TOEFL Reading Sentence Simplification Questions
A dense, often long sentence is highlighted in the passage, and you choose which of four shorter sentences best captures its essential meaning. This question doesn't appear in every passage, but when it does, it tests whether you understood the sentence as a whole rather than just isolated words in it.
What This Question Looks Like
"Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence?"
How to Answer It
- Identify the core subject and main claim of the highlighted sentence first, and mentally strip out modifying clauses, examples, and qualifiers.
- Reject any option that adds information not in the original sentence, or that leaves out one of its two main ideas if it had two.
- A rewrite that changes the meaning even slightly — reversing cause and effect, or overstating a claim — is wrong even if it reads smoothly.
The Trap Most Students Fall Into
Options that are grammatically correct and read naturally, but quietly drop half the original sentence's meaning or add a detail that wasn't there.
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