SECTION 3

READING COMPREHENSION

The reading comprehension section of the TOEFL test consists of five reading passages,
followed by a number of reading comprehension and vocabulary questions. You have fifty-five
minutes to complete all the questions. Topics of the reading passage are varied, but they are
often informational subjects that might be studied in American universities.
Time is definitely a factor in the reading comprehension section. Many students who
take the TOEFL test note that they are unable to finish all the questions in this section.
Therefore, you need to make the most efficient use of time in this section to get the highest
score. The following strategy is the best way of attacking a reading passage to get the most
questions correct in a limited time.
General:
1. Be familiar with the directions.
2. Do not spend too much time reading the passages.
3. Do not worry if you are unfamiliar with the topic.
4. Never leave any questions blank on your answer sheet.

Specific:
1. Skim the reading passage to determine the main idea and the overall organization of ideas
in the passage.
2. Look ahead at the questions to determine what types of questions you must answer.
3. Find the section of the passage that deals with each question.
4. Read the part of the passage that contains the answer carefully.
5. Choose the best answer to each question from the four answer choices listed in your test
book.

There are several reading skills that you need in order to be able to answer all of the
questions.
1. Main idea
2. Stated details
3. Unstated details
4. Implied details
5. Pronoun referents
6. Transition questions (preceding and following paragraph)
7. Vocabulary questions
8. Where questions
9. Tone and course

Skill 1: Main Idea

Almost every reading passage on the TOEFL test will have a question about the main
idea. Such a question may be worded in a variety of ways; you may, for example, be asked to
identify the topic, subject, title, primary idea, or main idea. These questions are all really

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asking what primary point the author is trying to get across in the passage. It is not difficult
to find the main idea by studying the topic sentence, which is most probably found at the
beginning of a paragraph. If a passage consists of only one paragraph, you should study the
beginning of that paragraph to determine the main idea.
Example:
In most of Europe, farmers’ homes and outbuildings are in general located within a
village. Every morning, the farmers and farm laborers leave their village to work their
land or tend their animals in distant fields and return to the village at the end of the day.
Social life is thus centripetal; that is, it is focused around the community center, the
village. Only in certain parts of Quebec has this pattern been preserved in North
America.

1. The main topic of the first paragraph is …

(A) European farm products.
(B) social life in Quebec.
(C) the European pattern of rural settlement
(D) a system of social life

In the philosophy of John Dewey, a sharp distinction is made between

“intelligence” and “reasoning”. According to Dewey, intelligence is the absolute way to
achieve a balance between realism and idealism, between practicality and wisdom of
life. Intelligence involves “interacting with other things and knowing them,” while
reasoning is merely the act of an observer, “...a mind that beholds or grasps objects
outside the world of things...” With reasoning, a level of mental certainty can be
achieved, but it is through intelligence that control is taken of events that shape one’s
life.

1. What is the topic of the passage?

(A) The intelligence of John Dewey
(B) Distinctions made by John Dewey
(C) Dewey’s ideas on the ability to reason
(D) How intelligence differs from reasoning in Dewey’s works

Skill 2: Stated Details

A stated detail question asks about one piece of information in the passage rather than
the passage as a whole. The answers to these questions are generally given in order in the
passage, and the correct answer is often a restatement of what is given in the passage. This
means that the correct answer often expresses the same idea as what is written in the passage,
but the words are not exactly the same.
Example:
For a thousand years the Anasazi lived around Mesa Verde. Although the Anasazi
are not related to the Navajos, no one knows what these Indians called themselves, and
so they are commonly referred to by their Navajo name, Anasazi, which means “ancient
ones” in the Navajo language.

1. The name that the Anasazi used for themselves …

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 (A) means “Basketmakers” in the Navajo language.
(B) is unknown today.
(C) was given to them by archaeologists.
(D) means “ancient ones” in the Anasazi language.

Williamsburg is a historic city in Virginia situated on a peninsula between two

rivers, the York and the James .It was settled by English colonists in 1633, twenty-six
years after the first permanent English colony in America was settled at Jamestown. In
the beginning the colony at Williamsburg was named Middle Plantation because of its
location in the middle of the peninsula.

