Practical Information Reading: Notices, Schedules, Charts, and E-mails
This domain tests authentic-format texts: notices, schedules, charts, and e-mails. Questions ask you to find a specific decision field, compare sources, or identify a requested action. Scan for the field that decides the answer rather than reading every word in order.
Scan for the decision field
- Notices: date, time, place, price, deadline, eligibility, and exceptions such as closed on ... or except ...
- Schedules: match the day and time; watch a.m./p.m. and 24-hour times.
- Charts: read the title, units, legend, and totals; compare bars, not just one bar.
- E-mails: identify sender, recipient, purpose, and requested action; the reply deadline is often in the last line.
Worked example: Notice: City Pool: open Tuesday to Sunday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed on the third Monday of each month. Question: Can you swim at 10 a.m. on the second Monday? Reasoning: Monday is not in Tuesday-Sunday, so the pool is closed on all Mondays. The third Monday exception would matter only if Mondays were otherwise open. Answer: No.
Traps:
- Assuming a place is open every day.
- Confusing closed on the third Monday with open on Mondays except the third.
- Missing unit changes: yen or dollars, minutes or hours.
- Reading the e-mail greeting but not the action line.
- Ignoring not, only, and except.
Core rules
- Find the exact line that answers the question and quote it mentally.
- Compare the question's day or time with the notice's condition.
- In e-mails, the action requested is usually an imperative or a question.
- In charts, check whether the question asks for a total, a difference, or a trend.