing from the contexts
– By looking for explanation/examples
in the passage
– By ignoring unnecessary new words
GENERAL STRATEGIES
• Deal with difficult grammar
structures
– By identifying main components of
the sentence
– By ignoring unnecessary parts
• Deal with different types of
questions and the way ETS design
them
– Multiple-choice
– Wrong answers always look very
tempting
– Verbatim answers look correct, but
usually are wrong
• Improve your vocabulary by learning
flashcards
• Improve your reading speed and
accuracy by PRACTICE
– Official Guide
– Longman
– North Star Intermediate, High
Intermediate, Advanced
– Delta’s Key
– Barron
practice
• Dreaming and REM Sleep
• 20 minutes
homework
• Finish the exercises in the handout
– Vocabulary and Reference Questions
– Practice Set: The Rise of Marketing
– Theme: Plants
• Learn the new words (flashcards)
 Official Guide

• Designed by ETS
• General
• Quite easy
• Good to start with
• 01 audio CD
 Cracking the TOEFL

• Excellent strategies
for all sections
• Written from the
perspective of the
test designer
• Easy to understand
• Excellent templates
for Speaking and
Writing sections
• Quite few exercises
• 01 audio CD
Longman
• Good overview of each
section
• Appropriate strategies
• A large number of skill-
based exercises
• 08 Mini-tests and 02
complete tests
• Easy level, suitable to
practice right after
understanding the
general format of the
test
• 08 audio CDs
• 01 CD-ROM for sample
 Delta Key
• Appropriate
strategies
• A lot of practice
exercises, also
skill-based (similar
to Longman) but
more challenging
• A lot of practice
tests
• 10 audio CDs
• Pdf version
available
Cambridge

• Study plan
instruction
• Study strategies &
academic strategies
• Skill-based
exercises
• 2 Practice Tests in
book
• 7 Practice Tests in
CD-ROM
 Barron
• Clarify academic skills
that ETS want to test
• 07 model tests with
explanations, esp.
speaking and writing
samples
• Very difficult, suitable
after all other iBT
books have been
studied
• Particularly
challenging listening
passages compared
with Longman or Delta
Key
• 10 audio CDs
 Kaplan

• theme-based
• few strategies
• Challenging tests
• 01 audio CD, 01
CD-ROM for iBT
tests
• Available for
purchase near the
FTU
 North Star

• 2 levels:
Intermediate and
High Intermediate
• Theme-based
• ETS practice tests
• Quite easy, suitable
for beginners
• 04 audio CDs
The Michigan Guide
• 300 words for the
TOEFL iBT
• Best for teachers’
reference
Over 20 more books are
coming, including:
Along with more than
50 audio CDs and
CD-ROMS
TOEFL iBT Tests
• Purchased directly from the United
States
How to access these
materials?
• EQuest has a library
with all its materials
accessible
– 30,000 a year
– A 3x4 photo
– Equest Office
• Bookstores: 40B or
80B Ba Trieu Str.
 E-materials

• www.ets.org/toefl
• http://
petrusky.net/dhvn/tlieu/DeltaKeyTOEFLiBT.pd
• http://www.free-english.com/TOEFL-iBT-pract