STEP -STRUCTURE

AN INTRODUCTION TO STEP
THE STEP STRUCTURE

The STEP tests has four sections:

 Reading Comprehension 40%
 Sentence Structure 30%
 Listening Comprehension 20%
STEP STRUCTURE
 Compositional Analysis 10% READING
COMPREHENSION
10%
 Duration: 3 hours  SENTENCE
STRUCTURE
20% 40% LISTENING
COMPREHENSION
COMPOSITIONAL
ANALYSIS

30%
THE STEP STRUCTURE

Total no. of questions: 100

Type of questions: Multiple-choice 

Each question has four options;
candidates are required to select the right
answer from the 4 choices given (A, B,
C, D). 
LISTENING

 The STEP test sections are:

 Listening: Listening tests the ability to understand important
details from dialogues. A few recordings are played and on the
basis of it, candidates are required to answer a few questions.
READING

 Reading Comprehension tests different reading skills. This section consists of a

passage. Candidates are required to read and understand the passage, and answer
questions accordingly. This section also consists of a few short statements that have 1 to 2
questions. 
SENTENCE STRUCTURE/GRAMMAR

 Grammar/Sentence structure: The questions might be asked after a reading passage, or

they may be included at the end of a section with fill-in-the-blank questions. This section
requires the candidates to choose the correct answer from the options given as per the
correct grammar, and complete the sentences. The grammar points are correct usage of
adverbs, verbs, adjectives, gerunds, definite and indefinite articles, subject-verb
agreement, and nouns. 
Compositional Analysis

 Compositional Analysis tests the ability to choose the best written form of a sentence or
paragraph. This section has questions based on punctuation, capitalization, incorrect
structures, and sentence combining or ordering.  
STEP
PREPARATION

READING
 Reading
Reading Comprehension tests different
reading skills

It takes up to 40% of the test, almost ½!

For this reason, it is important to be prepared

for these sections.
General Reading Information
A. The lines in the passage itself are not numbered. Rather than numbering the lines,
the paragraphs themselves are numbered.

B. The format uses a two-line break to indicate a new paragraph rather than
indentation.

C. Some words or phrases in the passage may be in bold letters. When you read the
passage and come across such bolded words, you can be sure that there will be a
question directly relating to them. Most likely it will be a word meaning question.

D. As a general rule, reading passages are not given a title on the STEP test.
Sometimes, though not always, you may be asked to select what you think is the
best title for a passage.

E. Questions follow the paragraphs of a passage in sequence.

F. Questions that ask for a title or the general meaning of a passage are always the
last questions about that passage
 Reading
1. Word Meaning.
2. Reading to Perform a Task.
3. Demonstrating General Understanding.
4. Developing an Interpretation.
5. Examining Content.

We will study each of these skills in detail and

provide you with strategies for handling these
types of questions.

www.stepucation.co.uk
 Word Meaning
Here you must select the word that is closest in meaning in the context of the text.

A word can have several meanings, but you must choose the one that matches the
context of the text.

For example, the word ‘star’ can have several different meanings depending on
context.
The reading text might be about:
• a three-star general
• a star student
• a star in a movie.

Each one of those usages of star has a different meaning.

However, if the passage is clearly about the sky, then the word star will not mean
any of those things. It will refer to the bright objects we can see in the sky at
night.
 Using Context
Guessing meaning from context is an essential (necessary) way to build a better vocabulary.

It means that you guess the meaning of a word from the information around (with) the word.

If you use the information around a new word (the context) while you are reading, you can
usually make a guess as to what the word means.

For example, read the following sentence:

Ahmed’s football injury made his foot swell up, so he could no longer wear his shoe.

