In the exercises of Unit 4, you will practice answering skim
reading questions, guessing word meanings from context, looking for the
main idea, and writing outlines. All exercises help you enhance your reading
comprehension of the fact sheet readings.
Skim Reading Questions:
There are two types of skim reading questions in this unit: multiple
choice questions and true or false questions. To complete the task,
you have to first read the instructions very carefully. Then browse
(not study) the questions very fast so that you have a general idea of
what you are expected to answer. Next, skim read the fact sheet reading
in question. At this stage, do not pause to study the vocabulary or listen
to the audio clips; otherwise, you slow down your reading speed and can
never improve your reading skill. After finishining browsing the online
text, answer the questions without looking back at the text.
Looking for the Main Idea:
This type of exercises gives you hands-on opportunities to try an important
skill called looking for the main idea. In your supplementary material,
you can locate the instruction on how to identify the main idea of an essay
or a paragraph. Here, for your convenience, let us give you quick tips
about the skill.
First, read the first paragraph of an essay. Then read the last paragraph
of the essay; usually this paragraph gives you a summary of the overall
essay. Next read the first and last sentences of the rest paragraphs called
body paragraphs; these sentences usually point to the main ideas of the
paragraphs. Finally, identify one sentence in the introductory paragraph
that contains all of the main ideas of the body paragraphs. This sentence
is called the thesis statement which reveals the main idea of the entire
essay.
Vocabulary in Context:
In this type of exercises, you will have to pay attention to italicized
words in red when you go over the fact sheet readings again. For detailed
instructions on how to guess word meanings in context, please click here.
Take-home
Exercises:
Please click on the link for the descriptions of the two take-home exercises.