I. Purpose of The Test
II. Types of Questions
III. General Test-taking Strategy
I. THE PURPOSE OF THE TEST
The Test of English for International
Communication (TOEIC) measures
the ability of non-native Englishspeaking examinees to use English in
everyday workplace activities.
Therefore, have students focus on vocabulary related to the
real-life work settings:
•Corporate development
•Entertainment
•Finance & Budgeting
•General Business
•Housing / Corporate Property
•Office
•Personnel
•Purchasing
•Health
•Travel
II. Types of Questions for Reading
Comprehension
Make them be aware of the format of this part: ‘Reading
Comprehension’
Incomplete
sentences
Text Completion
40 questions
12 questions
Reading
Reading
Comprehension Comprehension
(Single passages) (double passages)
28 questions
20 questions
Maximum scores for reading comprehension = 495 scores
Total
100 questions/
75 minutes
III. General Test-taking Strategy
Tell them how to deal with each part in the Reading Comprehension
In part 5, in order to deal with the incomplete sentences
* Ask them to see if the question deals with grammar or
vocabulary.
* If grammar, tell them to identify functions of the words or
phrases related to other factors in the sentence.
If it’s vocabulary,
* identify parts of speech.
* figure out the contextual meaning of the target words or phrases.
* pay attention to prefixes or suffixes
For part 6 Text completion, teachers ask
students to
• read the instruction to make sure what
they are asked to do.
• scan the whole text to see the text types
• look at the language (formal – informal)
used
in order to find out whether it is
a letter
an announcement
a notice
a memo
an email
 It’s easier for them to finish the task.
HOW TO WORK ON PART 7?
They are reading documents in forms of single &
double passages.
FOR SINGLE PASSAGES
First skim the questions and put in mind the key words
– who/where/what …or nouns, adjectives, or phrasal
verbs …
Then, read the text and be prudent with the
text type in order to facilitate your reading.
Next, locate the key information in the text
and check if it really matches with the
answer.
After that, be awake with the format of the
questions – multiple choices
(Please remember that only one choice is correct
while the other three are distracters.)
• Delete the two most unreasonable or illogical
choices
• Compare the two most likely options
 By following this techniques, you’ll
reduce the risk of choosing the wrong
answer out of confusion or psychological
pressure
NOW answer the question.
FOR DOUBLE PASSAGES
The same processes happen.
BUT have your students read both passages to
see the relationship between them.
 information needed is spread over the two
passages.
TOEIC READING TECHNIQUES
TOEIC READING TIPS
The TOEIC Reading Tips lesson is designed to
guide the student through some methods of
improving their ability to answer questions
without understanding every word of a reading
passage as well as their test-taking speed.
•Read the questions and answers first. Think about
what kind of answer the question needs.
•Skim means read the keywords of the reading
passage.
•Answer the questions to which you know the answers.
•Scan the reading passage for answers to questions to
which you don’t know the answers.
How to Skim Reading
When you read, you don’t need to read and understand
every word. In fact, to answer questions in
the TOEIC reading sections, you often do not have to
understand all the words. You just have to find the
answers. You don’t have to understand the answer.
Skim reading will help you read quickly so that you
have more time to finish the test or to go back and
check your answers. When you skim, you only read
the key words in the sentence. You skip over the small
words which are not necessary in understanding the
content of the lesson.
Skim reading will help you read quickly so that you
have more time to finish the test or to go back and
check your answers. When you skim, you only read the
key words in the sentence. You skip over the small
words which are not necessary in understanding the
content of the lesson.
The key words are usually:
•Nouns (the subject of the sentence and direct objects
especially)
•Main Verbs
•Adverbs (especially adverbs of frequency or time
usually, now, etc.)
•Numbers
•Wh. Words
The non-key words are usually:
•Conjunctions (and, but, or)
•Idioms (needless, regardless of, in terms of)
•Descriptive adverbs (fortunately, unfortunately)
•Prepositions (in, on, out)
If you read only the key words, you should be able to
answer the questions and read much more quickly and
you will have the same chance of answering the
questions correctly as if you had read every word.
• From Ms. Ngo Thi Bach Loan – M.A in TESOL