READING SKILL 2: Recognize the Organization of Ideas

In Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL TEST

This book provides you important skills to master types of questions in TOEFL Reading Comprehension test. This time, I'll show you the first question that poses the second skill of reading that is to recognize the organization of ideas.

The passage: 

If asked who invented the game of baseball, most Americans would probably reply that it was Abner Doubleday. At the beginning of this century, there was some disagreement over how the game of baseball had actually originated, so sporting goods manufacturer Spaulding inaugurated a commission to research the question. In 1908 a report was published by the commission in which Abner Doubleday, a U.S. Army officer from Cooperstown, New York, was given credit for the invention of the game. The National Baseball Hall of Fame was established in Cooperstown in honor of Doubleday.

Today, most sports historians are in agreement that Doubleday really did not have much to do with the development of baseball. Instead, baseball seems to be a close relation to the English game of rounders and probably has English rather than American roots.

The question: 

1. The second paragraph

A. provides examples to support the ideas in the first paragraph

B. precedes the ideas in the first paragraph

C. outlines the effect of the idea in the first paragraph 

D. refutes the idea in the first paragraph 

Reading test is conducted to test your understanding of the topic or contents of the text. Consequently, it's not surprising that skimming needs to be done before you do scanning and look at the question(s) and its options. In almost in all reading practices with long passages, skimming needs to be taken place in the first place. Indeed, reading activities involves your skimming skills for you to understand what you're reading. 

Meanwhile, during the preparation of your test, it is important for you to know question types that often appear in particular tests. You'll know what kinds of questions that require you to do skimming or scanning first. 

In this type of question in skill 2 here, we, for sure need to do skimming first. You don't need to look at the question option first for you not to get distracted with unfamiliar words. 

The passage: 

If asked who invented the game of baseball, most Americans would probably reply that it was Abner Doubleday. At the beginning of this century, there was some disagreement over how the game of baseball had actually originated, so sporting goods manufacturer Spaulding inaugurated a commission to research the question. In 1908 a report was published by the commission in which Abner Doubleday, a U.S. Army officer from Cooperstown, New York, was given credit for the invention of the game. The National Baseball Hall of Fame was established in Cooperstown in honor of Doubleday.

Today, most sports historians are in agreement that Doubleday really did not have much to do with the development of baseball. Instead, baseball seems to be a close relation to the English game of rounders and probably has English rather than American roots.

I need to remind you that doing skimming will save your time a lot for going back and forth to find particular keywords. But, of course, practices need to be done for you to be good at doing skimming. And then, we can do scanning then.

The passage: 

If asked who invented the game of baseball, most Americans would probably reply that it was Abner Doubleday. At the beginning of this century, there was some disagreement over how the game of baseball had actually originated, so sporting goods manufacturer Spaulding inaugurated a commission to research the question. In 1908 a report was published by the commission in which Abner Doubleday, a U.S. Army officer from Cooperstown, New York, was given credit for the invention of the game. The National Baseball Hall of Fame was established in Cooperstown in honor of Doubleday.

Today, most sports historians are in agreement that Doubleday really did not have much to do with the development of baseball. Instead, baseball seems to be a close relation to the English game of rounders and probably has English rather than American roots.

The question: 

1. The second paragraph

A. provides examples to support the ideas in the first paragraph

B. precedes the ideas in the first paragraph

C. outlines the effect of the idea in the first paragraph 

D. refutes the idea in the first paragraph 

Sebagaimana telah kita diskusikan sebelumnya bahwa kita akan membicarakan tentang Doubleday, baseball, agreement, dan disagreement. Paragraph pertama akan menjabarkan tentang disagreement (persamaan pendapat) dan paragraph kedua akan membicarakan tentang agreement. Hal ini menjadi jelas menunjukkan bahwa pilihan A dan C bukan merupakan pilihan yang benar. 

Jadi tersisa dua pilihan, yaitu pilihan B dan D. Namun jika kalian terkendala dengan kosa kata yang tidak kalian ketahui, memang satu-satunya cara yang dapat kalian lakukan adalah mencoba menebak mana pilihan yang paling tepat. Banyak yang menyebut hal ini sebagai make an educated guess. Kalian coba seleksi terlebih dahulu mana pilihan yang benar-benar salah, dan setelah itu kalian bisa coba tebak dengan kemampuan dan pengetahuan yang kalian miliki.

Nah, bagi kalian yang memilih pilihan D, kalian telah mendapatkan jawaban yang tepat. In this case, you can use your feelings/intuition too to choose the right answer. 😊

Setelah kita bahas satu soal yang muncul di buku ini untuk bagian Skill 2 dari reading comprehension, kita telah mempelajari bagaimana ide-ide dalam suatu teks disusun. Kemampuan ini akan berguna bagi kalian tidak hanya sebagai bagian dari kemampuan membaca namun juga untuk kemampuan menulis kalian. Jadi, tidak hanya bermakna, ide-ide yang akan kalian sampaikan harus tersusun rapi sehingga mudah untuk dipahami.

Berikut merupakan strategi yang juga bisa kalian perhatikan. Penjelasan ini juga bisa kalian lihat di buku TOEFL tersebut. 

Table 1: The table tells you the steps on how to recognize the organization of ideas in a text.

Note: 

Pardon my languages, I keep changing it. I just find it easier to use one language instead of the other when talking about specific things. 

You can visit our YouTube channel for this lesson, so it will be easier for you to understand it. We also have more videos related about self-learning English. Feel free to visit the link:

(1) Materi TOEFL Reading Skill 2 - Recognize the organization of ideas

https://youtu.be/FVgICO8u-q0

I have provided the Presentation slides. You can download the presentation freely by visiting this link: (I will update the link soon. Thanks for waiting.)