MỘT SỐ KINH NGHIỆM DẠY KỸ NĂNG LÀM BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU MÔN TIẾNG
ANH CHO ĐỘI TUYỂN HỌC SINH GIỎI
Trong đọc hiểu có rất nhiều dạng bài tập được thiết kế để kiểm tra kỹ năng đọc và hiểu bài đọc của học sinh. Tuy nhiên trong bài viết này tác giả chỉ đề cập đến các dạng chủ yếu là:
+ True/False/Not Given
+ Matching Headings/ summarizing
+ Gapped Text
+ Multiple choices
+ Fill in the blank with a suitable word
1.1.1.
Dạng 1: True/False/Not Given
Đây là dạng đọc khó vì nó tạo ra sự phân loại thực sự trong khả năng đọc hiểu. Vậy làm thế nào để vượt qua dạng bài này?
Trước tiên, giáo viên cần phải cho học sinh biết có 2 dạng câu hỏi cho loại bài này:
True/False/Not Given: đây là dạng học sinh cần dựa vào thực tế (facts) có trong bài.
Yes/No/Not Given: đây là dạng học sinh cần suy luận ý kiến của tác giả.
Trong mỗi dạng học sinh cần xác định mối quan hệ giữa thông tin trong bài và thông tin trong câu hỏi. Cần chú ý rằng khi làm dạng Yes/No/Not Given, học sinh cần xác định xem ý kiến của tác giả như thế nào, chứ không phải là tìm kiếm facts.
Chiến lược
Để hoàn thành tốt dạng bài này, học sinh cần phải diễn giải được bài đọc và câu hỏi. Do đó giáo viên phải cho học sinh đọc kỹ và cố gắng hiểu rõ ý tứ của tác giả. Đối với dạng này, skimming & scanning là một chiến thuật không thực sự phù hợp.
Vấn đề lớn nhất – Not Given
Lựa chọn ‘Not Given’chính là thứ làm phức tạp hóa vấn đề lên hết cỡ. Giải

quyết nó thế nào? Chúng ta cần biết:
‘Not Given’ không có nghĩa là không có thông tin. Thông thường thông tin của một câu ‘Not Given’ sẽ xuất hiện trong bài đọc, nhưng thông tin đó không dùng để trả lời câu hỏi
Học sinh không được đoán hay diễn giải thông tin mà người đọc cho là đúng. Sự tồn tại của thông tin chỉ nằm trong bài đọc, không nghĩ xa hơn.
Lỗi căn bản – chỉ tập trung vào key words
Hình dung tình huống này: giáo viên phải cho học sinh nhìn thấy một từ trong câu hỏi và ướm thẳng nó với từ tương tự – hoặc chính từ đó – học sinh tìm thấy trong bài đọc.
Ví dụ
Paragraph:
It is a sad fact that many women who take maternity leave find themselves stepping off the career ladder, even though they fully intend to full-time work after their maternity leave is over. For some this is no hardship and for those who do wish to return to work there is no issue as they have legal protection. The problem category is those who are in two minds about what to do. These need to sit down and ask themselves some hard questions:
Do I wish to return to full-time employment?
What are about working from home?
Would I benefit from doing a second degree?
Question:
The writer claims that women on maternity leave often consider entering some form of further education because they are unsure of their career path.
Nếu chúng ta tập trung vào key words, khả năng rất cao là chúng ta sẽ trả lời sai: “The writer claims that women on maternity leave often consider entering some form of further education because they are unsure of their career path
“.
Khi gạch chân key words, chúng ta có thể sẽ trả lời là “Yes” vì chúng ta sẽ có xu hướng kết nối các cụm trên với các cụm có trong bài đọc: “women who take maternity leave”, “women in two minds about what to do” và “Would I

