Reading Comprehension
The reading comprehension part tests whether you can locate information in written English, understand the writer’s purpose, and follow how a text is organised. Texts are authentic-style: notices and signs, adverts, short articles, blog posts, letters and instructions. Tasks ask you to match, choose between options, complete gaps or decide whether statements are true, false or not given.
Read in two passes
First pass (about a minute): read the title, then the first and last sentence of each paragraph to get the topic and the writer’s purpose. Second pass: read the questions, return to the text and find the exact place where each answer is decided. Underline the evidence - if you cannot point to a sentence in the text, your answer is only a guess.
Task-specific tactics
- Matching headings: match the main idea of the paragraph, not a word that repeats.
- Gap-sentence tasks: look at the words before and after the gap - pronouns (it, they, this) and linkers (however, so, for example) signal what must come next.
- True/false/not given: “false” contradicts the text; “not given” is simply absent from the text, even if it sounds logical.
- Word completion: copy the word exactly from the text and check it fits the grammar of the sentence you are completing.
Worked example
Text: “The castle was closed for repairs, so the class spent the afternoon in the park instead.” Gap task: which sentence fits after this line? A) However, we had booked tickets online. B) The park was only ten minutes away. C) Tickets cost six euros. The linker “so” plus “instead” signals a result, and B develops that result by describing the substitute place. A contradicts the closure and C introduces money, which the line does not lead into. Answer B.
Traps that cost marks
- The same word appears in the text and in an option but carries a different meaning there.
- Options that are generally true but are not stated in this particular text.
- Answering from general knowledge or memory instead of from the text.
- In gap tasks, choosing an option that repeats a noun but breaks the grammar or logic of the sentence.
- Leaving items blank when the text runs out of time - an unanswered item is a guaranteed zero, a guess is not.