[Music] I'm very excited to produce this next video for you on the detail question for the reading strategy and so we're going to go through the reading strategy for detailed questions step-by-step and the first thing that I want to do is tell you that this is going to be very involved right we're going to go through each step so you know how to do it exactly how you need to so you can get top score on the reading because as you know detailed questions you're going to get anywhere from four to six on each reading so four to six questions at a 14 total per reading means you're looking at about thirty percent of your score or more give or take that total reading that you have so what I want to do is show you that every step requires you to have a certain amount of focus and ability so I'm going to give you an example that we're going to walk through to go through each of the steps that you just learned about it's actually a little bit challenging this is probably one of the tougher detailed questions that you'll ever get and so the reason why I chose this is because I think walking you through this tougher question it's going to really prepare you because everything is pretty much going to be easier so I hope that makes sense so you're ready let's go ahead and begin so if you look on the screen I've taken just to make it easier reading and I've broken down the first paragraph which the question is going to be on and I've broken it down sentence by sentence so as I scroll through you're going to see this is all connected with one paragraph and you're going to see the question so what's going to happen on the TOEFL you know that you're going to have the reading you're going to scroll through you're going to click next and you're going to see a question so we're going to pretend that this is the first question that you see on the screen and it's a detailed question right so how do we know what's the first thing we do so we're going to read the question together so according to paragraph 1 which of the following developments occurred in Mexico between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago now the first thing I want to tell you is that where a lot of students make mistakes is that they actually reread this question many times so you might be reading it and then you go to the actual reading itself and then you go back to the question you read it then the reading then you read the question and you look at the answer choices and you read the question again so if that's what you're doing you're actually reducing your efficiency by a huge amount so you want to train yourself to actually know the question after reading it just once so what's our strategy to make sure you do this after you read the question close your eyes and try to repeat the content of it now this might take you a few tries in the beginning so here's what I want you to do read the question out loud then close your eyes and keep them close and repeat what you remember the question asking you then look at the question and determine yourself did I get all of the key words so I'm going to give you a couple of examples so according to paragraph 1 which of the following developments occurred in Mexico between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago so I close my eyes and I say this question is asking me what happened in Mexico 9,000 and 4,000 years ago okay now that actually is slightly inaccurate because if you look here it says which of the following developments so a development is different than what happened because the development has a special meaning so you really want to make sure that you know the key words so in this situation I actually need to read again and remember okay I read a little bit too quick last time I didn't really get all the key words I don't know it very well also it says between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago which I didn't really say so you know that means something right between these two spans of time so at first you're going to read a little bit slowly you're going to close your eyes you're going to test yourself and then you're going to train yourself so that eventually off the first reading you'll really be able to get the key idea because as you can imagine how are you going to really find the answer in the reading if you're not clear on what the question is asking you so let's go ahead and read it again right so I read it according to paragraph 1 which of the following developments occurred in Mexico between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago so I close my eyes ok so this question is asking me when I look at the reading what development occurred in Mexico between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago ok so now I'm clear now I know exactly what I'm looking for so now as you know when you read the question you also determine the question type so I know what this question is asking me and I know it's a detailed question right and just to prepare you if you get other question types like paraphrase or plug in those questions always are the same right they're just copy and paste so you don't have to read with this level of detail just with inference questions and detail questions that's where you really need to concentrate same thing with purpose questions too so now that we know the question what do we do next you guys know that we need to find the keywords right so for the keywords one thing that I noticed is sometimes students feel they got to pick the perfect keywords but really a key word is any noun or verb any Content word whatsoever so in this case developments occurred Mexico nine thousand four thousand years ago maybe even between right so when it comes to keywords all the words that represent information are your keywords now the interesting thing as I told you just for this video to make it easy for you I broke down the paragraph into sections so even though they're divided into four parts it's all part of one paragraph so I hope that makes sense so now that we look at the reading we have our question in mind and we have the keywords and so if I look at the paragraph fantastic I see my keywords in the first sentence between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago most of Mexico now so here's one thing that's really important I want to give you a little clue that focus is the key to improving your reading score I promise you if you can just improve your focus and you don't even learn strategy you'll get a higher score so that's why I have you do the closed eyes things so that you have a mess of your level of focus so when you look through this sentence I want to be careful