benefit from doing a second degree?”.
Câu trả lời trên là sai. Các bạn có thể thấy không có thông tin nào trong bài đọc trên chỉ ra rằng tác giả “cho rằng” ( claim ) những người phụ nữ đó “thường”
( often ) làm những điều trên. Tác giả nói rằng những người này “cần” ( need ) làm.
Để trả lời đúng, cách duy nhất là bạn đọc kỹ toàn bộ câu hỏi.
Answer: Not Given.
Một vài thủ thuật
- Đọc kỹ và hiểu toàn câu hỏi, không chỉ tập trung vào key words
- Rất cẩn thận với Adverbs of Frequency (often, sometimes…), Adverbs of
Possibility (probably, likely…), Quantifiers (some, many…) và Modal Verbs (can, should, must…) vì chúng có thể thay đổi hoàn toàn ý nghĩa câu hỏi so với bài đọc.
- Cẩn thận với các câu hỏi dạng “The author says/believes…”, lúc này chúng ta không xét đến các facts có trong bài mà cần nghĩ đến ý kiến của tác giả
- Các câu hỏi sẽ theo thứ tự xuất hiện trong bài đọc (ít nhất là cho tới thời điểm này). Nếu bạn không tìm thấy thông tin cho câu 2, bạn có thể ước lượng khoảng thông tin giữa câu 1 và 3
- Không mất quá nhiều thời gian cho 1 câu hỏi. Nếu câu trả lời là ‘Not
Given’, nhiều khi chẳng có thông tin gì hết. Do đó, nếu bạn mất hơn 2 phút, hãy thử điền ‘Not Given’
Trình tự làm bài
- Đọc bài một lượt. Hãy bảo đảm rằng mắt bạn có thể lướt qua mọi từ. Điều này sẽ giúp bạn tiết kiệm thời gian trong việc xác định khoảng thông tin
- Đọc một lượt toàn bộ câu hỏi phần T/F/NG để xác định khoảng cần tìm kiếm thông tin
- Đọc kỹ câu hỏi, chú ý phân biệt khi bạn được hỏi về “facts” hay “opinions”
- Lướt lại bài đọc, xác định paragraph và sentence cần đọc kỹ. Take note vào đó nếu cần
- Đọc lại câu hỏi để trả lời. Chú ý đến các thủ thuật ở trên
- Gạch chân các cụm trong bài đọc bạn dùng để trả lời câu hỏi, nó sẽ giúp

bạn tập trung vào câu hỏi và sửa sai khi bạn kiểm tra lại.
Exercise 1: You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on reading passage below.
Attitude of language
It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study. Popular linguistic debate regularly deteriorates into invective and polemic. Language belongs to everyone, so most people feel they have a right to hold an opinion about it And when opinions differ, emotions can run high. Arguments can start as easily over minor points of usage as over major policies of linguistic education.
Language, more oven is a very public behavior so it is easy for different usages to be noted and criticized No part of society or social behavior is exempt: linguistic factors influence how we judge personality, intelligence, social status, educational standards, job aptitude, and many other areas of identity and social survival. As a result, it is easy to hurt, and to be hurt, when language use is unfeelingly attacked. ln its most general sense. prescriptivism is the view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community. The view is propounded especially in relation to grammar and vocabulary, and frequently with reference to pronunciation. The variety which ls favoured, in this account, ls usually a version of the ‘standard’ written language, especially as encountered in literature, or in the formal spoken language which most closely reflects this style. Adherents to this variety are said to speak or write ‘correctly'; deviations from lt are said to be
'incorrect`.
All the main languages have been studied prescriptlvely, especially in the
18th century approach to the writing of grammars and dictionaries. The aims of these early grammarians were threefold: (a) they wanted to codify the principles of their languages, to show that there was a system beneath the apparent chaos of usage. (b) they wanted a means of settling disputes over usage, and (c) they wanted to point out what they felt to be common errors, in order to ‘improve' the language.
The authoritarian nature of the approach is best characterized by its reliance on

