Reading question types

Brief description of the TOEFL reading section question types

Brief description of the TOEFL reading section question types

Factual information and negative factual information questions are probably the simplest questions there are. You are supposed to simply recognize directly stated information such as major ideas, supporting details, or definitions.

The word “infer” actually means “mean” or “imply”. Hence the inference questions are aimed at identifying information that hasn’t been mentioned directly in the text. These questions usually contain words like “imply“, “suggest” or “infer“. 

Rhetorical purpose questions are similar, they deal with implications. But unlike the inference questions, they are not aimed at what the author means but recognizing why does the author use this or that phrase or mentions this or that piece of information. And that’s the reason for the name: Rhetorical purpose. These questions usually ask something like “Why does the author mention…“, “Why does the author use the word …”.

Answers for such questions will usually start with something like “To illustrate”, “To explain”, “To contract”, “To refute”, “To note”, “To support”.

Vocabulary questions are aimed at your knowledge of vocabulary. They will ask you something like “The word “…” is closest in meaning to...“, or, “The phrase “…” is closest in meaning to…“, “In stating “…” the author means that …“. The word or the phrase from the question will be highlighted in the text.

This type of question is relying on your vocabulary knowledge. So, when among the answer options you see a word or a phrase synonymic or close in meaning to the one in question, you may be 90% sure that this is the right answer. That means that these questions may be the least time-consuming. Well, if you know enough words.

If you don't, you can approach such questions from the other side by exclusion. Simply exclude all the wrong answers. Most of the time they are quite obvious.

If you have enough time, better read the context of the word/phrase in question again to be absolutely sure, that you get it the right way.

To avoid the hustle and make this type of question your strong side that will give you a lot of time, simply improve your vocabuary.

Sentence simplification questions are aimed at full understanding of what you read. You are presented with a sentence in the context enough for you to extract all the meaningful information. And then you are given four (usually) sentences. Your task is to pick the one meaning the same. The incorrect options will usually distort meaningful information or miss it. This is how you can exclude wrong answers.

This type of question is very easy to recognize by its wording:
"Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information."
It's the same mantra everywhere.

The correct answer is the one containing all the same key information that the original sentence (the one in the passage) has. It may leave out minor details though.

Also, pay attention to not only presence of the same phrases in the original sentence and the choice options but also to the relations between the pieces of information (cause-effect, subject-object and other relations).

This type of question is also aimed at your understanding of what you read. To be more precise at the understanding of the relations between pieces of information and ideas in the text.

You will be given a sentence to be inserted in a paragraph. And four options for where to put it.

There will be one such question for each reading passage in the reading section.

The key to this type of question is basically finding the logical link between the given sentence and the previous sentence. The given sentence will usually start with "This is the question/reason/criteria/ why ..." And these first words are prompt to what of what you should look for. Since there will only be four options this search shouldn't take too long.

Also, make sure you're ok with possessive and demonstrative pronouns like

This/these
That/those
They/them
Him/her
He/she/it
Which

There may be tricky questions based on minute differences between them.

Prose summary questions are designed to measure your ability to not only recognize the main pieces of information but also to measure how important they are. Such questions will have six choice options three of which are the correct ones (they express the most important information), and the other three express details of secondary importance or simply contradict or misinterpret the information in the reading passage.