Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension tests how well you extract information from signs, notices, messages, emails, and short articles, and how well you infer meaning from context. The exam emphasizes main idea, specific detail, logical relations, and recognition of characters that look alike.
Character and word recognition
- Use radicals and components: 氵 water, 讠 speech, 忄 heart, 钅 metal, 艹 plants.
- Confusable pairs: 己 jǐ / 已 yǐ / 巳 sì; 未 wèi / 末 mò; 天 tiān / 夫 fū; 人 rén / 入 rù; 找 zhǎo / 我 wǒ; 问 wèn / 间 jiān.
- Read collocations, not isolated characters: 来得及 "have time", 看不起 "look down on".
Logical connectors
- 因为…所以 cause–effect; 虽然…但是 concession; 不但…而且 addition.
- 只有…才 marks a necessary condition; 只要…就 marks a sufficient condition; 越…越 marks correlation.
- 先…然后…最后 gives sequence; 如果…就 gives a hypothetical.
Worked example
Sign: “本店周一至周五上午九点至晚上八点营业，周末延长一小时。” Question: What time does the shop close on Saturday? Reasoning: weekday closing is 20:00; 周末延长一小时 means the weekend extends by one hour, so 21:00. 上午九点 is opening time, not closing time. Trap answers: 20:00 ignores the extension; 22:00 double-counts it.
Traps
- Missing 不/没/别. “差点儿没赶上” means "almost did not catch it (but did)", not "did not catch it".
- Scope of negation: 不都是 = not all are; 都不是 = none are.
- Time sequence hidden in 以前/以后 and 之前/之后.
- Treating a notice's heading as the answer without reading its condition.