LESSON 34.1 Detail, Negative, and Scanning Items (PETERSON’S TOEFL SUCCESS)

(PETERSON’S TOEFL SUCCESS)

LESSON 34.1

Detail, Negative, and
Scanning Items

DETAIL ITEMS Detail items ask about explicit facts and details given in the passage. They often contain one of the whquestion words: who, what, when, where, why, how much, and so on. Detail items often begin with the phrases “According to the passage . . .” or “According to the author . . .” When you see these phrases, you know that the information needed to answer the question is directly stated somewhere in the passage (unlike answers for inference questions). To answer detail items, you have to locate and identify the information that the question asks about. If you are not sure from your first reading where to look for specific answers, use the following techniques: √ Focus on one or two key words as you read the stem of each item. These are usually names, dates, or other nouns—something that will be easy to find as you scan. Lock these words in your mind. √ Scan the passage as you scroll down looking for these words or their synonyms. Look only for these words. Do NOT try to read every word of the passage. √ It may help to use the eraser end of your pencil as a pointer to focus your attention. Don’t reread the passage completely—just look for these particular words. √ Sometimes you can use reference items and vocabulary items to help you pinpoint the location of the information you need. √ When you find the key words in the passage, carefully read the sentence in which they occur. You may have to read the sentence preceding or following that sentence as well. √ Compare the information you read with the four answer choices. The order of detail questions in a passage almost always follows the order in which the ideas are presented in the passage. In other words, the information you need to answer the first detail question will usually come near the beginning of the passage; the information for the second will follow that, and so on. Knowing this should help you locate the information you need. Correct answers for detail questions are seldom the same, word for word, as information in the passage; they often contain synonyms and use different grammatical structures. There are, in general, more factual questions—12–18 per reading section—than any other type except (on some tests) vocabulary-in-context questions. NEGATIVE ITEMS These items ask you to determine which of the four choices is not given in the passage. These questions contain the words NOT, EXCEPT, or LEAST (which are always capitalized). √ According to the passage, all of the following are true EXCEPT √ Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage? √ Which of the following is the LEAST likely . . . Scan the passage to find the answers that ARE correct or ARE mentioned in the passage. Sometimes the three distractors are clustered in one or two sentences; sometimes they are scattered throughout the passage. The correct answer, of course, is the one that does not appear. Negative questions often take more time than other questions. Therefore, you may want to guess and come back to these questions if you have time. There are in general from 3 to 6 negative questions per reading section. SCANNING ITEMS These items on the CAT ask you to find a sentence (or sometimes a paragraph) in the passage that plays a certain role in the organization of a paragraph or passage. When you find the sentence or paragraph, you can click anywhere on it and it will be highlighted. Use the same techniques for scanning that are given in Part A for detail items. Sample Questions √ Click on the sentence in Paragraph 1 that explains . . . √ Click on the sentence in Paragraph 3 that discusses . . . √ Click on the sentence in Paragraph 4 that stresses . . . √ Click on the paragraph in the passage that outlines . . . EXERCISE 34.1 Focus: Reading passages to locate answers for scanning items Directions: For each question, locate the sentences in the paragraphs that the questions refer to and underline them. Passage 1 Antlers grow from permanent knoblike bones on a deer’s skull. Deer use their antlers chiefly to fight for mates or for leadership of a herd. Among most species of deer, only the males have antlers, but both male and female reindeer and caribou have antlers. Musk deer and Chinese water deer do not have antlers at all. Deer that live in mild or cold climates lose their antlers each winter. New ones begin to grow the next spring. Deer that live in tropical climates may lose their antlers and grow new ones at other times of the year. New antlers are soft and tender. Thin skin grows over the antlers as they develop. Short, fine hair on the skin makes it look like velvet. Full-grown antlers are hard and strong. The velvety skin dries up and the deer rubs the skin off by scraping its antlers against trees. The antlers fall off several months later. The size and shape of a deer’s antlers depend on the animal’s age and health. The first set grows when the deer is from 1 to 2 years old. On most deer, the first antlers are short and straight. As deer get older, their antlers grow larger and form intricate branches. 