Reading Comprehension
Domain overview
Reading passages come from real genres: a literary excerpt (often with passé simple), a press article, an advertisement, a set of instructions, a formal letter or an informational notice about Francophone life. Questions probe main idea, supporting detail, vocabulary in context, tone and the writer's purpose; some ask you to identify the genre or intended audience.
Structure signals worth tracking
- Connectors: cependant, pourtant, en revanche (contrast); par conséquent, donc (consequence); en effet (justification); bref, en somme (summary).
- Pronouns that carry meaning forward: en (de + noun), y (à + thing or place), dont (de + relative antecedent), celui-ci/celle-là, and object pronouns le/la/les.
- Tense shifts: passé simple and imparfait mark narration; présent and conditionnel often mark commentary or hypothesis.
Worked example
« Le projet, dont on parlait depuis des mois, a finalement été abandonné. » What was abandoned, and what does dont refer to? Dont replaces de + antecedent because parler de governs it, so the referent is le projet: the project had been discussed for months and was finally dropped. A reader who loosely glosses dont as "of which" and picks « les mois » has mis-assigned the antecedent.
Traps
False friends: éventuellement ("possibly", not "eventually"), attendre ("to wait", not "to attend"), assister à ("to attend"), librairie ("bookshop"). Do not translate word by word; establish who does what to whom, particularly with the passive and with pronominal verbs such as se voir and se faire.