Determining meaning from context 1 pdf

By identifying the place in the passage where specific information can be found.. Rather, these ques-tions test 1 how carefully you read and 2 your ability to know where to look for spe

4 The word disturbing in sentence 3 could best be replaced by which word?

a angering

b hurting

c bothering

d pleasing

Identifying Specific Facts and Details

On standardized tests, you will often be asked to identify specific facts and details from what you read The TOEFL exam will ask you to do this in three different ways:

1 By identifying a specific fact or detail mentioned in the passage

2 By identifying information that was not specifically mentioned in the passage.

3 By identifying the place in the passage where specific information can be found

Of course, you can’t be expected to remember every detail So how do you identify specific facts and details quickly and accurately, especially when a passage is several paragraphs long?

The idea behind these questions isn’t for you to memorize everything in the passage Rather, these

ques-tions test (1) how carefully you read and (2) your ability to know where to look for specific information within

a passage For example, take another look at the snakes paragraph:

Many people are afraid of snakes, but most snakes aren’t as dangerous as people think they are There are more than 2,500 different species of snakes around the world Only a small per-centage of those species are poisonous, and only a few species have venom strong enough to kill

a human being Furthermore, snakes bite only 1,000–2,000 people in the United States each year, and only ten of those bites (that’s less than 1%) result in death Statistically, many other animals are far more dangerous than snakes In fact, in this country, more people die from dog bites each year than from snakes

On the TOEFL exam, you might be asked a question like the following:

How many species of snakes are there worldwide?

a between 1,000–2,000

b less than 100

c less than 2,500

d more than 2,500

There are several numbers in this passage, and if you didn’t read carefully, you could easily choose the

wrong answer The correct answer is d, more than 2,500 This fact is clearly stated in the second sentence.

The best way to find this information is to use the key words from the question as your guide In this

example, the key words are how many and species These two items tell you to look for a sentence in the pas-sage that has both a number and the word species Then you can find the sentence that provides the correct

information You don’t have to re-read the entire passage—in fact, you can’t, because you will run out of time

for other questions Instead, skim through the paragraphs looking for your key words.

In addition, you can use the structure of the passage to help you find the correct information If you

read carefully, you probably noticed that the paragraph talks about species first, then venom, then bites Thus, you can use your understanding of the structure to guide you to the place to find the correct answer

You can use the same approach for all three types of questions For example, imagine you are asked:

In which sentence does the author state how many snakebites result in death?

Find the key words in the question: how many, bites, and death Then, scan the paragraph looking for

the sentence that discusses the number of deadly bites

Note that the key word might not be the exact word in the passage For example, the question might be phrased as follows:

In which sentence does the author state the number of snakebites that are fatal?

In this case, your key words are number, bites, and fatal But you won’t find “fatal” anywhere in the pas-sage As you scan, then, you need to keep your eyes open for the key words and other words that might address the same idea For fatal, for example, you might scan for the words death, kill, and deadly to find the correct

answer to this question

Again, if you noticed the structure of the paragraph as you read, you would also know to look at the end

of the paragraph

Practice 3

Read the passage below carefully and then answer the questions that follow [Answers and explanations to all practice questions are located in Appendix A.]

(1) The Industrial Revolution was essentially a rapid change in the method of production

To find specific facts and details, use these two guidelines:

1 Look for key words in the question to tell you exactly what information to look for in

the passage

2 Think about the structure of the passage and where that information is likely to be

located

by chemical processes (3) The Industrial Revolution transformed Western society, creating an international capitalist economy, urbanization, labor reforms, public education, and labor spe-cialization

(4) While the pace of change during the Industrial Revolution was indeed very rapid, the Industrial Revolution itself stretched over a rather long period of time—from the mid-1700s through World War I (1914) (5) In the first century of the Industrial Revolution, the country undergoing the most dramatic change was England (6) After 1850, the Industrial Revolution spread rapidly throughout Europe

(7) Several key discoveries and inventions enabled the Industrial Revolution to take place (8) These included machines and tools like the cotton gin, the radio, the circular saw, the cylin-drical press, and the steam engine (9) Cement, dynamite, and aluminum were invented, as were the bleaching and papermaking processes

1 The Industrial Revolution took place during which years?

a 1700–1850

b 1850–1914

c 1700–1914

d 1850–today

2 Which of the following was NOT an effect of the Industrial Revolution?

a advances in medical technology

b mechanization of hand labor

c development of a public education system

d specialization of labor

3 In which sentence does the author describe machines developed during the Industrial Revolution?

a sentence (2)

b sentence (7)

c sentence (8)

d sentence (9)

Recognizing Structure and Organizational Patterns

As already mentioned, when you are looking for specific information in a passage, it’s often helpful to use the structure of the passage as a guide Recognizing structural patterns can also help you answer the TOEFL exam sentence insertion questions If you can identify organizational strategies and recognize transitional phrases, you will have a better chance of answering these questions correctly

