Reading - Part C. Reading Comprehension
Reading - Part C. Reading Comprehension
The final reading part presents longer texts - newspaper and magazine articles, literary excerpts, letters, advertisements, and public notices - each followed by several questions. Items ask for the main idea, a specific detail, an inference, the author's attitude, or the meaning of a word in context. The passages are authentic in style, so register and text type matter as much as vocabulary.
Classify the text first
- News report: neutral, facts and numbers early, evaluative language rare.
- Feature or commentary: anecdote first, point at the end; eigentlich, allerdings, doch flag the author's real claim.
- Reader's letter / opinion piece: thesis usually in the first or last sentence, often with strong adjectives.
- Literary excerpt: mood, character, and figurative language; questions tend to ask about feelings and implication rather than plot.
- Notice or advertisement: conditions, dates, prices, exceptions - read every qualifier.
Strategies
- Skim the first and last sentences of each paragraph for the argument's shape, then scan for the specific line a detail question points to.
- For inference, accept only what the text supports; extreme wording (immer, nie, alle, nur, völlig) usually marks a distractor.
- For vocabulary in context, return to the sentence - the dictionary sense that fits the topic, not the most common sense, is the answer.
- For "NOT" questions, verify each option against the text and eliminate the three that are stated.
Worked example
Wegen Umbauarbeiten bleibt die Stadtbibliothek vom 3. bis 17. Mai geschlossen. In dieser Zeit können ausgeliehene Bücher an der Rückgabestelle im Foyer abgegeben werden. Die Ausleihe ist ab dem 18. Mai wieder zu den gewohnten Zeiten möglich.
Question: Was gilt während der Umbauarbeiten? (A) Die Bibliothek ist vollständig geschlossen. (B) Bücher können zurückgegeben, aber nicht ausgeliehen werden. (C) Die Öffnungszeiten werden verlängert. (D) Ausgeliehene Bücher müssen bis Juni behalten werden.
The notice closes the building to lending but keeps a return point open, so (B) restates both halves. (A) overstates geschlossen; (C) is never mentioned; (D) invents a June deadline. Answer: B.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing a statement that is true in the text but does not answer the question asked.
- Absolute wording that the passage does not license.
- Misreading negation scope, or missing a restricting word such as nur, außer, ab.
- Confusing near-pairs: Ausleihe vs Rückgabe, geöffnet vs geschlossen, Umbau vs Aufbau.
- Answering from general knowledge about the topic instead of from the passage.