because remember that you're reading quickly you're scanning and then your your eyes are and your brain is alert to the keywords that's where you start paying attention so you're kind of reading fast not trying to understand everything until you see your keywords and then you have a signal okay I better pay attention because my answer is likely here so let me start concentrating remember the question on being asked you know hold that in your brain as I'm reading and kind of discover the answer so there are a couple things that we do to prepare ourselves to succeed with this so now that we read the question I close my eyes and I know what it is the next thing that I want to do is make up a fake answer now the reason for this is because you want your brain to be prepared for what you're looking for before you start reading so we have the question we understand it we know our keywords now think of a fake answer for example let's say I ask you what did Johnny eat for breakfast today right do you know who Johnny is no you don't but you can get right so try to think of a fake answer right now just what did Johnny for breakfast today maybe he ate eggs I will just say he ate eggs now let me ask you a different question what time did Johnny go to sleep yesterday right you don't know Johnny but just make it up what time did you go to sleep yesterday I'll say like at 10:00 p.m. so you see that one question is at 10:00 p.m. and 1:00 questions fake answer is he ate eggs so if you make up a fake answer it pushes you to understand the question and figure out what you're really reading for it so for example here which of the following developments so do you know what a development is right so you got to know that what is a development a change and improvement right occurred in Mexico between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago it's a long time ago not yesterday so if you think about that what kind of fake answer you know just anything maybe families became larger right maybe that happened or maybe me there was an introduction of a new tool right so you see that in answering the question I'm kind of framing myself to understand it's like a change that took place something new happened something changed something shifted so now I'm very prepared to look at the reading and discover that when I'm reading because I have that fake answer in my head so now that we have that we have our keywords we're ready to start reading now you know I really want to prepare you so I'm going to tell you a couple things first thing is that I wanted this to be easy for you to kind of digest so I broken down the first paragraph into sections so even though it looks like four paragraphs it's actually just one so of course our answer is in the first paragraph our question tells us this now as you start reading why do we make the fake answer because we've got to hold that information in our head we've got to hold that question so that as we read we're also doing something else which is remembering what the question asks because think about it this way I want you so I have you know five fingers right so I'm going to hold up a number of fingers you tell me how many I'm holding up three right okay so let's say that I want you to say yes as soon as you see me hold up three right just say yes out loud while you're watching the video so no gotta be careful fingers I hold up right no yes right so you're concentrating on three so that means you're going to see it faster right you're not going to waste your time focusing on this you're not going to waste your time concentrating on this so that's why we have the fake answer in our head that's why we have the key words so that as you read you're aware of this sentence you know isn't the one I'm looking for oh this sentence isn't that important so you're scanning and reading kind of fast you're moving quick but your brain is alert kind of looking for the three looking for the key words so that's when you have to start concentrating because you don't have to understand everything so I hope that makes sense as I told you or I'm not sure if I told you but this is kind of a tough question right so the reason why it's tough is because in the very beginning we see our keywords between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago most of Mexico at every keyword right except one development so you have to make sure that you recognize that when you see all your key words or synonyms of your key words then you have the content to determine the answer and I told you this one is hard so what makes a hard question as you remember 60% of the time the TOEFL in one sentence has all of your key words so that makes it really easy because you just need to focus on one sentence 20% of the time you have to read the sentence after so you have to kind of understand two sentences 10% of the time maybe the next sentence so you have to kind of digest three sentences and really rare like this question you actually have to kind of look at the whole paragraph but how do you know you need to do that because you're aware of the question you know what you're looking for so you can tell I haven't read my answer yet I got to keep reading you're aware of all the keywords you're searching for so if you don't have them you know I got to keep reading because my answer isn't here yet so when I read this sentence between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago most of Mexico was inhabited mainly by hunter foragers who lived in small bands that move with the seasons to exploit cactus fruits deer herds nuts and the hundreds of other plant and animal species in their range depending on the season lots of really big sentence right so the first thing is if you notice we have every keyword except development so a lot of students are going to get tricked they're going to think they have the answer here look at the answer choices choose something that kind of makes sense and it's going to be wrong so you got to be alert the reading requires your focus it's not easy there were easy you wouldn't need us right you would pass already so when you look at this was inhabited isn't a development it isn't a change it's just a fact now I'm going to give you another tip that's kind of important as I said this video is going to be big it's going to be in-depth it's going to cover a lot of things this is a really powerful tutoring session so my goal is this video means you don't need tutoring on the reading for detail questions because if you master this you're going to get everything we teach so the first thing is since this is a big sentence you want to digest it piece by piece right you guys know