reading

Factual
Questions
Day 8 April 9th, 2020

Addition

COMPARISON
 reading

Detailed
Questions
Day 8 March 9th, 2020

So, what should you do if you aren’t sure of an answer?

1. Take a deep breath, and see if you can identify the

question type.

2. Use simple strategies to help you make the best guess.

In total, there are ten specific types of questions on the

TOEFL Reading section, which you can see examples of
here. But if you’re able to identify and understand how to
answer just the main three types, your confidence will
increase along with your test scores. Today we will focus on
Factual or Detailed Questions

Detailed Questions

Detail questions usually take one of these formats:

According to Paragraph X, _____ occurred because…

According to Paragraph X, which is true of ____?

 Practical example

The best thing about factual questions is that the answer is right in the passage.

Here, the TOEFL is testing your ability to answer a question that the author of the
passage has already answered for you. Kind of awesome, right? Of course, it’s not
quite as easy as it seems!

Factual questions are, at least, easy to identify. They will ask you to look back at a
specific part of the reading passage.

First, read the question carefully. Highlight or underline any key (important) words
contained in the question. Try your best to understand what the question is asking.

Most likely, it will be a “W/H” question, asking one of the following:

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

Quickly skim (search through) your passage for the key words in the question.
Identify where the answer is written in the passage.

Now that you found the correct place in the passage, all that’s left is to select the
right answer!

You’d think this would be easy. But those tricky TOEFL writers will do their best to trip
you up.

Things to keep in mind:

Read each answer choice carefully. Often, one or more of the answer choices will
change the relationship between the key words. You’ll be able to eliminate it quickly.

Be on the lookout for at least one answer choice that isn’t in the passage at all! That
makes it easy on you: Eliminate that answer choice, too.
 Practical example
Sculptures must, for example, be stable, which requires an
understanding of the properties of mass, weight distribution, and stress.
Paintings must have rigid stretchers so that the canvas will be taut, and
the paint must not deteriorate, crack, or discolor.
These are problems that must be overcome by the artist because they
tend to intrude upon his or her conception of the work.
For example, in the early Italian Renaissance, bronze statues of horses
with a raised foreleg usually had a cannonball under that hoof.
This was done because the cannonball was needed to support the
weight of the leg.
In other words, the demands of the laws of physics, not the sculptor’s
aesthetic intentions, placed the ball there.
That this device was a necessary structural compromise is clear from
the fact that the cannonball quickly disappeared
when sculptors learned how to strengthen the internal structure of a
statue with iron braces (iron being much stronger than bronze)
...

According to paragraph 2, sculptors in the Italian Renaissance stopped

using cannonballs in bronze statues of horses because:
a) they began using a material that made the statues weigh less
b) they found a way to strengthen the statues internally
c) the aesthetic tastes of the public had changed over time
d) the cannonballs added too much weight to the statues

Explanation
According to the paragraph, X did Y because . . . => Factual Information
questions
sculptors in the Italian Renaissance stopped using cannonballs in
bronze statues of horses
=> ... the cannonball quickly disappeared (stopped using) when
sculptors learned how to strengthen the internal structure of a statue
with iron braces
=> (b) they found a way to strengthen the statues internally
 Reading

Detailed
Questions
Day 8 April 9th, 2020

Let’s practice!
Reading

Factual
Questions
Day 7 March 7th, 2020

Answers