Reading Competencies Tested on Standardized Exams

The reading competencies expected of a college student may be divided into two categories: literal comprehension and critical comprehension. In this instructional program, the generally accepted skills of reading comprehension are listed along with examples to better describe them. You are likely to improve your score on any reading test by working through this section before you take the exam.

Reading competencies are usually divided into two broad categories:

• Literal Comprehension

• Critical Comprehension

The literal comprehension skills are directed at the actual words written by the author. They are:

• Selecting the topic sentence of a paragraph

• Identifying the main idea of a passage

• Identifying the supporting detail of a passage

• Determining the meaning of words by context

The critical comprehension skills are directed at the reasoning employed by the reader to go beyond the ideas of a passage and make certain inferences or conclusions about them. They are:

• Recognizing the author's purpose and tone

• Identifying the author's overall organizational pattern

• Recognizing explicit/implicit relationships between words, phrases, and sentences

• Distinguishing between facts and opinions

• Detecting bias

• Recognizing valid arguments

• Drawing logical inferences and conclusions