'rules' of grammar Some usages are prescribed; to be learnt and followed accurately; others are proscribed to be avoided. ln this early period, there were no half-measures: usage was either right or wrong. and it was the task of the grammarian not simply to record alliterative but to pronounce judgement upon them.
These attitudes are still with us, and they motivate a widespread concern that linguistic standards should be maintained. Nevertheless, there is an alternative point of view that is concerned less with standards than with the facts of linguistic usage. This approach ls summarized in the statement that it is the task of the grammarian to describe not prescribe to record the facts of linguistic diversity, and not to attempt the impossible tasks evaluating language variation or halting language change. In the second half of the 18 th century, we already find advocates of this view, such as Joseph Priestley, whose Rudiments of English Grammar
(1761) insists that ‘the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language. `Linguistic issues, it is argued, cannot be solved by logic and legislation. And this view has become the tenet of the modem linguistic approach to grammatical analysis.
In our own time, the opposition between ‘descriptivists' and 'prescriptivists' has often become extreme. with both sides painting unreal pictures of the other.
Descriptive grammarians have been presented as people who do not care about standards, because of the way they see all forms of usage as equally valid.
Prescriptive grammarians have been presented as blind adherents to a historical tradition. The opposition has even been presented in quasi-political terms - of radical liberalism vs elitist conservatism.
Questions 1-8
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading
Passage 1?
In boxes 1-8 in your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the claims ol the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
1 There are understandable reasons why arguments occur about language.
2 People feel more strongly about language education than about small differences in language usage.
3 Our assessment of a persons intelligence is affected by the way he or she uses language.
4 Prescriptive grammar books cost a lot of money to buy in the 18th century.
5 Prescriptivism still exists today.
6 According tc descriptivist it is pointless to try to stop language change.
7 Descriptivism only appeared alter the 18th century.
8 Both descriptivists and prescriptivists have been misrepresented.
(From: Cambridge English Ielts 9, Cambridge University Press)
Suggested answer:
Exercise 1: 1. YES, 2. NO, 3. YES, 4. NOT GIVEN, 5. YES, 6. YES,7.
NO, 8. YES,
1.1.2.
Dạng 2: Matching Headings
- Đọc câu hỏi. Thông thường số lượng headings luôn nhiều hơn số paragraphs nhưng hãy chú ý xem nó có câu "You may use any headings more than once" hay không. Nếu có thì người đọc có thể sử dụng 1 heading đến 2 lần.
- Đọc 1 lượt các headings để nắm được nội dung toàn bài nói về cái gì. Học sinh có thể loại bỏ những headings có vẻ vô duyên (dựa vào cảm giác). Tuy nhiên sự loại bỏ này chỉ có xác suất đúng là 50% thôi nhé.
- Sau đó học sinh nên quay lại đọc từng paragraph, tìm topic sentence/ý chính của đoạn. Topic sentence và ý chính khác nhau thế nào? Topic sentence là một câu chủ đề, có thể nằm ở đầu hoặc cuối đoạn. Tuy nhiên không phải khi nào cũng có topic sentence bày ra sẵn cho chúng ta ăn 1 cách dễ dàng. Nó có thể bị ẩn đi hoàn toàn. Đó là lúc chúng ta tìm ý chính. Ý chính của đoạn là những từ quan trọng, những từ được lặp đi lặp lại nhiều lần. Những câu nêu lên kết quả, bắt đầu

bằng As a result, Consequently, Therefore có thể là ý chính của đoạn. Nếu bạn cho rằng cái được nói đến dài nhất là ý chính của đoạn thì hãy coi chừng, đó có thể chỉ là ý phụ mà thôi.
Lưu ý : Câu Topic Sentence có thể bị paraphrased hoàn toàn trong khi ý phụ bị paraphrased nửa vời mà thôi.
- Học sinh có thể dựa vào các từ nối để xác định Topic Sentence.
- Trong trường hợp học sinh bị nhầm lẫn và định chọn 1 heading cho 2 paragraphs trong khi đề bài không có câu "you may use any headings more than once" thì hãy chọn như vậy. Bởi vì người đọc sẽ có được ít nhất 1 câu đúng.
Exercise 2: You should spend about 15 minutes on Questions 1 – 6 which are based on Reading Passage below.
The History of Paper
A
When we think of the origins of paper, our minds might wander back over 5000 years ago to the Nile river valley in Egypt. It was there that a marsh grass called
Cyperous Papyrus flourished. The Egyptians cut thin strips from the plant’s stem and softened them in the muddy waters of the Nile. These strips were then layered in right angles to form a kind of mat. The mat was then pounded into a thin sheet and left in the sun to dry. The resulting sheets were ideal for writing on. Since they were also lightweight and portable they became the writing medium of choice of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans for record keeping, spiritual texts and works of art.
B
Paper as we know it today comes from another source, China. It wasn’t until the
3rd century that the secret art of papermaking began to creep out of China, first to
Vietnam and later to India. It made its true push westward in 751AD when the
Tang Dynasty was at war with the Islamic world. During a battle on the banks of the Tarus River, Islamic warriors captured a Chinese caravan which happened to include several papermakers. They spirited them away to Samarkand, which soon became a great centre for paper production. Finally, when the Moors from North