1. According to the passage, Williamsburg is located …

(A) on an island
(B) in the middle of a river
(C) where the York and the James meet
(D) on a piece of land with rivers on two sides

Skill 3: Unstated Details

You will sometimes be asked in the Reading Comprehension section of the TOEFL test
to find an answer that is not stated or not mentioned or not true in the passage. This type of
question really means that three of the answers are stated, mentioned, or true in the passage,
while one answer is not. Your actual job is to find the three correct answers and then choose
the letter of the one remaining answer.
Example:
Mesa Verde is the center of the prehistoric Anasazi culture. It is located in the
high plateau lands near Four Corners, where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona
come together. This high ground is majestic but not forbidding. The climate is dry but
tiny streams trickle at the bottom of deeply cut canyons, where seeps and springs
provided water for the Anasazi to irrigate their crops. Rich red soil provided fertile
ground for their crops of corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton. The Anasazi
domesticated the wild turkey and hunted deer, rabbits, and mountain sheep.

1. The passage does NOT mention that the Anasazi hunted …

(A) sheep.
(B) turkeys.
(C) deer.
(D) rabbits.

In English there are many different kinds of expressions that people use to give a
name to anything whose name is unknown or momentarily forgotten. The word gadget is
one such word. It was first used by British sailors in the 1850s and probably came from
the French word gachette, which was a small hook.

1. Which of the following is NOT true about the word gadget?

(A) It is used to name something when the name is not known.
(B) It was used at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

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 (C) It most likely came from a word in the French language.
(D) Its first known use was by British sailors.

Skill 4: Implied Details

Some questions will require answers that are not directly stated in the passage. To
answer these questions correctly, you will have to draw conclusions from information that is
given in the passage. Questions of this type contain the words implied, inferred, likely, or
probably to let you know that the answer to the question is not directly stated.
Example:
Pigeons have been taught to recognize human facial expressions, upsetting long-
held beliefs that only humans had evolved the sophisticated nervous systems to perform
such a feat. In recent experiments at the University of Iowa, eight trained pigeons were
shown photographs of people displaying emotions of happiness, anger, surprise, and
disgust. The birds learned to distinguish between these expressions. Not only that, but
they were also able to correctly identify the same expressions on photographs of
unfamiliar faces. Their achievement does not suggest, of course, that the pigeons had
any idea what the human expressions meant.

1. From the passage, which of the following can be inferred about pigeons?
(A) They can show the same emotions humans can.
(B) They can understand human emotions.
(C) They can only identify the expressions of people they are familiar with.
(D) They have more sophisticated nervous systems than was once thought.

Most Hawaiians speak English, but it is quite common to hear English that is
liberally spiced with words and expressions from the traditional language of the culture.
A visitor may be greeted with the expression aloha and may be referred to as a malihini
because he is a newcomer to the island. This visitor may attend an outside luau where
everyone eats too much and may be invited afterwards to dance the hula.

1. It is implied that a luau is …

(A) a dance
(B) a feast
(C) a concert
(D) a language

Skill 5: Pronoun Referents

In a pronoun reference question, it is important to understand that a noun is generally
used first in a passage, and the pronoun that refers to it comes after. Whenever you are asked
which noun a pronoun refers to, you should look before the pronoun to find the noun.
Example:
Unity occurs when all the elements in a design combine to form a consistent
whole. Unity resembles balance. A design has balance if its masses are balanced or if its
tones and colors harmonize. However, unity differs from balance because it implies that
balanced elements work together to form harmony in the design as a whole.

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 1. In the last sentence, the word it refers to …
(A) unity.
(B) balance.
(C) a design.
(D) a consistent whole.

Carnivorous plants, such as the sundew and the Venus-flytrap, are generally
found in humid areas where there is an inadequate supply of nitrogen in the soil. In
order to survive, these plants have developed mechanisms to trap insects within their
foliage. They have digestive fluids to obtain the necessary nitrogen from the insects.
These plants trap the insects in a variety of ways.

1. The pronoun they in line 5 refers to …

(A) humid areas
(B) these plants
(C) insects
(D) digestive fluids

Skill 6: Transition Questions

You will sometimes be asked to answer what probably came before the reading passage
(the preceding paragraph) or what probably comes after the reading passage (the following
paragraph). This type of question is called a transition question. The answer for a preceding
question can generally be found in the first line of the passage; the answer for a following
question can generally be found in the last line.
Example:
Another myth of the oceans concerns Davy Jones, who in folklore is a mean-
spirited sovereign of the ocean’s depths. The name “Jones” is thought by some
etymologists to have been derived from the name “Jonah”, the Hebrew prophet who
spent three days in a whale’s belly.
According to tradition, any object that goes overboard and sinks to the bottom of
the ocean is said to have gone to Davy Jones’s locker, the ocean-sized, mythical
receptacle for anything that falls into the water. Needless to say, any sailor on the seas is
not so eager to take a tour of Davy Jones’s locker, although it might be a rather
interesting trip considering all the treasures located there.

