MICHAEL: Hi, I'm Michael from ETS. Today on Inside the TOEFL Test, we're going inside the TOEFL iBT Reading section.
Specifically, the Insert Text questions. The Insert Text questions are designed to show that you understand the logical order of ideas in a reading passage.
In the reading section, every reading passage has one Insert Text question. But instead of choosing from a list of 4 choices, like with most Reading questions, you will click on one of the 4 black squares to insert the text into the paragraph.
During the real test, you can change the location of the sentence as many times as you need to, so you can see how it works in each of the four places. Here's a sample Insert Text question, and the corresponding paragraph.
Note that the sentence says "This is the criterion. . ." And it's important to look for pronouns.
The pronoun here is "this," so there is probably something about a criterion in the previous sentence. If we insert the sentence at square number 4, the previous sentence talks about "the standard criterion," and the following sentence says "Yet an equally important criterion".
So that's a likely choice. And when you read those sentences together, the sentences do flow logically.
So this is the correct answer. One tip for improving your reading is to really know your pronouns, and to practice matching them to the words they refer to in a text.
Here are a few of the most common pronouns that you will see when you read. There are lots of ways to improve your English skills.
Whatever you do, keep practicing. And good luck on your TOEFL test.
