Challenge 1: Difficult Vocabulary in the Reading Test
- Solution 1: The vocabulary in the Reading Test is more advanced than in the Listening Test, so it's crucial to get comfortable with reading in English. Practice by reading materials such as advertisements, business letters, newspaper articles, and business journals. Many of these resources are available online, and major business journals have websites where you can expand your vocabulary. Additionally, websites related to tourism, shopping, and restaurants will expose you to useful words for the TOEIC test.
- Solution 2: As you read, underline unfamiliar words. Look them up in a dictionary to become familiar with the language you may encounter on the test.
- Solution 3: Learn common prefixes and suffixes to help you deduce the meanings of new words. Suffixes (word endings) can indicate the part of speech, while prefixes (word beginnings) often change or clarify the word's meaning. Understanding these will help expand your vocabulary.
Challenge 2: Heavy Focus on Grammar
- Solution 1: Study key grammar points and do practice exercises to improve your grammar skills. Pay attention to the types of questions you tend to get wrong so you can identify your weak areas. Once identified, focus on exercises from grammar books to strengthen these areas.
- Solution 2: Read extensively, especially business-related materials. Seeing grammar in context will help you recognize word forms and sentence structures more easily.
Challenge 3: Difficulty Finding Key Information in Passages
- Solution 1: Before reading the passage, read the questions first. This will help you know what information to look for as you go through the text.
- Solution 2: Be able to recognize different question types, such as main idea, detail, vocabulary, or inference questions. Knowing the type of question will help guide you in searching for relevant information in the passage.
- Solution 3: Practice skimming. Skimming is the ability to read a passage quickly to understand its main ideas, structure, and key points. Mastering this technique will help you quickly find the information needed to answer main idea, detail, and general questions.
Challenge 4: Long Passages and Limited Time
- Solution 1: Use skimming techniques. Practice skimming any text to get a general understanding of the content. Make an educated guess about the main idea and some details before reading the passage more thoroughly to see how close your guess was.
- Solution 2: Time yourself when reading short texts on topics similar to the TOEIC test. Try to reduce your reading time with each practice, or challenge yourself to read texts of similar length in less time. This will help you adjust to reading under timed conditions.
- Solution 3: When taking the test, look for key words in the questions and answer choices. Then, return to the passage and locate these key words to find the section of the text where the answer is likely located.
Challenge 5: The Answer Choices Don't Match the Passage Exactly
- Solution 1: In Part 7, the answer choices are often paraphrased from the passage. Practice paraphrasing by reading a sentence and then rewriting it in your own words. This will help you become more comfortable with different ways of expressing the same idea.
- Solution 2: Sometimes, answer choices do contain exact wording from the passage. Be careful with these, as they might contain factual information but may not answer the question correctly.
Challenge 6: Struggling to Choose the Correct Answer
- Solution 1: The questions generally follow the order of the passage, helping you narrow down the location of the answer.
- Solution 2: Eliminate obviously incorrect answers. Many test-takers find they can narrow their choices down to two options. If you're still unsure, make an educated guess between the two remaining options. Since incorrect answers do not count against your score on the TOEIC, guessing gives you a 50% chance of selecting the right answer instead of a 25% or 33% chance.
- Solution 3: Don't spend too long on any single question. If you're indecisive, trust your first instinct and move on. Your initial guess is often correct.
Challenge 7: Fatigue by the Last Section
- Solution 1: Pace yourself throughout the test to maintain energy. Avoid getting stuck on difficult questions---make a guess and move on. Maintaining a steady pace will prevent burnout.
- Solution 2: Some students find starting with the last section of the test helpful since they can tackle the most difficult questions while they are still fresh. However, this strategy doesn't work for everyone, as it might leave too little time for the earlier sections. Practice this approach with sample tests to see if it works for you.
Challenge 8: Worrying About Finishing the Test on Time
- Solution 1: Focus on pacing. Time yourself during practice sessions to ensure you can complete all sections of the test. During the actual test, remember that you can revisit earlier sections, so plan to leave enough time to go back and review any unanswered questions.
TOEIC Test Part 5: Incomplete Sentences
Part 5 of the TOEIC Reading Test evaluates your understanding of grammar and vocabulary in a reading context. To answer these questions correctly, you must first identify the missing part of speech and then select the appropriate word or expression to complete the sentence. Each question in Part 5 presents a sentence with a blank and four answer choices. The focus is on key areas such as:
- Vocabulary: Words that appear similar but have different meanings.
- Word Forms: Understanding nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and how to use infinitives and gerunds.
- Grammar: Identifying missing sentence elements like subjects, verbs, objects, complements, prepositions, or adjectives.
You should also watch for distractors (incorrect answers), which may include:
- Words that sound alike but have different meanings.
- Words with similar meanings but different usage.
- Words with similar meanings and usage.
- Misused phrasal verb combinations.
- Incorrect word forms and grammar usage.
