Reading: Success & Media
Read a profile of a successful person and an article about the media.
This topic helps you practise reading short texts and answering different types of questions. You will learn to find the main idea of a text, locate specific details, make simple inferences, and guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from context. These skills are essential for understanding English texts in exams and in real life.
Key terms
| Text Type | What to Look For | Example Question Type |
|---|---|---|
| Profile or Biography | Main events, challenges the person faced, achievements | What is the main idea? What difficulty did the person overcome? |
| Informational Article | Facts, statistics, expert opinions, the author's message | What does the text say about...? What can we infer? |
| Book or Film Review | Plot summary, reasons for popularity, the message | Why is it popular? What does the main character discover? |
Each text type has a different structure — knowing what to look for helps you answer questions faster.
- 1Step 1: Read the whole passage: Read the passage once without stopping. Try to understand the general topic and what the author wants you to know.
- 2Step 2: Ask yourself a question: After reading, ask: 'If I had to tell a friend what this text is about in one sentence, what would I say?'
- 3Step 3: Check each choice: Eliminate choices that are too narrow (only cover one detail) or too broad (say things the text does not support).
- 4Step 4: Choose the best option: Pick the choice that covers the whole passage and matches what the author wanted to communicate.
Choosing an answer just because it contains words from the passage. Distractors often use the same vocabulary as the text but change the meaning — always read the full choice carefully.
Do not use outside knowledge to answer a question. Every correct answer must be supported by information that is actually in the passage.
When you see an unfamiliar word, read the sentences before and after it. Context clues — such as examples, opposites, or explanations — often reveal the meaning without a dictionary.
Rules
- 1Read the passage once quickly to get the general idea before looking at the questions.
- 2For detail questions, scan the text to find the exact sentence that contains the answer.
- 3For inference questions, look for clues in the text — the answer is not stated directly but can be worked out.
- 4For vocabulary questions, read the sentences before and after the word to find context clues.
- 5Always check that your chosen answer is supported by the passage, not by your own knowledge.
Practice
4 easy · 4 medium · 4 hard
10 random questions per test