TOEFL Reading Factual Information Questions
This is the workhorse question of TOEFL Reading — most passages carry three to five of them. You're asked to find and confirm a specific fact, detail, or piece of data that the passage states directly. The answer is always in the text; you're not being asked to interpret anything.
What This Question Looks Like
"According to paragraph 2, why did the price of the mineral rise sharply after 1850?"
How to Answer It
- Match keywords from the question to the paragraph first, then read that sentence and the one before/after it — the answer rarely sits in isolation.
- Wrong options usually take a true detail from elsewhere in the passage and attach it to the wrong cause or event. Check that the reason given actually belongs to the fact asked about.
- Don't pick an answer just because it's a true statement — it has to answer the specific question asked.
The Trap Most Students Fall Into
The most common wrong answer swaps cause and effect, or borrows a real detail from a different paragraph and pastes it into this question's context.
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