what digests mean eat right your or your body kind of processes so imagine you're sitting down for dinner right do you shove Arabic food in your mouth all at once of course not right you make yourself sick you eat it one piece at a time the same thing with this sentence so between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago maybe take a moment to close your eyes do I understand that yes then you keep moving forward if you don't understand what you've just read if you can't summarize it after reading just a few words you're not reading with the right concentration level so just like with the question start the sentence over train yourself to concentrate at a level where you just need to read it once maybe twice but really just once step-by-step now again I want to remind you I want to guide you through this so why are we paying attention to this sentence why are we reading carefully because it has our keywords so we got to be alert we got to recognize an answer maybe here we're not doing this for every sentence if this sentence didn't have our keywords we just be scanning quickly that makes sense yeah very important so I read that piece and then I read the next piece most of Mexico was inhabited okay I understand that know between a certain period of time nine thousand four thousand most of Mexico was inhabited what does that mean not all of Mexico so some of it wasn't inhabited so I'm kind of understanding now I read the next part mainly by Hunter foragers okay I get that this kind of people hunter foragers I keep reading who lived in small bands okay and maybe I am not quite sure what that means but maybe something small they lived in some small what communities groups villages something like that right so you see how I'm digesting eating one little piece at a time and when I finish understanding it when I finish eating and I swallow it then I then I take the next bite so you got to make sure you close your eyes okay I got it now I'm ready for the next piece and then you really have understanding your building comprehension and as I told you this video is already way longer than one minute and 17 seconds right but that's because this is really a training video you got to learn it you got to be comfortable with it you got to review so when you practice practice without a timer so that way you can build your skill and then when you're ready you can introduce the timer so now we're going to look at the next sentence because we haven't answered our question yet right we don't we don't read anything about development so I have everything except development so let me read the next sentence since these bands okay these groups of people were small in size and never stayed in one place so I'm understanding do we have a development yet no because all we're doing is learning facts a development as you know when we made our fake answer was a change it was something different I haven't read that yet I haven't read a change so I keep reading for a sufficient period of time to have much long-term effect on the plant and animal populations okay do you understand that right on which they subsisted okay maybe some tough vocabulary words but we don't want to get stuck on it because we're looking for something that represents development so I'm just reading facts they moved around and so because they moved around they didn't really influence their environment their habitats because they move so much the hunter foragers overall impact on the environment was low did I get my keyword development no next sentence so this is rare right we said before only 10% of questions on the TOEFL for the detail are this tough but I wanted to train you for the more difficult one so you really understand you have to be alert this is how you're going to get a top score so again I have all my key words except development do I read development in the sentence and what is the development because then I have my answer then I can look at the answer choices so you see after every sentence I read I'm not checking the answer choices that's a waste of time that's ineffective and you're going to get tricked because the TOEFL makes those answer choices to trick you so when you have the answer then you look at the answer choice now we continue a few groups along the margins of the lake right caso groups on the edge in the valley of Mexico may have been to denturri villagers maybe you don't know that word okay that's okay but have been something mmm is that a change is that a development no right because it's just a description they have been eating they have been sleeping they have been whatever they may be it's just it's not a change or development as were some groups along the coast and their role in the domestication of plants and animals okay you know the influence they had in this the role they played and the eventual spread of Agriculture is unclear so I just have something unclear this sentence just says the influence they had on this was not clear is that a development no it's not Wow now I'm in the for scent so the truth is I gotta have my change here and in reality you may be running in towards you don't know so if after you look at the whole paragraph you don't see all your keywords it likely means that you missed it so you have to go back and continue to train yourself with the close.i technique to make sure that you're biting little pieces of information at a time that you understand before you move on because you're missing your answer so you're going to have to kind of repeat everything but sometimes that happens that's why I want you to practice without a timer and I'm going to tell you a lot of students who succeed one thing they say after they succeed and I say what would you give most students who are working to succeed who are working to get their dream score and they said follow the practice one question reading 50 times not practice 50 questions once so that's why review is important because you really master this process you can do it much faster so let's look at the last sentence some researchers suggest okay no development however that by about 4,000 years ago okay it's our keyword kind of like 9,000 to 4,000 years ago maize cob size maybe you don't know what mazes or cob you see okay something size had become large enough had become large enough what does that mean has become there's a shift there's a change we have a possible development that makes sense if not make sure that you review the other sentences because none of them described a switch or a change but when something had become it means before it was this now it's something else my friend became a doctor right a change took place before