The methods help the 12th graders at Trieu Son 3 high school do multiple - Choice reading comprehension exercises quickly, effectively

1. INTRODUCTION 
1.1. The reason of selecting the topic 
In the trend of globalization today, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored because it is widely used everywhere in the world. Along with the development of technology, medicine, engineering and education, English plays a very important role. Therefore, learning English becomes even more necessary than ever.
When learning English, besides acquiring the ability to communicate, reading skill also plays an integral part in learning process. Reading not only helps students expand vocabulary but also learn grammatical structures in a natural way.
In the State’s high school graduation examination, it is reading skill that is one of the skills tested and it accounts for 20 percent of the entire marks. That is to say having a good reading skill is very necessary.
At Trieu Son 3 high school, for most of the students, they find reading comprehension especially important yet most challenging one. When doing this kind of task, students often start reading the passages immediately, even translate them into their mother language whereas the passages are often long and difficult with a lot of new words. Because of lack of a suitable method to answer each kind of questions, students do not have enough time to complete their task or choose the answer at random. On the other hand, students do not have many chances to do this kind of tasks because most of the passages in the textbook 10, 11, and 12 – basic – only ask students to read the passages and then answer the questions. Consequently, most of them do not recognize each type of questions and even do not know what the requirement of the question is. Due to these reasons, students often get poor result when doing this kind of exercises. On teaching reading skill, especially multiple choice reading comprehension to the 12th students at Trieu Son 3 high school I have found that classifying each kind of questions to find out the answer quickly, accurately and adapting the textbook to give students more chances to practice doing this kind of tasks are very important in teaching reading skill. 
The above reasons have inspired me to conduct my initiative with the title "The methods help the 12th graders at Trieu Son 3 high school do multiple-choice reading comprehension exercises quickly, effectively".
1.2. Objectives, tasks, methodology and scope of research
1.2.1. Objectives of research 
1.2.1.1. For the students
- Provide learners with an overview of how to deal with the multiple-choice reading comprehension exercises.
- Help learners know how to identify each kind of questions and the best way to cope with it.
- Apply the methods in my research to do the multiple-choice reading comprehension well.
1.2.1.2. For the teachers
- Find out the most effective methods to improve students’ reading skill in general and the multiple-choice reading comprehension in detail.
- Know how to stimulate students to improve their reading skills.
1.2.2. Research tasks 
- Find out the reason why most of students cannot do multiple-choice reading comprehension tasks well.
- Apply my research to teaching practices, then compare, contrast the implementation of the topic. 
- Evaluate and conclude the effectiveness of topic.
1.2.3. Research methodology 
I write this topic based on:
- The method of studying theory.
- The method of investigating.
- Applying the topic to real teaching English at Trieu Son 3 high school. 
- Comparison, collation and summary of the result, effect of the topic.
1.2.4. Scope of research
I mainly focus on:
- It is about effective methods to reading comprehension skills.
2. PROBLEM SOLVING
2.1. Rationale and reality
2.1.1. Rationale 
According to Williams (Williams, E. (1984). Reading in a Language Classroom. London: Macmillan. ) The role of reading in learning a foreign language learners can practice the language they met through listening and speaking. Language that students get through reading can be reused for writing skills, or students can interpret the meaning of the reading to obtain the necessary information for them. That is to say, to have good reading comprehension skills is very important. For 12th graders, it is more important because having a good reading skills is one of the core elements to help them achieve high marks in the examinations.
2.1.2. Reality
During learning process, students at Trieu Son 3 high school have complained that reading comprehension in general, and multiple-choice reading comprehension in detail is extremely difficult because this skill not only asks students to read the text but also processes it and understands its meaning. I have found that when doing this kind of tasks, most of them get bad result. I wonder what the reasons are. At the beginning of the first semester - school year 2014 - 2015, I conducted a small survey with 84 students in 2 classes - 12H3 and 12H4 - to find out the ways they did the test and why a lot of them got bad result, and I got the result:
The reasons
Percentage
1. I don’t understand the passage at all and this kind of exercise is unfamiliar to me.
70%
2. I spend time reading and translating the passage into Vietnamese.
69%
3. There are too many new and unfamiliar words in the passage.
63%
4. The passage is too long in comparison with the time allotted. 
45%
5. I don’t know how to answer each kind of questions.
73%
6. I try my best to identify each question, then scan and skim the passage to find out the answer.
4%
From the above table, we see that the majority of the students do not have good reading skill. Most of them feel anxious, overwhelmed when facing multiple-choice reading comprehension exercises containing many of the new words, and too long. Therefore, they are not only difficult for good students but also far more difficult for average and poor students who only take GCSE examination.
