TOEFL Reading Syllabus

Reading syllabus in TOEFL is integrated for the primary purpose of improving the reading skills of a student. Many colleges and universities in native English speaking countries, assigns the students, with reading task, who are in their post secondary year. Moreover time management is important to provide correct responses and for reading without any lapse in pronunciation and grammar. TOEFL Reading syllabus is based on the format of reading section test paper, which is applicable for both internet based and paper based reading test. Detailed information on TOEFL reading syllabus is elaborated below.

Complete TOEFL Reading Syllabus

The total time for paper based TOEFL reading test is 55 minutes while it is 60 to 100 minutes for internet based reading test. So reading syllabus is structured in such a way that a student would find it easier to manage time in both the formats. Reading syllabus is divided into following parts:

• There are 3 to 5 passages on academic topics
• Each passage is followed by 12 to 14 questions

This is how the structure of reading syllabus is divided. The length of each passage will be 700 words. Practicing the passages on academic topics becomes easier not only with reading skills, but it serves main purposes like:

• Basic Understanding - Basic understanding is where a student should locate the purpose and main idea of a passage. The purpose and main idea could be identified from introductory passage. This is a must to find the other aspects in a text.
• Speed and Accuracy - Important details and key facts should be located in a very short period in order to answer all the questions. Speed and accuracy is necessary to find the key facts.
• Learning from Reading - Once the main idea, key facts and relevant details are located, the cause of the events or records is identified to organize those events in a chronological order.
• Pronoun Reference - There are some pronouns which would be highlighted in a passage. Here the task is to identify the nouns referred by the highlighted pronouns.
• Author’s Point of View (Inference) - The conclusions in the passage is not expressed directly. Not necessarily every passage should have a conclusion in the end. Some of the passages imply or give conclusions in an indirect manner. These types of implications could also be found in the body of a passage. Inference i.e. passage should be read from the author’s point of view.

How do these purposes serve the topic of the passage and the questions in reading syllabus?

These purposes or skills become important while answering the questions. The scores in reading test depend on the responses of a student for a question. And the questions are based on the purposes mentioned above. These questions are of the following types.

• Main Idea Questions, Key Facts (Specifics), Paraphrase Questions - These types of questions requires answers which would give what’s the central idea of a passage. Then the main purpose should be rewritten in one’s own words (paraphrasing).
• Reference Questions (Pronoun Reference) and Structure Questions - These types of questions would ask a student to locate the best position in a passage, where a new sentence (relevant) could be inserted.
• Except Questions (Unsupported Facts) and Read to Learn Questions - Answers to these questions should categorize important ideas in a passage.
• Inference Questions -  Answers to these questions needs a student to find the implications from an author’s point of view.

From the detailed information on TOEFL reading syllabus given above one thing is obvious. It is not necessary for a student to understand each and every minute detail given in the passage, but students are measured on their ability to identify the hints, and to organize their ideas with minimum lapse in their handling of language.

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