TOEFL Booster / Readings get longer, and tougher
Last month, we began discussing why the reading section of the Internet-based TOEFL (iBT) has proven surprisingly difficult for many test-takers. We considered the academic nature of iBT reading topics. This month, let's take a look at two other factors that may be giving some iBT customers trouble--length and complexity of ideas.
In earlier versions of the TOEFL, the average reading passage was about 300 words long. In the iBT, that average goes up to about 700. The average iBT reading is more than twice as long as its predecessors.
There is not a huge difference in the number of questions. There are 12 to 14 questions after each passage on the iBT. on the earlier computer-based test (CBT), there were 11 per passage.
The time allowed for each reading and its questions on the iBT is 20 minutes. on the CBT, the time was about 18 minutes.
Putting all these figures together, we find that, for each reading passage on the iBT, you have 100 percent more reading to do and about 6 percent more questions to answer, but you have only about 11 percent more time to do it in.
And it is not just a matter of reading faster. Longer readings require more self-discipline. You must force yourself to concentrate for a longer time. You must remember more and you must remember it longer. And you must tolerate the extra stress of reading in a second or foreign language without a break for a longer time.
The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the makers of the TOEFL, says the reading section of the iBT is meant to test reading skills for three purposes. one purpose is "reading to find information." This involves scanning for specific words or facts. To do this efficiently, you must be able to proceed fluently through a text without getting distracted.
Another purpose for reading is the most obvious: "basic comprehension." This involves understanding facts, main ideas, vocabulary in context, and so on. You also must be able to make inferences--to understand meanings that are not stated directly.
The third purpose is "reading to learn." In reading for this purpose, you develop a sense for overall connections among the many ideas in a passage. This can help you if you're asked to summarize a reading, make an outline of it, relate it to information from other sources, or do some other high-level task.
The iBT, unlike the CBT, tests your skills at reading to learn. The last question for each reading involves either building a summary or sorting information from the passage into categories.
The longer readings of the iBT make such tasks possible. A reading 300 words long cannot present enough information in normal academic English to generate either a challenging summary task or a substantial set of categories. A reading 700 words long can.
This brings us to the issue of complex ideas. The readings for the old CBT were not long enough to develop more than one main idea. Consequently, once you identified that one idea, you could be sure other information in the text supported it. But that's not the way most real-life academic readings go.
Substantial readings suitable for first-year university courses deal with a complex world. In a 700-word excerpt from such a reading, two or three main ideas may intertwine. Although they are all relevant to a certain topic, these ideas might relate to each in widely different ways. Reading-to-learn questions test your understanding of these relationships.
One idea in the reading might support, challenge, or entirely contradict another. one might represent a logical alternative to another, or perhaps a logical extension of it. There might be cause-effect relationships, correlations, comparisons or contrasts, sequential relationships, or several other ways in which the main ideas fit together.
Someone taking the iBT for the first time may be surprised by the complexity of the readings--especially if the test-taker tried preparing for the iBT by using a book meant for the CBT. Readings in older TOEFL-prep books develop ideas in a roughly straight line. Readings on the iBT knit main ideas into complicated patterns.
Another point to make about patterns in iBT readings: Do not expect to find simple enumeration structures or storylike narratives. Do not waste your time practicing with such readings.
You are probably very familiar with enumeration readings. They go like this:
"There are several reasons why X
First,...
Another reason is...
Thirdly..."
And so on. Readings like this have their place, and you may see them even outside ESL textbooks. You are not likely to see them on the iBT.
Narratives present a sequence of events. They are mostly in chronological order. The earliest events are presented first and the latest events are presented last.
The iBT may contain some narrative readings, but only of certain types. Historical narratives are possible, such as a narrative about the spread of the 1918 flu virus. Biographical narratives are also possible, such as a chronology of Mohandas Gandhi's years in South Africa.
Notice that each of the examples above is narrowed to a very specific topic. If it weren't, any reading about the topic would be too broad to fit into an iBT. An author can't present much detail about anything while trying, for example, to tell the story in 700 words of all flu outbreaks in recorded history.
Also, notice that neither of the example narratives is fiction. There are no fictional readings on the iBT.
Any narrative on the iBT will deal with events that are objectively verifiable. There is evidence, which most reasonable people would take seriously, that such events happened mostly as presented in the reading.
There may be conflicting evidence, and different observers might interpret the evidence differently. That kind of controversy is academically acceptable. Most importantly, though, the narrative is NOT personal.
Next month, this column will present the last of our three explorations of reading difficulties in the iBT. We'll further discuss distinctions between personal and impersonal approaches to a topic, and we'll take a look at the role vocabulary might play in the difficulty of the iBT.
Zwier teaches at Michigan State University and is an author of "The Michigan Guide to Academic Success and Better TOEFL Scores."