Africa invaded Spain and Portugal they brought the technology with them and so it was that papermaking entered Europe in the 12th century.
C
In Europe, the use of papyrus had dropped out in the 9th century. The preferred medium for the artists and literati of the time was the smooth and lustrous parchment. However, parchment - made from animal skin - was extremely expensive. The notion of paper being used as a practical everyday item did not occur until the 15th Century when Johann Gutenburg perfected movable type and sparked off a revolution in mass communication. The birth of the modern paper and printing industry is commonly marked from this time.
D
Printing technology rapidly developed and created an ever increasing demand for paper. Early european paper was made from recycled cotton and linen - and a huge trade quickly developed around the trading of old rags. It is said that the black plague entered England from Europe on these old rags. Others experimented with fibres such as straw, cabbage, wasp nests and finally wood. This resulted in inexpensive - and replaceable - materials for paper making. Today, the long soft fibres of softwoods such as spruce have become the most suitable source of pulp for mass production.
E
The demand for paper also created the need for greater efficiency in production. In the late 18th century the labours of Nicholas Luis Robert resulted in the creation of a machine that could produce a seamless length of paper on an endless wire mesh with squeeze rollers at one end. Perfected and marketed by the Fourdrinier brothers, the new machine made papers that soon replaced traditional single sheets made by hand. In Europe and America, the mass-production of paper became a thriving industry supplying huge volumes of paper for a huge variety of purposes.
F
Papermaking in essence is a simple process. Whether using recycled materials or fresh organic matter, the process starts as the material is shredded into small strips and soaked overnight to loosen the fibres. Next, the fibres are boiled for 2 to 6 hours, being turned every so often. When finished, the fibres are washed with fresh

water to remove impurities and then small particles or specks are removed by hand.
The fibres are beaten in a blender creating a creamy pulp. At this stage, dyes can be added to create coloured papers. The pulp is then poured into a large tub and the fibres are suspended in the water. Framed screens are lowered into the water and then lifted to the surface catching the fibres onto the screen. The screens are then dried, pressed and smoothed.
G
In the west, as industrial paper production boomed, the art of hand paper-making has been driven nearly to extinction - being practiced only by a few fine artists and crafts people. However, in small areas throughout Asia, the tradition has lived on through regular and rice paper made by hand. Incidentally, the traditional Asian paper which is often referred to as “rice paper” is not made from rice fibres at all.
More commonly it is made from the versatile mulberry tree - varieties of which are also used for feeding silkworms and in medicine. In contrast to the cold precision and standardisation which industrial production demands, the soft, subtle textures and natural feeling of handmade paper is said to echo the warm heart of the papermaker who makes each sheet with devotion.
H
The new Millennium will be dominated by the tremendous progress that has been made in computer science, thus triggering a complete change in our commercial and private communication and information behaviour. Does this mean that the paper era will come to an end? The answer is most definitely “No”. Clearly there will be a huge amount of data being generated electronically, but the issue is how to preserve it. The difficulties of data storage over a long period of time are well known (for example, the durability of disks; frequent changes of hardware and software, electronic breakdowns etc.). Once again, paper offers the most convenient and durable storage option.
Questions 1 - 6. The reading passage on The History of Paper has 8 paragraphs A – H. From the list of headings below choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B – H. Write the appropriate number (i – xi) in boxes
1 – 6 on your answer sheet.

