English Language Test Prep Radio: EPISODE 45
English Language Test Prep Radio-Episode
Episode Webpage: https://englishlanguagetestprep.com/eltpr045
INTRODUCTION
Hello. Do you need a high score on the TOEIC Listening and Reading test?
I've got three things for you that are gonna do just that.
I'm Professor Winn, author of the englishlanguagetestprep.com blog.
Be sure to check out the full presentation on the blog site at bit.ly/3xtoeiclr.
Let's go ahead and get started with these three things that are gonna help to boost your score.
First of all, we're looking at three things that are gonna help you to boost your score on the TOEIC Listening and Reading test.
Number one: Know chunking for reading.
Number two: Build up your collocations.
And Number Three: Be aware of conjunctive adverbs.
Now these three things are drawn from eText 41 things you Wish you knew about a high score for TOEIC Listening and Reading.
So number one, let's go ahead and get started with: What is. Chunking?
A chunk is a big mass of something, a chunk of cheese, chunk of chocolate.
But in reading a chunk of words.
One of the best things that you can do besides improving your vocabulary a little bit more about that later is to have a good reading habit during your TOEIC preparation.
Reading is going to help you to be more familiar with grammar and vocabulary. It's also going to help you to do well on the TOEIC Reading test.
CHUNKING
One of those techniques that you can use to help you on the TOEIC Reading Test is chunking.
Chunking helps you to read faster, and the faster that you can read on the test the more information you can consume, the quicker you can get an answer and move on to the next item.
It's a timed test and reading faster.
Try to build that skill during your TOEIC Reading preparation.
Chunking involves not only reading faster but breaking down complex text. It doesn't have to necessarily be so complex, but breaking down text into smaller, manageable parts.
Let's take a closer look.
You want to use logical units. That is what you want to do while you're reading.
This helps you to build comprehension, and the more comprehension you have of a text, the better you're going to understand it and be able to answer the questions.
Let's take a another look at chunking.
We have a sample sentence here.
The red fox jumped over the log to catch the cat.
How would you break down this sentence into logical chunks?
What do you think?
Let's take a look.
So here is, well, this is my version of breaking down or chunking the language in this sentence.
The thing is about chunking is everyone does it differently.
However, basically you're gonna arrive at the same breaking points, the same points where you break down the text.
So it's more manageable, smaller parts.
So let's take a look at our sentence.
The red fox jumped, well, that's a logical unit. We have a red fox.
And what did it do?
Well, it jumped so red fox and jumped. They go together. Next over the log. Now, one thing about chunking is that prepositions are your friend. Or more like preposition phrases are your friends.
Group your preposition phrases together.
So we have over the log and next we have another prepositional phrase: to catch the cat.
We have "the red fox jumped over the log", which all goes together.
It's a complete thought basically.
That all goes together in the preposition phrase. And then "to catch the cat," another propositional phrase.
We broke down a sentence of about 10 words into only three logical units.
Is it faster to read 10 words one word at a time, or is it faster to read only 3 logical units?
And that's the advantage that chunking gives you.
Three logical units, three chunks of language, and now you should be able to understand the sentence even better.
Of course, this is a simple sentence, but the concept is the same.
Practice this during your TOEIC preparation.
Have a pencil and paper and mark with a pencil the logical units of a sentence. Chunk the sentences.
Get used to chunking the sentence and you will read faster. And that will help you build comprehension and that is gonna help you to do better on the TOEIC Reading test.
COLLOCATIONS
Number two: Build up your collocations.
Well, besides having a good reading habit during your TOEIC preparation, another thing is build a vocabulary, build a stronger vocabulary.
You may think your English vocabulary is strong right now, but it probably could be stronger.
Let's look at one aspect of that, and that is collocations.
Again, we're back to chunks.
Collocations are chunks of the English language that naturally go together.
If you can remember these chunks of the language, they'll help you in your speaking and your writing, and also yes, in your reading as well.
We were just talking about chunking words to help understand the reading text even better.
I have two examples of collocations that often confuse students, especially if your language is one of the Romance languages like Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese.
In those languages, or at least of the languages that I know.
The word for "to do" or "to make" is one word.
And so their collocations with that one word causes difficulty if that person is studying English, because in English we divide up the words for "to do" and "to make."
Sometimes when I am helping students to, to do better on the TOEIC exam when it comes to collocations, there is sometimes confusion between at least these two types of collocations.
So for example, to do, always think of to do as tasks:
to do the dishes, to do homework, right?
These are chores, these are tasks that no one really wants to do. They collocate with the verb "to do," " to make."
Now, when you think of, to make, first of all, if it's not a task, it's going to be "to make" right ?
Always think of "to make" as the end of a process.
For example, to make your bed.
You have to fold the quilts. You have to rearrange the pillows. It's a process, so you make a bed, not do the bed, you make the bed.
Also to make a speech,.
You have to write up the speech. You have to type the speech. You have to create this speech.
Another process: to make a speech.
So those are some good ways to diffuse the confusion between the collocations of to do and to make.
Bottom line, you want to make sure that you build up your strength of collocations for the TOEIC Reading and Listening test.
Before we move on to point number three, as I mentioned earlier, I wrote the textbook 41 Things You Wish You Knew about A High Score for TOEIC Listening and Reading.
And the three things we're talking about today are drawn from that textbook.
You can pick up your own copy of that textbook to boost your TOEIC Listening and Reading at bit.ly/41toeiclrd2d.
Make sure that you have this textbook to help you to study for a high score on the TOEIC Listening and Reading exam.
CONJUNCTIVE ADVERBS
Finally, our third point today: conjunctive adverbs.
Conjunctive adverbs?
What is conjunctive?
Well, think of a junction. What is a junction? A linkage.
So conjunctive adverbs sometimes are called linking adverbs, and these are very helpful to know about on the TOEIC reading tests, especially Part 6, where you have to do sentence or text completion.
Think of the conjunctive adverbs as linking ideas, linking ideas that are showing a relationship between two sentences.
Let's take a look at an example.
Here are some examples of conjunctive ad verbs.
However, eventually, consequently, finally and for instance,.
These are only a small part of the conjunctive adverbs.,
Keep in mind what is happening here is the linking of the ideas in the sentences.
In a TOEIC reading, you have to complete a sentence that's missing a conjunctive adverb.
For example, we can prevent the spread of Covid ___; we can wash our hands and cover our mouths.
Now, multiple choice, therefore, for instance, and however,. Now which conjunctive adverb would you choose?
For instance, right?
Why?
Because you're given an example and you're linking, preventing the spread of covid with its two methods of doing so, washing your hands and covering your mouth.
Therefore, you use the conjunctive adverb "for instance" to link the ideas in this sentence and that would be the correct answer.
Make sure you review your conjunctive adverbs during your TOEIC preparation.
Well, we covered our three points.
Chunking for reading, building up your collocations. Number three, be aware of conjunctive adverbs.
If you're preparing for the TOEIC Listening and Reading test, get the maximum score possible.
Take the test once and [00:12:00] move on.
To help you do that, I invite you to subscribe to my TOEIC Listening and Reading blog at bit.ly/toeiclrblogs.
Every two or three days, you receive a new tip or resource that's going to help you to improve your score on the TOEIC Listening and Reading
Thanks for being with me today.
Now you can use these three things to help you to boost your score.
I'm Professor Winn, author of the englishlanguagetestprep.com blog.
Good luck on the TOEIC Listening and Reading test.
Good luck studying to improve your vocabulary and get that score that you need on the TOEIC Speaking and Writing exam.