1 Find the sentence in paragraph 1 that explains how deer primarily use their antlers. 2 Find the sentence in paragraph 2 that explains how deer remove the skin from their antlers. 3 Find the sentence in paragraph 3 that describes the antlers of young deer. Passage 2 Not until the 1830s was there any serious attempt to record the songs and stories of Native Americans. Henry Schoolcraft collected a great deal of authentic folklore from the Ojibwa tribe and from several other groups. But Schoolcraft lived in a romantic age. There seems to be little doubt that he not only changed but also invented some of the material, and that he mixed the traditions of several tribes. In spite of his failings, he did succeed in bringing the traditions of Native Americans to the attention of the American public. Schoolcraft’s work contrasted sharply with that of the ethnographers who worked in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. Their aim was to achieve complete accuracy in creating a record of Native American life. They tended to take notes in the original language. With the development of the phonograph, it became possible to preserve not just words but also the tone and emphasis of oral delivery. 4 Find the sentence in paragraph 1 that indicates how Schoolcraft’s work had a positive influence. 5 Find the sentence in paragraph 2 that explains what the primary goal of the ethnographers was. Passage 3 Because of exposure to salt spray and fog, coastal and ocean structures such as bridges, pipelines, ships, and oil rigs require more corrosion protection than structures located inland. One study found that anticorrosion coatings with a twenty-five-year lifespan inland were good for only five years in coastal areas. Seeking to reduce maintenance coasts for gantries and other structures at the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, NASA (the National Aeronautic and Space Administration) conducted research aimed at developing a superior coating. This coating had to resist salt corrosion as well as protect launch structures from hot rocket exhaust. The successful research resulted in a new type of inorganic coating that has many commercial applications. 6 Find the sentence in the passage that outlines the qualities for the coating that were required by NASA. Passage 4 In 1903, the Wright brothers made the first powered flight in history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This site was chosen because of its winds, which would lift the plane like a kite. The first attempt lasted only 12 seconds and covered a distance of less than the wingspan of the largest airplanes of modern aircraft. Soon the Wrights and other inventors and pilots were busy improving the airplane. They made much longer flights and even put it to some practical uses. In 1909, the Wrights delivered the first military plane to the U.S. Army. As early as 1914, a plane had begun to carry passengers on daily flights, and in 1918 regular airmail service was started between Washington and New York. 7 Find a sentence in the passage that offers a description of the first airplane flight. Passage 5 Today’s supermarket is a large departmentalized retail store. It sells mostly food items, but also health and beauty aids, housewares, magazines, and much more. The dominant features of supermarkets are large in-store inventories on self-service aisles and centralized checkout lines. The inclusion of non-food items on supermarket shelves was once considered novel. This practice is sometimes called “scrambled marketing.” It permits the supermarket, as well as other types of retail stores, to sell items that carry a higher margin than most food items. In general, however, supermarket profits are slim—only about 1 to 3 percent. Owners rely on high levels of inventory turnover to reach their profit goals. Supermarkets were among the first retailers to stress discount strategies. Using these strategies, supermarkets sell a variety of high-turnover goods at low prices. To keep prices down, of course, supermarkets must keep their costs down. Other than the cost of the goods they sell, supermarkets’ primary costs involve personnel. By not offering delivery and by hiring cashiers and stockers rather than true sales personnel, supermarkets are able to keep prices at a relatively low level. 8 Find the sentence in paragraph 1 that gives the most important characteristics of supermarkets. 9 Find the sentence in paragraph 2 that explains the advantage of “scrambled marketing.” 10 Find the sentence in paragraph 3 that explains how supermarkets are able to sell goods cheaply. Passage 6 There have been many significant innovations in the energy efficiency of windows. One of the most recent is filling the gap between two panes of glass with argon instead of air. Argon is a naturally occurring inert gas that is as transparent as air. Since argon is extremely dense, there is less movement of the gas between the glass panes, and therefore less heat is lost. Adding argon instead of air can improve the insulation value of windows by 30 percent. Argon also deadens outdoor noise. 11 Find the sentence in the passage that explains how the use of argon improves insulation.

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