all.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them
Example Answer : Paragraph A iv i Arabian Expertise ii Traditional Paper Producers iii Superstition iv The Origins of Paper v The Development of Mass Production vi The Journey to the West vii The Prospects for Paper viii The Age of Experimentation ix The Father of Modern Paper x The Modern Process xi A Change of Material
1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D
4. Paragraph E
5. Paragraph F
6. Paragraph G
7. Paragraph H
(From: ACADEMIC READING PRACTICE TEST)
Suggested answer:
1. Paragraph B VI
2. Paragraph C XI
3. Paragraph D VIII
4. Paragraph E V
5. Paragraph F X

6. Paragraph G II
7. Paragraph H VII
1.1.3.
Dạng 3: Gapped - Text
Gapped text là dạng đọc mà trong đó có một bài đọc (text), người ta đã cắt đi một số câu (sentence) hoặc đoạn văn (paragraph). Tất cả các câu đó (có thể nhiều hơn chỗ trống) được trộn lẫn với nhau. Học sinh cần phải quyết định xem câu nào hay đoạn văn nào là phù hợp nhất cho mỗi chỗ trống
Chọn câu trả lời đúng
Để đặt một câu hay một đoạn văn vào đúng chổ, học sinh cần phải hiểu cả đoạn văn lẫn câu cần điền và quyết định xem cái nào là có liên kết chặt chẽ với nhau. Khi làm cần chú ý câu ở phía trước chỗ trống cũng như ở phía sau. Ví dụ:
John was a young man who had spent all his life in the city and knew little about the countryside. (1) . . John found the work really hard but at the end said that he had really enjoyed himself.
A ln order to get some idea of life in the country, he went for a holiday at a hotel in a tiny village.
B ln order to get some idea of life in the country, he arranged to spend a few weeks working on a farm.
Sentence A fits in quite well with the first sentence of the paragraph - by staying at a hotel in a tiny village he would be able to learn something about the countryside. However, there is no suggestion that he did any work when he was there; this clearly does not fit in with the idea of the work being hard, as mentioned in the final sentence of the paragraph. However, sentence B fits in with both the first and last sentence - the mention of John working in B is connected with his finding work hard in the final sentence.
Từ khóa (key words)
Mặc dù học sinh sẽ cần phải đọc đoạn văn và các câu cần điền để hiểu nghĩa, nhưng việc tìm ra một số từ key word cũng rất quan trọng vì đó thường là những từ nối một câu của chủ đề này với một câu của đoạn văn. Những từ đó thường là: this,

that, these,those
Ví dụ: In the next four exercises, a sentence has been removed from the passage. Choose from the four suggested sentences A, B, C, D, which best fills the gap.
A chaotic situation developed yesterday when traffic lights failed to work at a busy junction near Leeds. (5) .... Although police were on the scene within ten minutes, a queue over four kilometres long had already built up.
A Fortunately, only two or three vehicles were on the road at the time.
B The morning rush hour had just begun when lights on the road to Leeds became stuck on red.
C Fortunately, a passing policeman was immediately able to bring the situation under control.
D The problem became worse when the lights stopped working.
Suggested answer:
In B we are told that the lights were stuck on red, which means that they failed to work. Sentence A is not correct as it states that there were only two or three vehicles on the road although the passage says that the junction was busy and that a large queue had built up.
Sentence C is incorrect as it is clear that the situation was not brought under control until the police arrived after ten minutes. Sentence D is wrong as the problem was that the traffic lights were not working - this was not an extra problem as suggested in D.
Exercise 3: Read through the following text and then choose the best phrase given below, to fill each of the gaps. Write one letter (A-I) in each of the numbered gaps. Some of the suggested answers do not fit at all. You should spend about 10 minutes on Questions 1-6, which are based on Reading
Passage below.
Every teacher knows that not all students are good examinees. Some are too tense, become overanxious or too stressed and then perform below expectations

