Reading Questions for Praxis I: Pre-Professional Skills Test Study Guide (page 2)

Practice Exercises and review for this concept can be found at:

Reading Questions for Praxis I: Pre-Professional Skills Test Practice Problems

If you feel daunted by the task of quickly reading and understanding dense passages, here is a quick approach that you can use. Feel free to adapt it to your style or change the order of the steps, but try to incorporate each of the five steps somewhere in your process.

Step 1—Preview

To get an idea of the content and organization of a passage, begin by skimming it. With practice, you will quickly discern topic sentences and key adjectives. Often, the first two sentences in a paragraph are topic sentences—they will tell you what a paragraph is about. If the passage is several paragraphs long, read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. You can't depend 100% on this technique, though; use your judgment to determine if a sentence is truly a topic sentence.

Step 2—Skim the Questions

Quickly take in the question or questions that follow a passage, marking important words and phrases. Don't bother reading the multiple-choice answers. You simply want to gather clues about what to look for when you read.

Step 3—Read Actively

Although you do not want to memorize or analyze the passage, you do need to read it. Keep your pencil handy to mark the passage as you read, looking for information that applies to the questions you skimmed. Circle or underline topic sentences, main ideas, or phrases that reveal the author's point of view. Check important names, dates, or difficult words. Mark transitions and phrases, such as however, on the other hand, most importantly, but, or except that help you to follow the author's direction or the organization of the passage.

As you read, ask yourself some of the following questions:

• What is the main theme or idea in the passage?
• What is the author's purpose or goal?
• How do ideas in the passage relate to the main idea?
• What is the tone or mood of the passage? Informative? Critical? Playful?
• How is the passage structured?