2019-01-04 TOEFL: reading vocab, ind writing

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-history-of-the-world-according-to-cats-eva-maria-geigl
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Reading Question Types:
- fact/detail
- negative fact
- purpose
- inference
- reference
- paraphrase
- vocabulary
- sentence insertion
- summarize
- organize
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Vocabulary Questions
- These ask about the meaning of a word in the passage, and sometimes incorrect answers are other meanings of the same word.
	score:
		verb for winning points
		noun for the number of points
		noun for sheet music (especially that includes all the instruments’ parts)
		verb for scratching a hard surface
		twenty
- Another common type of wrong answer is a word that also fits in the passage, but doesn’t have the same meaning. (To get these correct, you need some outside knowledge about the meaning of the word, such as word roots.)
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https://www.wordandphrase.info/analyzeText.asp - Easy way to see which words are more common, to get a brief definition, and to see hundreds of examples.
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Handout (Longman) - Take 8 minutes to answer the vocabulary questions about air pollution.
1 B
2 D
3 A
4 B
5 A
6 C - You should be able to eliminate “safe” and “healthy”, and then notice that the rest of the paragraph is about people breathing smog, not seeing it.
7 D
8 B
Do the reading on autism.
9 A
10 D
11 B
12 B
13 C
14 B
15 C
16 D
Handout (Cengage) exercise 2.2 - Take 5 minutes to guess the answers for passage 1
1 B
2 C
3 C
4 D
5 A - The immigrants added to or supported the labor force made of people who’d moved from farms.
6 D - “It was nothing if not [adjective]” = “It was very [adjective]”
7 B
8 B - This is in the same context as “nonintervention”.
9 A
10 A - In the next sentence, “the rivalry” is the competition among these companies
11 A
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BREAK
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Writing Section: fourth and final section, two tasks, 50 minutes of writing time
1 integrated: read a passage, listen to a lecture on the same topic, 20 minutes to write about how the points from the lecture relate to points from the reading
2 independent: read/hear a choice question prompt, 30 minutes to write and support your answer
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There are two basic types of choice questions:
- agree/disagree: “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? _____”
- some people / other people: “Some people think…. Others believe…. Which do you agree with?”
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“Some people think that they can learn better by themselves than with a teacher. Others think that it is always better to have a teacher. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.”
Pre-Writing:
- Brainstorm possible reasons for both sides and examples you can use to support those reasons.
- Choose the position and reasons that are easiest to support.
- Outline your response by deciding the order you’ll write your reasons and what examples or details you’ll use to support them.
Writing:
- At first, don’t spend more than about 5 minutes on each body paragraph, to make sure you can write each of your main ideas.
- At the end, it’s almost always a good idea to stop writing and spend some time looking for and fixing mistakes you’ve made.
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Five-Paragraph Essay: This is the typical “beginner” academic style in US schools.
(There are many guides to this format, for example: https://www.time4writing.com/writing-resources/writing-five-paragraph-essays-for-standardized-test/)
1 Introduction: background to introduce the topic, summary of the options you’re choosing between, state your choice (thesis statement), lead-in to preview the supporting reasons you’ll give
2-4 Body: state each reason for your choice, show that the reason is true (with examples), show that the reason really does support your choice
5 Conclusion: restate your opinion and summarize/review the reasons you gave for it, generalize with a takeaway for the reader (this can often be a recommendation or prediction about the future)
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Homework: Write an independent response to this prompt and email it to me at [email protected]:
“Some people like to travel with a companion. Other people prefer to travel alone. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your choice.”