just when it matters most.
Teachers try to help by compensating, believing that if they boost a student’s academic knowledge they will cure his fear of exams.
So, last year, (1) ________, I completely rewrote the Business Studies
Revision Course at this secondary school. The central idea of the course is to treat the examination as an event, a challenge, a performance, much like a sports match, a drama production, or perhaps a major music concert, (2) ________ and very definitely on the public stage. The idea is to show that the exam is not a test, but an opportunity to show how good the candidate is.
The objective is to improve students’ final performance
(3 ________, control and ability to cope. The theme of ‘total preparation for performance’ teaches them that (4) ________ are obviously important, they are only two of the five skills required, the others being coping strategies, mental skills and management skills.
These additions give a new dimension (5) ________, increasing enjoyment and motivation. They widen a student’s focus and help to convince some of the less confident students that there are many ways in which they can actively contribute towards their (6) ________.
A those not mattering so much
B self-confidence and self-esteem
C by increasing self-confidence
D relying on my expertise alone
E to a student’s revision
F but a real desire
G while knowledge and examination techniques
H but bigger and more important
I drawing on my teaching experience and sports psychology skills
(Đề thi học sinh giỏi Tỉnh Bắc Ninh 2013-2014)
Suggested answer:

Exercise 3: 0. I 1. H 2. C 3. G 4. E 5. B
1.1.4.
Dạng 4: Multiple choices
Kỹ năng chính mà các em phải sử dụng trong dạng bài này là “SKIMMING và SCANNING”.
chỉnh.
- Gạch chân hoặc đánh dấu các từ khóa trong câu hỏi hay câu chưa hoàn
- Ghép các từ khóa với các từ có trong bài văn, vì vậy học sinh có thể tìm đúng vị trí chính xác cho câu trả lời.
- Đọc kỹ các phần của bài văn mà người đọc đã đánh dấu và xem họ có thể tìm thấy có từ hay cụm từ nào trùng với sự lựa chọn không. Sau đó cần đọc kỹ đoạn thông tin liên quan tìm thấy để hiểu nội dung của nó và đưa ra câu trả lời đúng.
- Đối với dạng bài này thì từ khóa thường gặp sẽ là Wh – question words như which, what, where, …
- Những lựa chọn có thể đều được nhắc tới trong bài đọc, nhưng quan trọng là các em phải chọn đúng câu trả lời cho câu hỏi đó, dựa vào các từ khóa đã tìm và gạch chân.
Ví dụ: Read the paragraph and choose the best answer.
The visual language apparent in these artworks is unfamiliar, as is the artist,
Eva Hesse. Her work is as exciting as it is disturbing. For many, Hesse’s sculpture refers essentially to the body. This, perhaps, does not seem surprising when it is in relation to the body that women are generally assessed. Hesse died of a brain tumor in 1970 at the age of 34. It must be an inescapable inevitably, therefore, that her work was read in the context of its time where it has, until recently, been
1. According to the writer, Eva Hesse
A. is not well-known artist. B. is very familiar, as is her work.
C. is not a good artist. D. is strongly attracted by visual language.
2. The writer concludes that

A. Hesse’s work is timeless.
B. The understanding of Hesse’s work has until recently been interpreted only in the context of its time world.
C. Hesse’s work is a product of her time and is not relevant to the modern
D. Hesse’s work is easy to read.
KEY
1. A
Từ khóa trong câu hỏi là
Eva Hesse.
Câu trả lời được chứa trong câu đầu tiên của đoạn văn: “The visual language apparent in these artworks is unfamiliar, as is the artist, Eva Hesse”.
Vì vậy, B không đúng vì từ “unfamiliar” mới là từ đúng theo thông tin trong bài đọc (tương ứng là False); C thì không được nhắc đến trong đoạn văn (tương ứng là Not Given), còn
D thì dùng để chỉ những người mà biết công việc của cô ấy, không phải bản thân cô ấy (tương ứng là False).
Vì vậy, A là đáp án đúng hay True.
2. B
Từ khóa trong câu hỏi là writer và conclude.
Câu trả lời nằm ở câu cuối của đoạn văn: “It must be an inescapable inevitably, therefore, that her work was read in the context of its time where it has, until recently, been largely abandoned“.
Dễ dàng thấy
B là gần như là một cụm từ được viết trong bài. A và
D thì không được nhắc đến (tương ứng là Not given) trong khi
C thì chỉ có phần đầu là đúng (tương ứng là False)
Vì vậy, B là đáp án đúng.
Exercise 4: Read the following text carefully and then choose the best answer (A, B, C or D) for Questions 1-8 according to the text.
MIND READING

