Reading Comprehension (Short Passages and Dialogues)
What this domain tests
The short-reading domain checks whether you can understand a small text quickly and answer without over-reading. Passages may be notices, emails, conversations, or short personal stories. Questions ask for the main idea, a detail, the writer's purpose, pronoun reference, or a speaker's feeling. The key is to match the question to one part of the text and support your choice with a line you can point to.
Core rules
- Read the question first and circle its keywords.
- In a dialogue, label each turn's function: asking, agreeing, refusing, suggesting, or apologizing.
- For detail questions, read the whole sentence containing the keyword, not just the keyword.
- For inference questions, choose the smallest conclusion the text supports. Do not use outside knowledge.
- For pronoun questions, substitute each candidate into the sentence and test whether it makes sense.
Worked example
Passage: Mika wanted to join the tennis club, but practices were on the same days as her grandmother's cooking class. She enjoyed cooking, yet she had played tennis since elementary school. After talking with her grandmother, Mika chose tennis and promised to cook dinner on Sundays. Question: Why did Mika choose tennis? Answer: She had played it for a long time. Reasoning: The contrast words but and yet present two hobbies. The text does not say she stopped the cooking class, so that answer is unsupported. Since elementary school shows long experience, which explains her choice. Talking with her grandmother is background, not the stated reason.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing an option because it repeats a word from the passage.
- Ignoring but, however, or yet, which often signal the real answer.
- Confusing cause with result in a story.
- Selecting a true statement that does not answer the question asked.