03 Mar 2017

TOEFL Reading in Depth, Part 2

Last week we covered the most common form of reading question, the Vocabulary in Context question. Today, I’m going to review the second most common question type: Detail Questions.

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There are no hidden surprises in Detail questions: these types of questions literally ask you what the passage said. This isn’t to say they can’t be tricky, but you aren’t being asked about the structure of the passage, the purpose of the passage, or anything that requires a larger knowledge of the passage. Instead, you are asked to focus on a very small portion of the passage and identify the factual content. Yahoo.

Let’s look at an example:

3. According to paragraph 1 of the passage, how was oil gathered prior to modern day drilling?

(A) It was drilled from shallow wells.

(B) It was skimmed off water surfaces.

(C) It was extracted from caves.

(D) It was obtained from reservoirs in Pennsylvania.

The first step of answering detail questions is to identify it. Look at the two key words in that question: According to and How. These words let you know you are dealing with a factual statement, not an interpretation of what was said or why the author said it.

Now that we’ve identified the type of question, now we can get around to answering it. The second step is to figure out what the question is asking about. We’re looking at paragraph 1, and we’re looking for how oil used to be gathered. The third step is to go back to the passage (paragraph 1 in this case), and find the answer. Don’t paraphrase the information or any other extra work. We just need to know what the author said.

Here’s the first paragraph, see if you can identify the information:

Though much publicity is devoted to the profusion of industrial products made possible by the use of refined oil, less, unfortunately, is given to the issues that surround its journey from extraction to processing. Those issues are equally important, however. Extracting oil from the earth is a fairly recent endeavor that first began when Edwin Drake hit a gusher in 1859 in the heart of Pennsylvania. Oil gathering techniques prior to Drake’s discovery were very simple. It was either skimmed off ponds or scraped from rocks as it seeped from underground reservoirs.

Can you see the answer? We’re looking for something that happened before modern drilling. Look at the second to last sentence: Oil gathering techniques PRIOR to… That sentence indicates when, and it says they were simple. But it doesn’t tell you HOW oil was gathered. The last sentence tells us: skimmed off ponds or scraped from rocks. That’s what we’re looking for!

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And now, let’s go back to the answer choices:

(A) It was drilled from shallow wells.

(B) It was skimmed off water surfaces.

(C) It was extracted from caves.

(D) It was obtained from reservoirs in Pennsylvania.

Remember, we’re looking for skimming or scraping. (A) is about drilling, so no. (B) is about skimming, so maybe. (C) is extracted…maybe…but from caves? Nope. (D) has water (reservoirs) but in Pennsylvania, which is not what we read. So, our best answer is (B). And that’s how you answer detail questions.

And now, a shameless plug: On March 19th and March 20th, we are holding a TOEFL strategy session at YPrep, and we would love to see you there. Please visit our website: yprepacademy.com and sign up there. Or email us at [email protected] if you have any questions about the TOEFL or about the strategy session. Thanks for reading!

And now a sloth quietly kills a cat.

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