Besides, when doing this kind of exercises, the large number of students often focus on the translation of readings without focusing on understanding the main content of the passage, identifying each type of questions and the best ways to cope with them. They often worry about reading and translating more than understanding the requirement of each kind of questions or answering questions given below readings in advance. They have no skill to scan, skim the phrases, sentences, clauses in the passage. This makes them have no enough time to answer the questions correctly, resulting in getting bad marks when doing reading comprehension multiple choice task.
More important, students find it unfamiliar when doing multiple-choice reading comprehension exercises because in the textbook Tieng Anh 10, Tieng Anh 11, and Tieng Anh 12, most of the reading passages often simply ask students to read the passages and then answer the questions followed. Therefore, students always have many difficulties in choosing best option as doing multiple-choice reading comprehension tasks.
2.2. Measure implementation
2.2.1. The adaptation of the textbook.
During my teaching process, I have adapted reading passages in the textbook - especially textbook Tieng Anh 12 – Basic - to make them similar to the ones appearing in the State’s high school graduation examination. Take the reading passage in Unit 3 – Ways of socializing – Tieng Anh 12 – Basic as an example:
To attract someone's attention so that we might speak to that person, we can use either verbal or non-verbal forms of communication. Let us look at non-verbal communication in English. Probably the most common way of attracting someone's attention is by waving. For example, if we are at a noisy party and see a friend come in the door about 20 metres away, we might raise our hand and wave to her as a signal that we see her.
But how hard can we wave in a situation like this? Suppose you are at the airport, and you see your brother get off the plane and begin walking toward you. If you are excited, you might jump up and down and wave as hard as you can to attract his attention. This is the instance where big, obvious non-verbal signals are appropriate. 
There are, however, some social situations where smaller non-verbal signals are more appropriate. In a restaurant, for example, if we want to attract the attention of our waiter, we have several choices. We can wait until he passes near us, catch his eye, and nod slightly to let him know we would like him to come to our table. Or we can raise our hand slightly to show that we need assistance. We do not whistle or clap our hands to get the person's attention. That is considered impolite and even rude.
In most social situations where some informality is allowed, a brief raise of the hand and a small wave is fine. For instance, if you are walking across the schoolyard and see your teacher approaching you, a small friendly wave to attract his or her attention is appropriate.
Once you've got your friend's attention, you shouldn't point at the person or thing you want her to look at. A slight nod will do. Pointing at someone is usually considered rude. Of course, there are times when pointing is perfectly acceptable, such as when a teacher wants to get someone's attention in class. The teacher often points to the student and says, "David, would you read the next sentence, please?" Pointing here is not impolite; it's simply a way to get someone's attention.
Question 1: Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A. Some Social Situations in Attracting Attention 
B. Attracting Attention by Waving 
C. Attracting Attention: Non-verbal Cues 
D. The Best Ways of Attracting Attention
Question 2: The passage indicates that we can use either verbal or _____ communication to attract someone’s attention. 
A. signal B. non-verbal	C. appropriate 	D. simply
Question 3: According to the passage, what is considered the most common way of getting someone’s attention?
	A. raising one’s hand	 	B. pointing 
C. waving 	D. clapping one’s hands
Question 4: What can we infer from the 2nd paragraph?
	A. It’s hard to wave at the airport.
B. We can use verbal form of communication to attract our relatives’ attention at the airport
C. To attract someone’s attention at the airport, waving is not appropriate.
	D. We shouldn’t jump up and down to attract someone’s attention.
Question 5: According to the passage, you can jump up and down and wave as hard as you can to attract your brother’s attention ______.
	A. at the airport 	B. in a restaurant 
C. at a noisy party 	D. in the schoolyard
Question 6: The word “he” in the 3rd paragraph refers to_______.
