Reading Quick Tips

  • Time per Question

    Learn how many seconds it takes to answer each type of question

  • Answer Questions in a Standard Order

    We'll teach you what questions to answer first and which ones to save for last. This makes you much more efficient and less likely to make mistakes.

  • Don't Read. Don't Skim. Don't Scan

    Skimming and Scanning is a strategy for the PBT and CBT, but not for the iBT. Well show you what to do instead.

  • Focus on what you know, not what you don't know

    TOEFL tries to convince you that you do not have enough information to answer the questions. It does this by tricking you into focusing on the vocabulary and grammar that it knows you don't know. So instead, we teach you how to ignore those traps and to instead focus on what you do know.

Reading Strategies

Focus on TOEFL English

Sure it would be great to have complete mastery of English before taking the TOEFL, but it takes years to have such a thorough knowledge of English. Therefore, we teach you only the grammar patterns you will need for the Reading Section of the TOEFL. For example, the TOEFL Reading Section rarely uses noun clauses as the subject of a sentence, and it almost never uses idiomatic expressions. Therefore, we do not focus on such grammar in our tutoring. You'll learn how to recognize the most commonly used grammatical patterns that appear on TOEFL.

Build Content Knowledge

Many people believe that if your English is good enough, then you'll understand anything written in English. But this is not true. Specialized topics use specialized vocabulary, and academic disciplines assume you know certain information about specialized topics. This is why you will be given a series of 300 essays that will strengthen your understanding of common TOEFL topics.

Transcribe

Writing improves reading. One good way to learn how to understand TOEFL Reading Passages is to copy them. As you both hand write and type each passage. It slows you down, which allows you to understand the common structures, and patterns that repeatedly occur in TOEFL passage.

Accuracy First. Speed Second

We never worry about how fast you're answering the question. You will speed up naturally once you become familiar with the question types.

Explain Wrong Answers

It's not only important to know which answer choice is correct. It is also very important to know why a wrong answer choice is wrong. As we train you to explain why an incorrect answer choice is wrong, it strengthens your critical ability to answer questions more quickly.

Write TOEFL Test Questions

To pass TOEFL, you need to think like TOEFL.  And what better way to do that then to write your own TOEFL questions. Therefore, we train you how to produce your own TOEFL Reading Questions.

Align all the TOEFL books from easiest to hardest

Although TOEFL books appear to be at the same level of difficulty (that is to say, TOEFL-level English), it turns out that some books are more advanced than others. So Strictly English has arranged all the TOEFL books on the market from easiest to hardest. This allows you to increase the level of difficulty as you study TOEFL Reading.