1. The paragraph preceding this passage most probably discusses …

(A) the youth of Davy Jones.
(B) Davy Jones’s career as a sailor.
(C) a different traditional story from the sea.
(D) preparing to travel on the ocean.

2. The topic of the paragraph following the passage most likely is …

(A) valuable items located at the bottom of the ocean.
(B) where Davy Jones is found today.
(C) Jonah and the whale.
(D) preventing objects from falling overboard.

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Skill 7: Vocabulary Questions
On the TOEFL test you will sometimes be asked to determine the meaning of a word or
expression. It is of course helpful if you know the meaning of the word the TOEFL test is
testing. However, it is not always necessary for you to know the meaning of word. In this case,
the passage often gives you a clear indication of what the word or expression means, such as
from structural clues (punctuation, restatement, and example), word parts, and context.
Example:
The Civil War created feverish manufacturing activity to supply critical material,
especially in the North. When the fighting stopped, the stage was set for dramatic
economic growth. Wartime taxes on production had vanished, and the few taxes that
remained leaned heavily on real estate, not on business. The population flow from farm
to city increased, and the labor force it provided was buttressed by millions of newly
arrived immigrants willing to work for low wages in the mills of the North and on the
railroad crews of the Midwest and West.

1. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word critical?

(A) Industrial
(B) Serious
(C) Crucial
(D) Insulting

2. The word buttressed in paragraph above is closest in meaning to …

(A) concerned.
(B) supplemented.
(C) restructured.
(D) enriched.

Skill 8: Where Questions

Sometimes the final question in a reading passage will ask you to determine where in
the passage a piece of information is found. The answer choices will list possible locations for
that information. The best way to approach this type of question is to study the question to
determine the information that you are looking for and then to go to the lines listed in
the answers and skim for that information.
Example:
Meteor Crater, a great crater approximately forty miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona,
is generally thought by scientists to have formed as a result of the impact of a 60,000-
ton meteor about 50,000 years ago. The meteor, made of nickel and iron, disintegrated
on impact and spread half a billion tons of rock over the surface of the land. The
massiveness of the meteor can only be imagined from the mammoth size of the crater,
which measures a mile in diameter and three miles around the top. The rim of the crater
rises more than 150 feet above the plain where the meteor impacted and is visible for
more than ten miles on a clear day.

1. Where in the passage does the author discuss the composition of the meteor?
(A) Lines 1-3

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 (B) Lines 3-4
(C) Lines 4-6
(D) Lines 6-8

Skill 9: Tone and Course

A question about the tone is asking if the author is showing any emotion in his or her
writing. The majority of the passages on the TOEFL test are factual passages presented
without any emotion; the tone of this type of passage could be simply informational,
explanatory, or factual. If the author is being funny, then the tone might be humorous; if the
author is making fun of something, the tone might be sarcastic; if the author feels strongly
that something is right or wrong, the tone might be impassioned. Meanwhile, you need to
draw a conclusion about the course from the topic of the passage and the supporting ideas.
Example:
Further changes in journalism occurred around this time. In 1846, Richard Hoe
invented the steam cylinder rotary press, making it possible to print newspapers faster
and cheaper. The development of the telegraph made it possible for much speedier
collection and distribution of news. Also in 1846, the first wire service was organized. A
new type of newspaper appeared around this time, one that was more attuned to the
spirit and needs of the new America. Although newspapers continued to cover politics,
they came to report more human interest stories and to record the most recent news,
which they could not have done before the telegraph. New York papers, and those of
other northern cities, maintained corps of correspondents to go into all parts of the
country to cover newsworthy events.

1. The tone of the passage could best be described as …

(A) objective
(B) optimistic
(C) angry
(D) humorous

2. The passage would probably be assigned reading in which of the following courses?
(A) philosophy
(B) psychology
(C) politics
(D) history

TOEFL EXERCISE I
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves in front of the Sun and hides at least
some part of the Sun from the Earth. In a partial eclipse, the Moon covers part of the Sun;
in an annual eclipse, the Moon covers the center of the Sun, leaving a bright ring of light
around the Moon; in a total eclipse, the Sun is completely covered by the Moon.
It seems rather improbable that a celestial body the size of the Moon could
completely block out the tremendously immense Sun, as happens during a total eclipse,
but this is exactly what happens. Although the Moon is considerably smaller in size than
the Sun, the Moon is able to cover the Sun because of their relative distances from Earth.

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 A total eclipse can last up to 7 minutes, during which time the Moon’s shadow moves
across Earth at a rate of about 6 kilometers per second.

