Reading and Responding: From Skimming to Close Analysis
What this section tests
Reading tasks use notices, advertisements, emails, short articles, literary extracts and opinion pieces. You must locate specific information, infer meaning from context, understand the writer's purpose and recognise register (formal, neutral, colloquial).
Concepts to master
- Text type conventions: molba (request), žalba (complaint), obaveštenje (notice), oglas (advert). Headings and closing formulas (Srdačan pozdrav, S poštovanjem) reveal register.
- Case and preposition patterns that change meaning: u školi (in school) vs u školu (to school); na fakultetu vs na fakultet.
- Connectors: međutim, ipak, stoga, budući da, iako. These signal contrast, consequence and concession and usually sit near the answer.
- Vocabulary in context: guess unknown words from word formation - prefixes ne-, pre-, raz- and suffixes -ost, -anje, -telj.
- Reference chains: pronouns on, ona, to, njegov point back to earlier nouns; questions often test what a pronoun refers to.
Traps
Options that are true in general knowledge but not stated in the text. Options that quote the text but answer a different question. Questions about the writer's purpose or tone (ironic, sympathetic, critical) where a single evaluative adjective decides the answer. Watch for double negatives and for iako clauses that concede a point before the main claim.
Rule of thumb
Read the questions first, then skim for the paragraph containing the keyword, then read that paragraph closely. For inference questions, ask: which option could be proved from the text alone? Eliminate anything needing outside knowledge.
Worked example
Text: Iako je ponuda bila primamljiva, odlučili smo da je odbijemo jer rok nije bio realan. Question: Why was the offer refused? The jer clause gives the reason - the deadline was unrealistic - while primamljiva (attractive) is the trap: it describes the offer, not the reason for refusal.