Reading Strategies: Dealing with Difficult Text

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Question #1

To develop successful reading habits, it’s helpful to understand that _______.

A professors can explain the difficult sections of a text when help is needed

B difficult text is sometimes best set aside

C reading is an active process that requires work

D good grades depend more on good listening than on good reading

Question #2

The Norton Field Guide to Writing recommends all of the following techniques for handling difficult or uninteresting texts EXCEPT

A skimming the complex parts of the text.

B looking for information in the text that is familiar.

C viewing difficult text as a challenge that can be overcome.

D rereading the text to determine how different sections relate to each other.

Question #3

Rereading difficult text is a good practice because you will then be better able to _______.

A use your study time more effectively

B write a more interesting summary

C focus on the minor but important details

D draw connections among various parts of the text

Question #4

Reflecting on a passage of difficult text involves _______.

A thinking carefully about the ideas in order to work out their meaning

B locating key transitions in a passage

C thinking of other possible stances the author could have defended

D deleting the unnecessary details in the passage

Question #5

If you have no idea about what you need to know from a passage that is difficult, you should _______.

A read the passage quickly so as not to not lose your concentration

B skim the headings, introduction, and conclusion to find something that relates to knowledge you already have

C focus on the pattern of organization that the author uses to express the ideas

D concentrate on the easier sections because much of the difficult information is probably designed for experts in that particular field

Question #6

Directions: For the following question, use this excerpt from James Fallows’s essay “Throwing Like a Girl,” which originally appeared in the Atlantic.

The phrase “throwing like a girl” has become an embattled and offensive one. Feminists smart at its implication that to do something “like a girl” is to do it the wrong way. . . . On the heels of the O. J. Simpson case, a book appeared in which the phrase was used to help explain why male athletes, especially football players, were involved in so many assaults against women. Having been trained (like most American boys) to dread the accusation of doing anything “like a girl,” athletes were said to grow into the assumption that women were valueless, and natural prey.

I grant the justice of such complaints. I am attuned to the hurt caused by similar broad-brush stereotypes when they apply to groups I belong to—”dancing like a white man,” for instance, or . . .”thinking like a Washingtonian.”

After reflecting on and rereading this passage, you can infer that the author most likely _______.

A is a woman who was harassed by a football player

B disagrees with the view that women have been treated unjustly as a result of stereotypical views

C is objective and neutral, showing little bias about the treatment of women

D agrees with the view that women have been treated unjustly as a result of stereotypical views

Question #7

Directions: For the following question, use this excerpt from James Fallows’s essay “Throwing Like a Girl,” which originally appeared in the Atlantic.

Consider the last paragraph and think about how the ideas relate to the information in the first paragraph. The phrase “thinking like a Washingtonian” most likely _______.

A has a negative meaning similar to the phrase “throwing like a girl”

B has the same meaning as the phrase “throwing like a girl”

C has a political meaning like the phrase “throwing like a girl”

D has a positive meaning unlike the phrase “throwing like a girl”