1. This passage mainly …

A. describes how long an eclipse will last
B. gives facts about the Moon
C. explains how the Sun is able to obscure the Moon
D. informs the reader about solar eclipses
2. In which type of eclipse is the Sun obscured in its entirety?
A. a partial eclipse
B. an annual eclipse
C. a total eclipse
D. a celestial eclipse
3. The word ring in line 3 could be best replaced by …
A. piece of gold
B. circle
C. jewel
D. bell
4. Celestial body in line 5 is most probably one that is found …
A. somewhere in the sky
B. within the Moon’s shadow
C. on the surface of the Sun
D. inside Earth’s atmosphere
5. What is the meaning of block out in line 6 above?
A. square
B. cover
C. evaporate
D. shrink
6. From the passage, how can the Moon hide the Sun during a total eclipse?
A. the fact that the Moon is closer to Earth than the Sun makes up for the Moon’s smaller
size
B. the Moon can only obscure the Sun because of the Moon’s great distance from the
Earth
C. because the Sun is relatively close to Earth, the Sun can be eclipsed by the Moon
D. the moon hides the Sun because of the Moon’s considerable size
7. The passage states that which of the following happens during an eclipse?
A. the Moon hides from the Sun
B. the Moon is obscured by the Sun
C. the Moon begins moving at a speed of 6 kilometers per second
D. the Moon’s shadow crosses the Earth
8. The word rate in line 10 is closest in meaning to …
A. form
B. speed
C. distance
D. rotation
9. The tone of this passage could best be described as …

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 A. outraged
B. hypnotic
C. informative
D. humorous
10. Where is the passage does the author mention the rate of a total eclipse?
A. lines 2-4
B. lines 5-7
C. lines 7-8
D. lines 9-10

TOEFL EXERCISE II
While the bald eagle is one national symbol of the United States, it is not the only
one. Uncle Sam, a bearded gentleman costumed in red, white, and blue stars and stripes
of the national’s flag, is another well-known national symbol. According to legend, this
character is based on Samuel Wilson, the owner of a meat-packing business in Troy, New
York. During the war of 1812, Sam Wilson’s company was granted a government contract
to supply meat to the nation’s soldiers; this meat was supplied to the army in barrels
stamped with the initials U.S., which stood for the United States. However, the country
was at that time relatively young, and the initials U.S. were not commonly used. Many
people questioned what the initials represented, and the standard reply became “Uncle
Sam,” for the owner of the barrels. It is now generally accepted that the figure of Uncle
Sam is based on Samuel Wilson, and the U.S. Congress has made it official by adopting a
resolution naming Samuel Wilson as the inspiration for Uncle Sam.

1. The paragraph preceding this passage most probably discusses …

A. the War of 1812
B. the bald eagle which symbolizes the U.S
C. Sam Wilson’s meat-packing company
D. the costume worn by Uncle Sam
2. Which of the following is the most appropriate title for this passage?
A. The Bald Eagle
B. The symbols of the United States
C. Samuel Wilson
D. Uncle Sam – Symbol of the Nation
3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned about Uncle Sam’s appearance?
A. He wears facial hair
B. There is some blue in his clothing
C. He is bald
D. His clothes have stripes in them
4. The word costumed in line 2 could most easily be replaced by …
A. dressed
B. nationalized
C. hidden
D. seen
5. Sam Wilson was the proprietor of what type of business?

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 A. A costume company
B. A meat-packing company
C. A military clothier
D. A barrel-making company
6. The word granted in line 5 means …
A. refused
B. underbid for
C. told about
D. given
7. According to the passage, what was in the barrels stamped U.S.?
A. Sam Wilson
B. Food for the army
C. Weapons to be used in the war
D. Company contract
8. The word initial in line 7 means …
A. nicknames
B. family names
C. first letters of words
D. company names
9. The pronoun it in line 11 refers to …
A. figure
B. barrel
C. congress
D. Samuel Wilson
10. In 1812, people most probably answered that the letters U.S. written on the barrels stood
for Uncle Sam because …
A. Congress required it
B. Samuel Wilson was their favorite uncle
C. Sam Wilson preferred it
D. they were not exactly sure what the letters meant

REFERENCES
Bruce Rogers, The Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test: PBT Edition, Heinle Cengage Learning, 2011
Bruce Rogers, Peterson’s TOEFL Success 5th Edition, Peterson’s Pub., 2005
Cynthia A. Boardman and Jia Frydenberg, Writing to Communicate, Pearson Longman Pub., 2008
Deborah Phillips, Longman Complete Course for the TOEFL Test, Longman Pub., 2003

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