Read A, then look away
Read paragraph A once, to the end. Then take your eyes off it and write what it's about in five words. If you can't do that from memory, you skimmed.
CELPIP GymReading courseLesson 3 · Reading Part 3, reading for information
Match the idea, not the word
Part 3's statements rarely use the paragraph's own words, and the words they share are often bait. Four moves find the paragraph that holds the idea, or tell you none does.
6 minutes to read
BThe hippocampus swells every autumn.
Before winter, a brain area enlarges.
1
A five-word label per paragraph
Read the whole article once before you look at a statement. After each paragraph, write what it's about on your pad, in five words of your own. Give this about three of the ten minutes, which leaves about 45 seconds a statement. Scroll and watch four paragraphs become four lines.
Why it scores. Nine statements mean nine searches through four hard paragraphs. Labels turn each search into a glance, and putting a paragraph in your own words is the same paraphrasing the statements do.
Beats rereading the article nine times
Fold it and read on
B gets the same treatment. Once a label is down, let the paragraph go. You stop carrying its details, and the next one gets your whole attention.
Four paragraphs, four lines
C and D go the same way. Labels exist to tell paragraphs apart, so choose words only that paragraph could claim. A page of hard science is now four lines.
Hold the statement up to the pad
Here's the first statement. Don't go back to the article yet. Compare it with your four lines and pick the label it fits. One glance tells you where to look.
Open one paragraph and prove it
Now reread B alone, looking for the statement's idea in other words. Enlarges is swells, and before winter is every autumn. Every part has a bridge, so set the menu to B.
Each autumn a black-capped chickadee hides thousands of seeds, one to a crevice, in bark, lichen and curled leaves. It never uses the same hiding place twice.
Retrieving those seeds weeks later is a feat of memory. The hippocampus, which stores spatial information, swells every autumn as new neurons form, then shrinks again by spring.
Memory alone would not carry the bird through January. On long nights a chickadee lets its body temperature fall by as much as ten degrees, which conserves the fat it built up during the day.
Birds from harsher regions outperform their southern cousins. In trials, those raised where winters are severest found far more of their caches.
Before winter, a brain area enlarges.
The hippocampus … swells every autumn as new neurons form.
Before winter, a brain area enlarges.
Your pad
- Ahides seeds, one per spot
- Bmemory centre grows each autumn
- Ccools itself to save fat
- Dharsh winter means better memory
2
The repeated word is a decoy
When a statement and a paragraph share an unusual word, get suspicious instead of relieved. Your eye works like a search box: it finds the word and stops. Ask what the paragraph is doing with that word. Often the right paragraph never uses it.
Why it scores. Wrong answers here are built from words the article really uses, in the wrong place. A match on meaning survives that. A match on a word doesn't.
Beats the shared-word trap
Birds from the coldest places have the best memories.
memory2 matches
- A
Hides thousands of seeds, one to a crevice.
- B
Retrieving those seeds is a feat of memory.
Says memory is needed. Nothing about climate. - C
Memory alone would not carry the bird through January.
Moving on to how it survives the night. - D
Those raised where winters are severest found far more of their caches.
No match at all, and the right paragraph.
3
Bridge the synonyms
When a label sends you to a paragraph, prove it. Take the words that carry the statement and build a bridge from each to the paragraph. Four kinds turn up again and again: the same meaning, a general word for a specific one, not plus an opposite, and a verb turned into a noun.
Why it scores. A statement paraphrases its paragraph, so matching shapes can't show the link. Requiring a bridge for every key word stops a half match from passing.
Wins the hard-vocabulary statements
The statement says
The paragraph says
- enlarges
- food
- does not stay large
- a drop in temperature
- seedsA general word for a specific one
- shrinks againNot, plus an opposite
- lets its body coolA verb turned into a noun
- swellsThe same meaning
4
Not given is a real answer
Split the statement in two: what it's about, and what it claims. One paragraph has to hold both. If the topic is everywhere and the claim is nowhere, choose Not given and move on. Expect it more than once in a set, and watch for comparisons and causes the article never quite makes.
Why it scores. These statements are written about the article's subject, so they feel familiar. Checking the claim on its own stops familiarity from choosing a paragraph for you.
Beats the sounds-true trap
Birds that hide more seeds tend to live longer.
| Paragraph | Hiding seeds | Living longer |
|---|---|---|
| A | hides thousands | nothing |
| B | finding them again | nothing |
| C | nothing | nothing |
| D | finding caches | nothing |
E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.
The usual trap: using each letter once
There are nine statements and five choices, so letters repeat and a paragraph can answer several. Never cross one off because you've already used it.
A
B
C
D
E
The clock, spent well
10 minutes3 minutesRead all four paragraphs, and label each in five words.
7 minutesNine statements, about 45 seconds each. Mark any you're unsure of and keep going.
Quick hacks for Part 3
Smaller than a move, and just as easy to forget on the day.
- PadTally the letters as you go
A to E across your pad, and a tick under each as you answer. A letter with no ticks, or one with five, deserves a second look.
- MarksE five times? Look again
Not given tends to be right once, twice or three times in the nine. If you've chosen it more often, some of those are paraphrases you missed.
- ClockPlace the easy ones first
The menus can be set in any order while the clock runs. Every statement you place makes the rest of the article more familiar.
- WordsA hard word is often explained beside it
Science writing defines its terms: after a comma, an or, a dash, or known as. Read to the end of the sentence before you worry.
- If it slipsTwo paragraphs fit? Check the verb
Both mention the subject. Only one says what the statement says happens to it: increases, prevents, causes.
Take this into the test
- 1Five words per paragraph before any statement.
- 2Shared word? Check the idea before you trust it.
- 3Topic without the claim is Not given.