not doctor after doctor right he became champion before a not champion after champion right so that's the development that's the change so had become large enough that people over large areas of the Mexican Highlands could subsist mainly on maize so even if you don't know the word you know something about this maze whatever it is became large enough that people could subsist now you may or may not know what subsist means and even if you don't I'm just going to kind of let the keyword sink in with you because remember now when you look at the answer choices or actually I'm sorry before you look at the answer choices you want to pre phrase an answer remember how you made a fake answer now you actually want to come up with your own answer so what sits right here you don't have to play with the words you don't have to paraphrase you don't have to use synonyms once the development that took place there's only one reread mais cops eyes had become large enough that people over large areas of Mexican Highlands could subsist mainly on maize that's the answer right there so when you look at the answer choices for detail questions you need to have an answer in your head first or else you're going to be confused right you got it so this is good we're getting there so now when we look at the answer choices I have another we have another system for you to be fast and efficient so you don't have four answer choices ABCD what you want to do is you want to read each answer choice every single word carefully just like you did the question and at the end of it not thinking too much maybe just a second or two maybe three you want to decide yes this is the answer no it is not the answer or maybe it is the answer so you're going to decide yes no or maybe quickly and here's what's going to happen you're going to have something like this no no yes no you know the third answer is C is your answer right you might also have this no no no maybe right because you're not sure what's the answer it's D and that's why this strategy is so powerful because a lot of you when you're not sure you want to keep thinking and keep wasting time trying to figure out if the answer is or isn't you know D the maybe when all the other answers don't work so you can just choose and move on other times you may have something like this no yes maybe maybe what's your answer then B because it's all comparison you're not choosing the perfect answer you're choosing the best answer out of the four there's another possibility no no no no right which essentially means you got to go back to the beginning because you miss something and that happened you might also get yes yes yes yes same thing but that's rare now here's another one there's the last one I'll give you and that's no maybe maybe no now that just means you're stuck between two answer choices and here's one thing that I want to tell you the reading is academic it's a standardized test so it's not literature it's not something that you can have many interpretations because if it is it's not a test right because there's no such thing as a right answer so the reading is actually closer to math than it is the literature because in mathematics we have a general concept that there's only one possible answer right two plus two equals four it doesn't equal three so when you look at the reading that's how you want to think it's precise and exact so if you're stuck between two answers it's not because there's something crazy and you have to think hard it's you miss something very obvious and clear sometimes it can be a vocab word so it can be tough but I want you to think it's like math it's not like literature and that's why we create so much success so now that we have our answer now that we know how to go through the answer choice let's finally get there right so I'm going to bring it up on the screen and we see a sedan Cherie villagers gradually disappeared already I think this doesn't work right we know our answer maize cob size have become large enough that people over large areas of the Mexican Highlands could subsist mainly on maize this is completely disconnected but we have to read every word it's our it's our system it's our process except along the coast and along lake shores so yes no or maybe depend might be confused a bit you'll say no or maybe but this can't be a yes so I say you say no now be agriculture spread steadily as more and more plants were domesticated well I don't know you can say maybe the sentence is clear and it doesn't really match but we're talking about agriculture I don't know domesticated I remember reading that even though this has nothing to do with our sentence so we'll leave it as a no or a maybe but remember you have to choose one so I'm saying you may say no or you may say maybe but you have to choose one so for me this is still a no see hunter foragers living on the coasts moved to the highlands moved to the highlands we had had become large enough so it's definitely you know right so we're running out of choices so let's see D maize emerged as the dominant food plant okay maize is there but what did I have to become large enough I'm not sure I would say this is a maybe or yes right that's what you should think so in my opinion most of you will come up with something like ABC as nonono and dia maybe and you have your answer could be is correct or you might have like a you know no maybe no maybe then on a super hard question you have a 50-50 chance of getting it right so remember this is a really really hard one but I think we have a system so that it really works because what happens is that subsist means eat and maize is a kind of food so it says maize cob size have become large enough that people over large area so large areas of the Mexican highlands could subsist mainly on meso subsist mainly means dominant food right because subsistence eat mainly so maize emerged as the dominant food plant B is our answer choice so I hope that makes sense now this video is intense it takes you through every single step but this is what you've got to do for every detail question and inference questions too but you can look at that video because that will be in more detail for those so review this because remember the the standard that we say when you review something once you get a sense of it when you review it twice you start developing some understanding but the third time at least is when you start developing mastery so do every step do your best good luck any questions you know where to reach us student help in offal comm this is guaranteed to get you higher scores so wonderful teaching you and I'll talk to you guys later on another video bye [Music]
