Reading comprehension (comprensione scritta)
What this domain tests
The reading module works with real-world text types: notices, adverts, emails, instructions, forms, short articles. You must locate specific detail, follow an argument, and separate what a text states from what it merely implies. Items are usually multiple choice or matching, and the correct option is a paraphrase, rarely a copy of the source wording.
Where the answer is buried
- Connettivi signal the logic: ma, però, tuttavia, invece (contrast), quindi, perciò, di conseguenza (result), siccome, poiché, poiché (cause), benché, nonostante, sebbene + congiuntivo (concession), affinché, purché (purpose/condition).
- Reference chains: ne (of it/them), ci (there/of it), lo/la/li/le, cui, il quale. In «Ne ho comprati tre», ne points back to something already named - you must identify it.
- Quantifiers and scope: la maggior parte di, alcuni, pochi, nessuno, ogni, entrambi, la metà. A text saying pochi does not support an option saying molti.
- Modality and hedging: dovrebbe, potrebbe, è probabile che, sembra che mark non-factual statements. Items often ask what is certain.
Worked example
Notice: «Le domande vanno presentate entro e non oltre il 15 marzo, a pena di esclusione. Non saranno accettate domande inviate per fax.»
Item: Which statement is correct? A) Applications may be sent by fax. B) Late applications are excluded. C) Applications must arrive before 14 March.
Reasoning: entro e non oltre il 15 marzo includes 15 March, so C misreads the deadline; a pena di esclusione means exclusion follows lateness → B; the fax sentence explicitly refuses that channel → A is contradicted.
Traps that cost marks
- False friends that invert meaning: attualmente = currently (not actually), eventualmente = possibly, firma = signature, camera = room, morbido = soft, confetti = sugared almonds, parente = relative.
- Options that are true about the world but absent from the text: only the text counts.
- Skipping the negative frame: non è consentito, vietato, senza, salvo, ad eccezione di.
- Confusing the writer's opinion with a view the writer reports and rejects.
- Matching an option to a single shared word while ignoring the sentence around it, including the following line where the condition is stated.