In the exercises of Unit 1, you will practice answering skim reading questions, guessing word meanings from context, looking for the main idea, and writing outlines. All exercises help you enhance your reading comprehension of the fact sheet readings. 

Skim Reading Questions:

There are two types of skim reading questions in this unit: multiple choice questions and true or false questions.  To complete the task, you have to first read the instructions very carefully.  Then browse (not study) the questions very fast so that you have a general idea of what you are expected to answer.  Next, skim read the fact sheet reading in question. At this stage, do not pause to study the vocabulary or listen to the audio clips; otherwise, you slow down your reading speed and can never improve your reading skill. After finish browsing the online text, answer the questions without looking back at the text. 

Looking for the Main Idea:

This type of exercises gives you hands-on opportunities to try an important skill called looking for the main idea. In your supplementary material, you can locate the instruction on how to identify the main idea of an essay or a paragraph. Here, for your convenience, let us give you quick tips about the skill. 
First, read the first paragraph of an essay. Then read the last paragraph of the essay; usually this paragraph gives you a summary of the overall essay. Next read the first and last sentences of the rest paragraphs called body paragraphs; these sentences usually point to the main ideas of the paragraphs. Finally, identify one sentence in the introductory paragraph that contains all of the main ideas of the body paragraphs. This sentence is called the thesis statement which reveals the main idea of the entire essay. 

Outlining:

Outlining exercises in this unit serve as a demonstration that helps you understand how to prepare your outline for the presentation of your reading project. You can also learn synthesis skills from outlining exercises.

Crossword Puzzles:

The crossword puzzles are designed to help you review the vocabulary you learn from the fact-sheet reading articles. There are two formats for this exercise -- versions in Word format and in html format. Please try to fill in all the blocks according to the clues. You can check whether your answers are correct or not in the html version by first filling words in the blanks and then click the "check" button. To access to the onlne interactive crossword puzzles, please click here.