Reading Comprehension
What this domain measures
The Reading Comprehension section of the FCTC Written Test gives you short workplace-style passages - department memos, procedure excerpts, incident narratives, public-information notices - and asks you to extract stated facts, state the main idea, make only the inferences the text supports, define a word from context, and recognise the writer's purpose or tone. The passages are short but dense; marks are lost to carelessness, not to slow reading.
Core rules
- The main idea is usually stated in the opening or closing sentence and must cover the whole passage, not one vivid detail.
- Detail questions are literal. If you cannot point to the line that supports an option, that option is not the answer.
- Inference answers take the smallest possible step beyond the text. Extreme wording such as always, never, or proves usually marks a wrong choice.
- Vocabulary in context: insert each option back into the sentence and re-read. The best fit preserves the passage's logic, not the dictionary's first definition.
- Purpose and tone: ask why the writer produced the text. An instruction directs action, a memo informs or records, a public notice warns or reassures.
- Sequence and comparison items turn on order words - before, prior to, once, until, while - which carry the logic of procedural writing.
Worked example
Passage: Because the apparatus bay floor slopes toward the center drain, crews shall not store equipment within three feet of the drain. During freeze warnings, the shift supervisor confirms that the bay heaters are operating before 1800.
Question: Why does the notice restrict storage near the drain?
Reasoning: the text links the slope to the drain, so anything placed there blocks water from reaching the drain. The passage never says keep the drain clear, but that is the only inference the stated slope supports. A distractor such as equipment might be stolen fails the traceable-to-text test, even though it sounds plausible.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing an option that is true in real life but absent from the passage.
- Mistaking a supporting detail for the main idea.
- Over-reading one word into a dramatic inference.
- Skipping over EXCEPT and NOT stems; re-read the question before you select.