Section №2

Reading

Academic and General passages, against the clock.

Notes on technique

Skim First, Scan Second

You have roughly ninety seconds per question, so reading every passage word by word is not an option. Work in two passes.

Skim the passage first (60–90 seconds): read the title, the first sentence of each paragraph, and the final paragraph. Your goal is a mental map — what each paragraph is about, not what it says in detail.

Scan when answering: each question contains anchors — names, numbers, dates, capitalised terms — that point you to the right paragraph. Find the anchor, then read that section carefully.

For True/False/Not Given questions, be strict: False means the passage contradicts the statement; Not Given means the passage says nothing either way. The most common mistake is using your own background knowledge — everything must come from the text.

Cracking True / False / Not Given

These questions sink more candidates than any other, almost always because “False” and “Not Given” get confused. Keep the definitions crisp:

True — the passage clearly states or directly implies the statement.
False — the passage clearly states the opposite of the statement.
Not Given — the passage neither confirms nor contradicts it; there is simply no information either way.

The decisive test for “False” is: could I point to a sentence that makes this statement impossible? If yes, it’s False. If the passage is merely silent — you expected it to say something and it didn’t — that’s Not Given, however likely the statement seems in real life.

Two habits help. First, the questions follow the order of the passage, so work through them top to bottom rather than hunting at random. Second, watch qualifying words like all, always, only, and never: a statement that is mostly true but uses an absolute word is often False. Never use your own knowledge of the world — answer only from what is on the page.