Whether we know it or not, we all practice the skill of guessing people’s thoughts and feelings
If a baby starts to cry several hours after drinking his last bottle, his mother knows he’s hungry. But suppose a woman’ eyes brim with tears while she watches a DVD. Her husband wonders what she is so upset about. She might tell him directly: “This movie is all about a doomed romance.” That may be true but she could be thinking about how the story reminds her of her own marital troubles.
Maybe she’s feeling hurt because she thinks her husband should realize what’s bothering her. Or may be she isn’t even aware that her real-world concerns are intensifying her reaction to the fictional couple. Quickly he searches his mental files – on his wife’s relationship history, on her reaction to their last row, on the way she reacts to similar movies. He watches the expression flickering across her face and it hits him: she knows about his girlfriend!
Every day, whether we’re pushing for a raise or judging whether a friend really likes our redecorating spree, we’re reading each other’s minds. Drawing on our observations, our memories, our powers of reason, and our wellsprings of emotion, we constantly make educated guesses about what another person is feeling. Throughout the most heated argument or the most lighthearted chat, we’re intently collecting clues to what’s on the other person’s mind. “It’s a perceptual ability I call mind sight,” says Daniel Seigel, psychiatrist at UCLA. Mind reading of this sort – not to be confused with the infallible superhero kind of telepathy – is a critical human skill. It enables us to negotiate, compete, cooperate, and achieve emotional closeness with others. Mind-reading ability is perhaps the most urgent element of social intelligence.
It’s astonishing that we can peer into each other’s minds at all, but in truth we generally don’t do it at all well. Strangers (who are videotaped and later report their thoughts and feelings, as well as their assessments of their counterpart’s thoughts and feelings) read each other with an average accuracy rate of 20 per cent.
Close friends and marital couples nudge that up to 35 per cent. And “hardly anyone ever scores higher than 60 percent,” reports psychologist William Ickes, the father of empathic accuracy, who based at the University of Texas at Arlington. Ickes is

eager to shoot down one of the oldest myths about mind reading – that women have some intuitive advantage. He explains why the gender stereotype persists. “It may be not an ability gap, but an incentive gap.” Support for such an interpretation comes from a study in which researchers offered cash bonuses to participants for accurately reading others’ minds. The payments “wiped out any difference between men’s and women’s performances,” suggesting that men can read minds when they want to.
Our ability to mind read has an ancient roots, says Ross Buck, a professor of communication sciences at the University of Connecticut. Over thousands of years of evolution, human systems of communication grew more sophisticated, as living and working arrangements became more complex. Mind reading became a tool which to “create and maintain the social order,” as Buck puts it. It helped to know when to affirm a commitment to a mate or defuse a dispute with a neighbor Of course, in order to advance our own interests, we still needed to conceal feelings at times, and even to lie. “ We didn’t always want to show exactly what we were thinking, because others could use that to gain the upper hand,” says Buck. Our merely adequate mind sight, then can be thought of “as the product of a compromise between the need to show and the need to hide our true selves”
This delicate balance between perceiving and concealing has served humans well, but Siegel worries that mind-reading ability is now on the decline in our culture. Today’s obsessed-with-success parent spend so much time stimulating their children with structured activities, noisy toys, and “Baby Einstein’s DVDs, they are not sitting still and being “present” with their kids. As a result, they deny children the opportunity to learn how to get in tune with another person, physically and emotionally – that is, to develop mind sight. A reasonable degree of mind sight is required, he says, for a civil society in which adults are kind to one another.
Reading body language is a core component of mind reading. Researchers have shown that when watching a body’s movements reduced to points of light on a screen, observers can still read sadness, anger, joy, fear and romantic love. After so many years of mind-reading evolution, we’re primed to read emotion into movement, even when there’s very little to go on. Facial expressions are also cues.