When writers write, they generally use one of several basic organizational patterns These basic patterns help writers organize their ideas effectively The four most common patterns are:

■ chronological order

■ order of importance

■ comparison and contrast

■ cause and effect

When writers use time to organize their ideas, it is called chronological order They describe events in the

order in which they did happen, will happen, or should happen Much of what you read is organized in this way Historical texts, instructions and procedures, and essays about personal experiences usually use this structure as the overall organizing principle The practice passage about bicycles, for example, follows this pat-tern

Passages organized by chronology provide us with lots of clues to help us follow the passage of time

They use transitional words and phrases to guide us through the text The transitions help us see when things

happened and in what order and help us follow along when the passage shifts from one period of time to another Transitional words and phrases keep events linked together in the proper order

Here is a list of some of the most common chronological transitions:

This organizational pattern arranges ideas by rank instead of time That is, the first idea isn’t what happened first; it’s the idea that’s most or least important Writers can start with the most important idea and then work

down the line to the least important Or they can do the opposite: start with the least important idea and build

up to the one that’s most important

Organizing ideas from most important to least important puts the most essential information first Writ-ers often do this when they are offering advice or when they want to be sure readWrit-ers get the most important information right away Newspaper articles, for example, generally use this structure They begin with the

most important information (the who, what, when, where, and why about the event) so readers don’t have to

read the whole article to get those facts

When writers move from least to most important, they save their most important idea or piece of infor-mation for last Writers often use this approach when they are presenting an argument That’s because this kind of structure is usually more convincing than a most-to-least organization The more controversial the argument, the more important this structure In an argument, you need to build your case piece by piece and

win your readers over point by point If your less important points make sense to the reader, then your more important points will come off stronger And, as the saying goes, writers often “save the best for last” because

that’s where “the best” often has the most impact In other words, the writer’s purpose helps to determine the

structure he or she uses

Transitions are very important for this organizational pattern, too Here’s a list of the most common transitions writers use with the order of importance structure Most of these work for both most-to-least important and least-to-most important patterns:

first and foremost most importantly more importantly moreover

above all first, second, third last but not least finally

When you show how two or more things are similar, you are making a comparison When you show how two

or more things are different, you are contrasting them This technique gives you a way to classify or judge the

items you are analyzing By placing two (or more) items side by side, for example, you can see how they meas-ure up against each other How are they similar or different? And why does it matter? For example, you might

say that the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was even better than Star Wars Both featured warriors with special powers and a love story (comparison) But in Crouching Tiger, the fighters relied much more on their physical strength and agility than on powered weapons, which are plentiful in Star Wars (contrast) And

Crouching Tiger featured female warriors as strong as (or even stronger than) the male fighters (contrast).

Whenever an author is comparing and contrasting two or more items, he or she is doing it for a rea-son There’s something the author wants to point out by putting these two items side by side For example,

we could compare the French Revolution and the American Revolution to show how they both overthrew monarchies to create a free republic

One of the keys to a good comparison and contrast is strong transitions It’s important to let readers know when you are comparing and when you are contrasting As a reader, it’s important to watch for these transitions

Here are some words and phrases that show similarity:

The following words and phrases, on the other hand, show difference:

C AUSE AND E FFECT

Another common organizational pattern is cause and effect A cause is a person or thing that makes some-thing happen (creates an effect) An effect is an event or change created by an action (or cause) A passage

about cause explains why something took place You might ask, for example, “What caused the Industrial Rev-olution?” A passage about effect, on the other hand, explains what happened after something took place What

happened as a result of the Industrial Revolution? How did it affect the economy? Daily life? Education? Just as certain key words indicate whether you’re comparing or contrasting, other key words indicate whether things are causes or effects Here is a partial list of words and phrases that indicate cause and effect:

WORDS INDICATING CAUSE:

because (of) created (by)

WORDS INDICATING EFFECT:

as a result

Familiarity with organizational patterns can help you in several ways as you prepare for and take the TOEFL exam Once you recognize an organizational pattern, you can anticipate what’s ahead This often makes it eas-ier to understand and remember what you read It also makes it easeas-ier to find specific information in the text for those specific fact/detail questions

When you know the structure of a passage, you can also make better decisions about where to insert new information For example, read this passage:

The current measure used to calculate poverty levels was introduced in 1963 At that time, the poverty line for a family of two adults and two children was about $3,100 In 1992, there were 36.9 million people, or 14.5 percent of the U.S population, with incomes below the poverty line (1) A proposed new way of measuring poverty levels would take into account the effects of work-related expenses such as transportation and child-care costs

(2) By including these costs, fewer people in families receiving cash welfare would fall under the poverty line while a greater percentage of people in working families would be categorized as poor Specifically, people in families receiving cash welfare would make up 30 percent of the poor under the new measure, compared with 40 percent under the current measure (3) In contrast, people in working families would make up 59 percent of the poor under the new measure, com-pared with 51 percent under the current measure (4)