Reading comprehension questions of the TOEFL IBT ask you about the information given in the reading passages. These questions include;

• Fact Questions

This type of question requires you to identify important information and facts in the passage. Locating a piece of information in the passage is important to solve fact questions.

• Negative Fact Questions

This type of question includes the expressions “NOT” or “EXCEPT”. This means you need to recognize incorrect or not mentioned information in the passage. The three answer choices are true and one is false. You are supposed to find the false one.

• Inference Questions

This type of question requires you to perceive ideas suggested in a passage, draw conclusions, or determine logical implications based on information given in a passage. The correct answer is not directly stated but suggested in a passage.

• Rhetorical Purpose Questions

In this type of question, you are supposed to determine why the author presented a piece of information in a passage.

• Vocabulary Questions

This type of question requires you to choose the correct meaning of a word written in a passage.

• Reference Questions

In this type of question, you are supposed to identify the relationship between pronouns and their referents in a passage.

• Sentence Simplification Questions

This type of question requires you to identify the essential meaning as a highlighted sentence in a passage.

• Text Insertion Questions

In this type of question, you are supposed to understand the grammatical connections between sentences and insert the given sentence in place of a square in a passage.

• Prose Summary Questions

This type of question requires you to organize information presented in a passage into a mental outline.

• Table/Chart Questions

In this type of question, you are supposed to understand rhetorical functions and place the important ideas into appropriate context.

• Do not spend much time on reading the passages.

· You will not have much time to read each passage in depth and answer the questions in the exam. Therefore;

· Skim the reading passage to determine the main idea and the overall organization of ideas in the passage. The last sentence of the first paragraph usually gives you the main idea, and the first sentences of the other paragraphs give you the key points. So, reading these sentences will help you find the main idea and the key points of the passage. You do not have to read the whole passage.

• Find the part of the passage that is related to the question.

· For main idea questions, look at the first line of each paragraph.

· For fact, negative fact and inference questions, choose a key word in the question and skim for that key word in the passage.

· For vocabulary questions, you do not have to know the meaning of the word. You can guess the meaning from the context. Do not immediately choose the answer if you already know the meaning of the word as the word might have a different meaning depending on the context.

· For reference questions, find the pronoun in the passage and look for the nouns that come before the pronoun.