Improve your TOEFL iBT reading skills, pt.3

At Test Success JAPAN and Test Success NYC we provide many specific strategies for the TOEFL iBT Reading section, but today we will continue to look at some general advice from ETS on how to improve your academic reading skills for the TOEFL iBT. What do you think? Do you already follow this advice? Let’s take a look at some suggestions for intermediate readers:

“Use your knowledge of grammar to try to comprehend difficult sections of a passage.”

Think carefully about the relationship between independent and dependent clauses. This website is an excellent resource for grammar and writing rules in English:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/independent_and_dependent_clauses/

Look for words that refer back to some information given in a previous section of the text. Specifically: Look at pronouns and find the nouns that they refer to. This website has some nice interactive practice: https://www.grammar-quizzes.com/pronoun_placement.html

Look at relative pronouns (who, that, which, whom, whose) used in adjective clauses (for example, The student whose classmates are taking the TOEFL test....) and find the nouns they refer to. This is another website with interactive practice. They also offer a free app for Apple and Android:

https://www.esl-lounge.com/student/grammar/3g14-relative-pronoun-gap-fill-exercise.php

These tips are helpful for a couple of reasons: First of all, sometimes parts of the TOEFL iBT reading passages are difficult to comprehend. These tips remind us that “breaking up” a complex sentence is helpful. In addition, “quizzing” yourself as you read is a great way to become more aware of pronoun referents- a common test question item on the reading section.

https://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt/scores/improve/advice_reading_inter