TOEIC Reading Tips

Incomplete Sentences

To do well in this part, you should know the various parts of speech and how they are used to form a grammatically correct sentence. In particular, you must be careful of:

• Two-part phrasal verbs
  
• Incorrect use of prepositions
  
• Incorrectly placed adjectives
• Incorrect word forms
  
• Incorrect grammatical tense
  
• Incorrect transition word such as however, furthermore, etc.
  
• Incorrect conjunctions such as and, but, etc

Many choices may seem close until you try them out, so to save time, try to identify the grammatical function of the word in the blank.

error Recognition

You need to review your grammar thoroughly to get a high score in this section. In particular you should look out for:

• subject-verb agreement
• tenses
  
• modals
  
• gerunds
  
• articles
• pronouns
• word order
• comparatives

Remember, you are only being asked about the underlined words. Words not underlined are always correct. Beware of words inserted where they do not belong, such as: "My father he is a kind man." Incorrect use of pronouns is also common, such as, "She gave him the report himself."

Text Completion

The strategies used here are similar, in essence, to those used for Incomplete Sentences above. The difference is that because the blanks you must fill in are part of longer pieces of writing, such as letters, you need to keep not only the grammatical aspect in mind but also the context and tone of the entire piece of writing.

Reading Comprehension

As in all reading comprehension exercises, a variety of skills are required to deduce the right answer. These include skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, and understanding vocabulary in context. You must be able to identify synonyms and implied information. A clue is that the order of the questions follows the order to the information in the reading passage. This should save time when scanning for specific details. Make sure the answer you choose answers the question, as many of the answer choices may simply repeat information in the reading passage. Lastly, you might prefer reading the questions before skimming the passage, to give you a better idea of what's to come. Complete many practice TOEIC reading exercises to familiarize yourself with common reading passage topics.