Tips for TOEFL iBT Reading Section

The very first component you will have to do after you sit for the TOEFL iBT test is the Reading. The Reading Section measures your ability to read and understand academic texts (passages) in English. Reading is really a critical skill in educational environment. Students should read a lot and fully understand the information presented in their books and other reading materials. As we discussed in TOEFL iBT Format Section on i-Courses.org, three are the main purposes for academic reading in TOEFL iBT:

1. Reading to get information
2. Essential comprehension
3. Reading to understand

The Reading Section in TOEFL iBT consists of 3-5 texts; each text is around 700 words long. Each Reading text is accompanied by 12 - 14 questions relevant to the text. The main passage stands alone for a time of Twenty minutes and the 2nd and 3rd passages share a total time period of Forty minutes for reading and answering the questions. The program will cut you off immediately after the time ends. Therefore, you have to be not only efficient at reading but also very fast. On the end on this document we are going to give some essential tips on how to prepare for the TOEFL iBT Reading and how to behave at the reading test so that you can boost your final scores.

Preparation Strategies

Read, Read, Read. Read in English on a regular basis. Concentrate on academic texts from college textbooks or any other materials. Do not stick with one or two topics that you will be keen on. Read from various subjects - science, social science, business, arts, geography, history, economics, and others. Academic texts, aside from textbooks, could be seen in number of posts and academics magazines on the Internet or college libraries.


Find the reason for the passage. Knowing the purpose of the reading you will easily find what the author is trying to accomplish. The purpose of the passage for most of the readings is a part of the introductory paragraph which can be the most important paragraphs within the text. Most of the passages in TOEFL iBT attempt to do the following:

• To Explain - to provide the information for a specific subject in explanatory manner. These texts contain mostly factual information.
• To Resolve - it aims at finding answer for some sort of dilemmas or questions that require solutions. Normally there would be a debate.
• To persuade - to influence the reader on the credibility of specific point of view or idea. There would be opinions and support with evidence in those type of paragraphs.

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Improve vocabulary. When reading wide range of texts on several subjects you must make a word list. Organize your list in subjects for better results. Example topics might be online business, geography, science and others. Create flashcards that may help you learn those word lists. Use the words learned in your writings and speaking.

Get notes. During all sections of TOEFL iBT note taking is allowed. It's a crucial element for success. It is difficult to remember all facts and details from a reading text in order to answer the questions. Additionally you don't have enough time for you to try to find those again in the text. So, the solution is called note taking. Any time skimming and reading the texts you'll want to write down all important facts and details in order to find them fast and easily when you really need them. Discover also our productive note taking methods.

Learn how to skim the text. Skimming means reading the text quickly to get primary general impression on what the text is all about, what its main idea is. Skimming goes along with Reading to find information objective in TOEFL iBT. You should develop your ability to skim easily but while doing so to determine all major points within the passage. Take notes. See also our skimming practices.

Read just after skimming. Only skimming will not be enough. Read the passage once more. Now read it more properly, but don't forget that you've very limited time. Take notes. Find out the passage type - classification, cause/effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, etc.

Try to guess the meaning of new words in the articles, the context can help to do that. Next, look at those words in the dictionary. Guessing the words from the context brings advantages - you save some time and it doesn't disturb your understanding of the texts.

Highlight a lot of the pronouns (he, him, they, them, etc.) in the texts. Determine to which nouns in the particular text the highlighted pronouns relate.

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