Skimming and scanning are two techniques to help you speed up your reading in the test. Practice these skills before the test and you should see your scores improving.
Skimming
- Don’t read every single word, just try and get the gist.
- Pay attention to the first sentence of a paragraph. This topic sentence should tell you what the paragraph is all about.
- After the topic sentence, only look for important bits of information such as dates, names or events.
Scanning
You need to skim read first to get a general idea of the text. Then read the questions. After that you are ready to scan the text in order to find specific details.
- Skim first to find where in the text the answer you are looking for is likely to be.
- Predict from the question what type of information or word you are looking for.
- Using your finger helps focus your attention and make sure you don’t miss the word as you go over the text.