FCE Practice for Reading

Today's phrasal verb means: "to make something appear less important"

The team are trying to play ........ the recent run of defeats by blaming it on individual players. 

•  around
• down 
• on 
• behind

How to do your best in the Reading Exam

Reading and Use of English Part 5: Multiple choice

In this part, there is an emphasis on detailed understanding of a text, including the expression of opinion, attitude, purpose, main idea, detail, tone, implication and gist.

General information about Part 5 - Reading and UoE

The 4 option multiple-choice questions are in the same order as the information in the text. 

The text will be a modern novel or an article.

 Questions may focus on the main ideas or details in the text, and on the attitudes or opinions expressed. 

You may also be asked to deduce the meaning of a word or phrase and to demonstrate understanding of references, such as pronouns, within the text.

Tips for Reading and  UoE Part 5

1 Read through the text before looking at the questions. As three out of the four options are incorrect, there is no point in trying to absorb them all before tackling the text.

2 Read each question carefully so that you know what to look for.

3 Beware of ‘word spotting’, that is assuming that an option must be correct simply because it contains a word that is also in the text. 

4 When the questions take the form of incomplete sentences,  read both parts of the sentence carefully.  Then check that the whole sentence matches what is written in the text and not just the phrase in option A, B, C or D.

5 Important: read texts in which opinions, ideas and attitudes are expressed, such as interviews with actors or musicians in which they explain their interests and what they believe helped them to become successful, or extracts from novels which focus on characters’ feelings.

Turn to part 1 in the sample test

(This is a sample for Reading only, so it is numbered as P.1 - in the real exam it is part 5 of course.)

1. Read the text.
   
2.  Read the questions carefully
3. Using the tips from the previous slide, complete the task.

Part 6 Reading and UoE

In this part, there is an emphasis on text structure and your ability to follow the development of a long text.

Part 6 consists of one text, for example an extract from a magazine, from which six sentences have been removed and placed in jumbled order after the text, together with a seventh sentence which does not fit in any of the gaps. You have to decide from where in the text each sentence has been removed. Each sentence may be used only once, and there is one sentence that candidates do not need to use. 

Rather than concentrating on individual sentences, you need to be able to follow the development of ideas, opinions and events through the text as a whole, 

Tips for Reading and  UoE Part 6

1. Always read through the text with gaps in it first so that you get an overall idea of the structure of the text and the development of the writer’s ideas, before starting to do the task.

2. When you are selecting a sentence to fill a gap, look carefully at the information before and after the gap. Candidates sometimes make the wrong choices by selecting options which seem to fit the text before the gap, and neglecting to check that the text after the gap follows on logically.

3.  As in Part 5, Don't  rely on ‘word spotting’. That is assuming that if the same word, name, date, etc. appears in the surrounding text and one of the options, then that is automatically the right sentence to fill the gap. Try and check all the other clues carefully before making  a final decision.

Turn to part 2 in the sample test

(This is a sample for Reading only, so it is numbered as P.2 although in the real exam it will be part 6)

1. Read the text. 
2. Look  carefully at information before and after the gap... are words and phrases indicating time periods, cause and effect, exemplification, contrasting arguments, repetition, concordance of tenses, pronouns, etc. This will help you to make the correct choice between two possible sentences which seem rather similar at first sight.
   

General information about Part 7 - Multiple matching

In this part, you need to locate specific information and detail, and recognise opinion and attitude, in one long text or a group of short texts.

Part 7 consists of ten questions. You are required to locate the specific information which matches the questions. To do this, you need to understand detail, attitude or opinion in the question and locate a section of text where that idea is expressed, discounting ideas in other sections which may appear similar but which do not reflect the whole of the question accurately. Some of the options may be correct for more than one question.

Tips for Reading and  UoE Part 7

1. Practice in skimming and scanning texts quickly for specific information in order to prepare for this task. 

2. Don't choose an answer on the basis of similar vocabulary alone.

Complete task 3 in the sample paper (this sort of task will be called Part 7 in the real exam)

Answer key. 

To be added after the lesson!!!!

Homework : Check your answers and work out why it was correct/incorrect.