MICHAEL: Hi, I'm Michael from ETS. Today on Inside the TOEFL Test, we're going inside the TOEFL iBT Reading section.
Specifically, the Sentence Simplification questions. Sentence Simplification questions ask you to identify a sentence that has essentially the same meaning as a sentence from the reading passage.
The correct answer choice contains the main ideas from the sentence in the passage but may leave out minor or unimportant details. It should restate the most important information in a simpler way.
Sentence Simplification questions are easy to recognize because the wording of the question is always exactly the same: "Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the following sentence?
Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information." The highlighted sentence will have both essential and non-essential information.
Your job is to pick the answer choice that best includes the essential information and leaves out the non-essential information. Answering this type of question will require you to understand the relationship between the pieces of information in the sentence.
Often, there is an important cause/effect relationship, or there may be a conclusion based on some evidence. So look for those same ideas in the answer choices.
Here's an example of a sentence simplification question from a passage about meteorite impacts and dinosaur extinction. This type of question can be challenging, because all of the answer choices will contain words or phrases that are similar to ones in the given sentence.
For example, 3 of the answer choices talk about the explosion, 3 talk about fires, and 3 mention the destruction of plant life. So, can you identify the correct answer?
It's A, because all of the important information is aligned with the given sentence. Both the given sentence and choice A talk about the large amounts of nitric acid and melted rock that were the result of the explosion and that started fires that destroyed plant life.
