Reading · Skimming + spotting key words
If you read a passage carefully word by word from the start, the time runs out before you touch the later questions. It is worse if you stop at one unknown word. Reading scores split on the power to pick what to read, not the power to read everything.
After this card, you will know skimming and key-word strategies for finding answers without reading every sentence closely, and how to divide your time.
You always run short of time in reading. Which habit best protects your score?
The purpose of the reading test is to see whether you can find the information you need quickly, not whether you understood the whole passage. So reading every sentence with the same effort actually costs you. Choosing where to put effort and where to let go is the core of reading strategy.
If you look at the question and choices before the passage, you read knowing what you must find. Then you skim unrelated parts quickly (scanning) and slow down only where the answer lies. Reading from the start with no target and reading to find something with a target take completely different amounts of time.
There are always unknown words in a passage. If you stop each time, the whole sentence collapses. Instead, mark the word as □ and move on, guessing its meaning from the sentences around it. As long as you do not miss the connectors (그러나, 따라서, 예를 들어, meaning however, therefore, for example) and the repeated key words, you can grasp the flow and the answer even without a few words.
If one question takes too long, you lose whole later questions you could surely have gotten right. When you pass the time you set for one question, mark it and move on; that favors your total score. Secure the easy questions first, then come back to the hard ones with the time left over.
Your reading score comes from the power to pick what to read, not the power to read everything.
TOPIK reading measures finding needed information, not finishing the text. Read the question and choices first to set a target, skim the unrelated parts, and slow down only where the answer lies. Do not stop at unknown words; pass them by context, and secure the easy questions first rather than clinging to one question, which protects your total score. On the Minimum Pass Track, secure the questions you can get right through time allocation and skimming; on the Full Score Track, fill in unknown words and phrases with close reading.