Based on the information in the rest of the sentence, we can guess that "swell up" likely means to
get bigger (logic = because his foot didn't fit in her shoe any more).
 Practice
Let’s Try to Use the Context to Answer The Questions

1. Some vegetarians believe that killing animals is wrong. Others are vegetarian because they
think meat is bad for people. A vegetarian is probably
____________________________________

2. The driver swerved to miss the little boy who stepped out into the road. To swerve is probably
______________________________________

3. The podiatrist told the woman to take the medicine for 5 days and call him if she didn’t feel
better. A podiatrist is probably _____________________________________

4. She picked the irises and arranged them in a vase to put on the coffee table. An iris is
probably__________________________________________

5. Her tea was tepid, so she put it in the microwave. Tepid probably means
______________________________________
Reading for Specific Information
Skimming and Scanning

• Skimming
Skimming means reading quickly without reading every word so that you get an overall
impression of a text or part of a text.

• Scanning
Scanning means quickly searching a passage for a particular word or term (e.g. a name
or a date).

How do these skills work in practice in the STEP exam?

Skimming will be used for:

1) pre-reading the text for the overall meaning
2) when answering questions, to quickly check if you have located the
correct part of a text once you have scanned for a key word or idea.
 Skimming
• Skimming is a form of rapid reading. We use it to find the general idea of
a reading text.

• We all do this every day without thinking about it. Can you think of some
times we do this?

• When you skim you have a general question in mind, something you need
or want to know about the text, for example:

• What is the general meaning

• Does this person agree or disagree with the idea

• Will this information be useful to me?

 Skimming
Your eyes need to move very quickly as you skim, and should focus only on the words or sentences
that will answer your question.

Usually these are found in the beginning and ending paragraphs, and in the first sentences of other
paragraphs.

Read these bits of sentences.

Do you generally understand the paragraph? What’s it about?

There are different ways in which volcanoes are classified.

Perhaps the most common and certainly the one used by non-specialists
This classification is problematical
Typically, a volcano is said to be extinct
The difficulty with this is that man has been on the planet
This can be exemplified
When Vesuvius did erupt,
An assumption had been made
Indeed, this is by no means an isolated example
The one difference being that the castle is still with us
That was a quarter of a full IELTS
reading. If you did it in 30 seconds, that
means you can read a whole IELTS
reading in 2 minutes. But did you
understand anything?
 Scanning Skills in STEP
• Many STEP reading texts are tough and the questions can be hard, but time is the real problem for many candidates. How
can you read and process 800-900 words in a short amount of time. One answer is skimming, another is scanning.

• Done well scanning can save you time, done badly it may be a waste of time. Scanning skills do need a little learning – there
is a definite art to it.

What is scanning?

• Scanning is the skill of looking for individual words in the text without reading the text for meaning. This is an important
point and is worth emphasizing: when you skim a text you are trying to understand what the text is generally about, but
when you scan it you are simply looking for words not meanings.

Why does it matter?

• To show you why scanning skills matter, take a look at this text about the live of the writer, Charles Dickens. It is really quite
similar to an STEP passage. The question you need to answer is:

How many times did Dickens give his reading tour of the United Kingdom?

It’s a fairly simple question and your task is to get it right in 30 seconds. Give it a go. Time yourself
How were your scanning skills?
The answer is of course “eighty seven” and I hope you got it.
But how long did it take you?  If it took much over 30 seconds,
you are probably not scanning correctly. Here are two reasons
why: you did the logical thing and started reading at the
beginning and left to right.

1. Don’t read from left to right

If you start reading from left to right you are going to scan very
slowly. In fact, what happens is that you start to skim the text
and read it for meaning rather than just scanning for individual
words. This happens because your brain wants to process the
information coming to it.
Because you are an Arabic language speaker, here you have an
advantage!. You should be used to reading right to left.
2. Don’t start at the beginning

It is of course logical to start reading from the beginning. Or is

it? Actually no. This is because the word you are looking for
could be anywhere in the text and there is no reason to start at
the beginning: you’re not reading the text for meaning, you’re
looking for a word. In the example here the word is right at the
end – the very worst place to start was at the beginning .
END OF THE INTRODUCTION TO STEP


Thank You!