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15.01 · Reading Comprehension
How to Read a Passage
Open lesson10 rules10 questions
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Rules
At a glance 10 rules
- 1Question firstRead the question before the passage, so you know what you are hunting: a detail, the main idea, the tone or an inference.
- 2One line per paragraphGive each paragraph a job in a few words as you read: claim, example, objection, answer. That map tells you where to look later.
- 3Watch the pivot words'But', 'however', 'yet' and 'in fact' turn a passage. The author's own view usually comes after the turn.
- 4Back to the lineFor a detail or a word question, reread the exact line and the one around it. The right option paraphrases it; it rarely copies it.
- 5Predict, then matchSay the answer in your own words before you read the options, then pick the option closest to it.
- 6Kill the three trapsCut options that are extreme (always, never, only), out of scope (never discussed) or half right (one false part sinks the whole option).
- 7Whose view is it?Keep apart what critics or 'some people' believe and what the author says. A common trap hands someone else's view to the author.
- 8Each type's tellTone: the author's own loaded words; EXCEPT: tick the three the passage supports. 'Most nearly means': swap each option into the sentence.
- 9Why is it mentioned?For 'the author mentions X in order to', read the line just before X. X is an example, a contrast or a reply to that line, not the main point.
- 10Structure: job by jobGive each sentence its job in order (claim, problem, reply, rival). Reject an option with a step out of order or a verdict the passage never gives.
Test yourself
Tap an option to answer. The first tap counts.
- Q1Easy
Marathon runners often talk about 'hitting the wall', a sudden heaviness in the legs that tends to strike somewhere after the 30 km mark. The cause is fuel, not willpower. The body stores only a limited amount of carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the muscles and the liver, and hard running burns through most of it in about two hours. Once it runs low, the body has to rely mainly on fat, which releases energy more slowly, so the runner's pace drops however determined she is. This is why many runners eat extra rice or pasta in the days before a race.
According to the passage, why does a runner slow down after 'hitting the wall'?
Correct answerHer body has turned to a fuel that releases energy more slowly.
Why
The question asks why she slows, so this is a detail hunt: go back to the line and expect a paraphrase.
The passage says that once glycogen runs low, the body relies 'mainly on fat, which releases energy more slowly'.
Willpower is ruled out in so many words, the rice and pasta are the cure rather than the cause, and it is glycogen, not fat, that runs low.
So she slows because her body has turned to a fuel that releases energy more slowly.
- Q2Easy
Throughout the 1900s the Leaning Tower of Pisa kept tipping a little further, and by 1990 engineers feared it could fall. The tower was closed to visitors, and a team spent more than a decade on it. Their method was patient: they drew small amounts of soil from beneath the higher side, so that it settled gently and the tower eased back. By 2001 the lean had been cut by roughly 40 centimetres, enough, they judged, to keep it standing for at least two hundred years. They never tried to make it straight. A straight tower in Pisa would have been safe, and nobody would have come to see it.
Which of the following best states the main point of the passage?
Correct answerThe engineers made the tower safe by reducing its lean, while keeping the lean that makes it famous.
Why
Predict, then match: say the passage in one line before reading the options.
The engineers eased the tower back 'by roughly 40 centimetres' to keep it standing, yet 'never tried to make it straight', since a straight tower would draw no visitors.
The closure is one detail, nothing says buildings must go back to their first shape, and a lean they chose to keep is no failure.
So the main point: the engineers made the tower safe by reducing its lean, while keeping the lean that makes it famous.
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