Despite the 3,000 different expressions we may deploy each day, it’s the fleeting micro-expressions that betray many feelings. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us are terrible at detecting them. Still we tent to focus on other’s eyes, and that helps us. The many surrounding muscles make them a richer source of clues than other parts of the face: downcast in sadness, staring hard with jealousy, or glancing around with impatience. We know even more about someone’s mind from the way the components of conversation fit together – someone’s words, gestures, and pitch of voice may seem either compatible or incongruous. But despite all we glean from body language and voice tone, Ickes finds, it’s the content of speech that contributes most to our success at mind reading. Words matter.
1. What point is exemplified by the description of the husband and wife’s behavior while watching the DVD?
A. Women are more emotional than men.
B. Adults have more complex needs than children.
C. People can easily misinterpret each other’s feelings.
D. Relationships require honesty to be successful.
2. What do we learn about the way that mind sight works in the second paragraph?
A. People are often unaware that they are reading another person’s mind.
B. People use both an intellectual process and an emotional one to read minds.
C. People make greater efforts to mind read in formal situations than in informal ones.
D. People often believe that their ability to read minds is a supernatural one.
3. What does William Ickes suggest about people’s ability to read minds?
A. It decreases under the stress of test conditions.
B. It works well in long-established relationships.

C. It is something which is predetermined by gender.
D. It is affected by an individual’s motivation.
4. Which of the following best summarizes Ross Buck’s theory about mind reading?
A. The ability to mind read probably developed before speech.
B. Communities could function effectively because of mind reading.
C. Mind reading is a form of dishonesty which is unique to humans.
D. Good mind readers tend to reveal little about themselves.
5. According to Daniel Siegel, people are loosing their ability to read minds because modern parents
A. fail to interact effectively with their children.
B. do not spend enough time with their children.
C. expect greater academic achievement from their children.
D. are often too stressed to be positive role models.
6. What are we told about the influence of visual information on our ability to read minds?
A. People are instinctively able to interpret the meaning of gestures.
B. Some people have difficulty interpreting the full range of human expression.
C. Eye movement is the most significant source of information for mind reading. voice.
D. It is harder for a person to fake their body language than the tone of their
7. In these paragraphs, the writer is
A. demonstrating ways to improve our mind-reading ability.
B. suggesting when mind reading is most valuable.
C. explaining how the ability to read someone’s mind works.

D. expressing doubt about people’s claims to be good mind readers.
Suggested answer:
Exercise 4: 1C, 2B, 3D, 4B, 5A, 6A, 7C
(From: Amanda French, Ready for CAE teacher’s book Peter Sunderland,
Cambridge Universiry Press)
1.1.5.
Dạng 5: Fill in the blank with a suitable word (tìm từ thích hợp để điền vào chỗ trống)
Đây là dạng bài cho một bài văn có 10 chỗ trống và 15 từ cho sẵn. Chọn 10 từ thích hợp điền vào chỗ trống
Ví dụ: Bài đọc này dài khoảng 150 từ trong đó có 10 từ bỏ trống. Chọn trong số 15 từ cho sẵn các từ phù hợp để điền vào chỗ trống.
Cách thức làm bài tập này là bạn phải đọc toàn bộ bài text vì có thể có sự liên kết trong các câu trước hoặc sau trong đoạn văn; hoặc xem xét cấu trúc ngữ pháp để bạn cũng có thể dễ dàng lựa chọn được đáp án đúng nhất.
* Xác định thể loại của 15 từ cho sẵn và nghĩa của chúng (nếu không biết nghĩa của chúng thì cũng không nên lo lắng quá mà để nguyên nghĩa bằng tiếng
Anh)
* Xác định thể loại từ của các chỗ trống cần điền thuộc thể loại từ gì thì nhìn vào các từ cho sẵn có cùng thể loại để lựa chọn (vì như thể bạn chỉ phải lựa chọn ít hơn 15 từ sẽ đơn giản hơn và sẽ đạt kết quả đúng cao hơn).
* Điền những chỗ trống dễ lựa chọn nhất, còn những chỗ trống khó thì điền

sau. khác.
* Đánh số vào những từ đã lựa chọn rồi để còn ít sự lựa chọn ở các đáp án
* Câu nào khó quá thì để cuối cùng và làm theo phương pháp loại suy.