ICFE Teaching Resources

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Reading Skills in the ICFE Reading Paper

We read in many different ways depending on the text we are looking at and our purpose in reading. At B2 and C1 levels, candidates are expected to show a wide range of reading abilities and the exam is designed to test a selection of these.

Reading Abilities

In general learners at ICFE level should be able to:

• understand a wide range of demanding finance-related texts including extracts from finance and accountancy text books and reference books, articles from financial journals, financial correspondence and other documents, company financial statements and annual reports and web pages (re-reading where necessary)
  
• quickly identify the content and relevance of texts in the context of international finance
  
• understand complex opinions and arguments
  
• read quickly enough to cope with a course of financial study at university level
  
• scan quickly through long and complex texts to locate relevant details
  
• identify finer points of detail including implied attitudes and opinions

Reading Strategies

The abilities outlined above are reflected in the ICFE Reading paper (Parts 4-6). Candidates must employ specific strategies and learned skills to demonstrate understanding at the paragraph or whole text level and not just at sentence level.

Strategy or skill	Tested in
Form an overall impression by skimming a text	All parts of the paper
Retrieve specific information by scanning a text	Part 4: Multiple matching
Interpret text for inference and attitude	Part 6: Multiple-choice
Demonstrate understanding of text as a whole	Part 5: Gapped text
Select relevant information to perform a task	All parts of the paper but particularly Part 4: Multiple matching
Demonstrate understanding of how text structure operates	Part 5: Gapped text
Deduce meaning from context	All parts of the paper

Learning Reading Skills

Most of the skills that we need for reading are closely linked to using the right reading strategies. Encouraging learners to experiment with reading strategies in their wider reading can help to develop their general reading abilities and skills.

Reading Strategy	Reading Skill Development
knowing why you are reading and what to look out for	selecting the right parts of the text to read linking questions to specific parts of the text
highlighting / boxing / underlining text and questions	relating text to questions, especially when referring back to check answers excluding irrelevant information
pacing your reading - slowing down for difficult sections	ensuring that correct answers are not rejected just because they are more hidden in the text understanding more difficult syntax / lexis
mixing skimming and scanning	applying the right strategy to the right task
writing / making notes as you read	sifting and selecting the right information
silently talking the text back to yourself (at the end of each paragraph, for example)	summarising / forming overall impressions and understanding of the text as a whole
making a note of and exploring any confusion	deducing meaning from context
checking the style of the language (such as use of discourse markers)	recognising the text type through common patterns
bringing your own world knowledge to your reading	recognising the text type and reading faster
anticipating and predicting	reading faster, scanning or skimming more efficiently