Reading Comprehension Study Guide for McGraw-Hill's Firefighter Exams (page 2)

General Tips on Improving Reading Comprehension

•  Broaden your background knowledge. Read newspapers, magazines, journals, and books on diverse subjects. Reading the editorial sections in your local newspaper will help you learn about the major issues in your area.
• Build a strong vocabulary. Vocabulary has long been recognized as an extremely important component of reading comprehension. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a dictionary regularly. Carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words when you're reading. Buy an address book that is divided alphabetically to keep track of new words you learn in your reading. Recording a sentence in which a new word is used will help you remember its meaning.
• Preview the passage by reading the first sentence of each paragraph. Generally, the main topic of each paragraph is contained in the first sentence. Reading the first sentence of each paragraph will give you an overview of the text and a summary of what you are about to read. Since most of the reading passages on the test will be short, previewing the lead sentences will not use up much time.
• Familiarize yourself with the paragraph structure. Paragraphs in the text will normally have a beginning, middle, and end. As stated previously, the first sentence usually provides an overview or framework for the rest of the sentences in the paragraph. The middle sentences elaborate on the subject matter of the first sentence and provide details. The last sentence may summarize the information and transition towards a new topic in the following paragraph.
• Find the main idea of the text. Think of finding the main idea of a reading passage as a problem-solving task and approach it strategically. The main idea will direct your focus towards any prior knowledge and experience of the topic you have, aid in a better understanding of the subject matter, and help you to anticipate what questions will most likely be asked at the end of the reading. Main idea questions ask the candidate to identify the text's overall theme as opposed to supporting and technical information. In these types of questions, answer choices that emphasize factual information can usually be eliminated, as can answer choices that are too narrow or too broad. The answer choice that contains key words and concepts from the main idea presented in the text is usually the correct selection.