	A. the waiter	B. the brother	C. the friend	D. the teacher
Question 7: The word “approaching” in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. coming nearer to 	B. catching sight of 
C. pointing at 	D. looking up to
Question 8: Which of the following is NOT true?
 	A. We can raise our hand slightly to attract the waiter’s attention.
B. A small friendly wave to attract the teacher’s attention in the schoolyard is 
acceptable.
 	C. The teacher can point at a student in class to get his/her attention.
 	D. Pointing at someone is usually considered polite.
Question 9: The word “rude” in the passage most probably means ______
	A. polite	B. suitable	C. disrespectful 	D. courteous 
Question 10: Which of the following is TRUE?
A. To attract someone’s attention, we had better point at the person or thing you want her to look at.
B. To attract a student in class, teacher often points to him/ her.
C. You can clap your hands to get the person's attention.
D. It’s not rude to attract someone’s attention by whistling
Or the reading passage in Unit 13 – The 22nd SEA GAMES – Tieng Anh 12 – Basic:
The 22nd Southeast Asian Games were held in Vietnam from the 5th to 13rd December, 2003, Although it was the first time Vietnam hosted such a big sport event, the Games were a great success. The Games really became a festival that impressed sports enthusiasts with its spirit: solidarity, co-operation for peace and development.
Athletes from 11 participating countries competed in 32 sports, and 444 gold medals were won. Some teams such as table tennis, badminton, karatedo, volleyball, basketball and wrestling were composed of top competitor in the region. Many Games records were close to international levels. Vietnam won 158 gold medals to finish at the top of the Southeast Asian Games medal standings. Thailand was ranked second with 90 golds, and Indonesia was third with only 55 golds. Singapore and Vietnam were the two nations which had participants who were presented with the Most Outstanding Athlete titles in the Swimming and Shooting events. The Vietnamese Women’s Football team successfully defended the SEA Games title. The Men’s Football team won a silver medal. In other sports such as karatedo, athletics, bodybuilding and wushu, the young and energetic Vietnamese athletes performed excellently and won a lot of gold medals.
Vietnam’s first place finish was not surprising. Firstly, to prepare for the 22nd SEA Games, Vietnam carried out an intensive programme for its athletes, which included training in facilities, both home and abroad. Secondly, with the strong support of their countrymen, the Vietnamese athletes competed in high spirits. The country’s success has proved that Vietnam can organize sporting events on an international level. A plan has been proposed for Vietnam to host the Asia Sports Games at some point in the future.
Question 1: The 22nd SEA Games were held in Vietnam from ____________
	A. the 5th to 13th December, 2003	B. the 13th to 15th December, 2003
C. the 5th to 13th November, 2003	D. the 13th to 15th November, 2003
Question 2: Which of the following is TRUE about the Games’ spirit?
	A. solidarity and co-operation for peace
	B. co-operation for peace and development
	C. solidarity, co-operation for peace and development
	D. solidarity, co-operation and development.
Question 3: Thailand was ranked second with ____________
	A. 158 golds	B. 55 golds	C. 80 golds	D. 90 golds
Question 4: According to the passage, Singapore and Vietnam had participants who were awarded the most Outstanding Athlete titles in ____________
	A. the bodybuilding and shooting events
	B. wushu and swimming events
	C. the Swimming and Shooting events
	D. karatedo and athletics
Question 5: The word “hosted” in the passage could best to replaced by ________
A. organized 	B. impressed 	C. participated 	D. defended
Question 6: It is stated in the passage that a plan has been proposed for Vietnam to host the Asia Sports Games ____________ 
A. next year	B. at some point in the future
C. in 2015	D. in 2020
By adapting reading passages in the textbook, teacher can help students:
- have a general understanding of multiple-choice reading comprehension tasks;
- helps students become familiar with multiple-choice reading comprehension exercises;
- improve students’ reading skill by doing this kind of tasks.
In addition to this, I have encouraged my students to learn new words through not only each lesson but also each exercise they did. In each period, I have spent five minutes asking my students to write the new words they learned in the last lesson. I read the Vietnamese meaning of the words and all students have to write down the English words in their notebook of vocabulary with their books closed. After that, I ask 5 students to hand in their notebooks, then I give feedback and marks. By this way, students have to learn new words by heart and I can check their learning new words process at home in a relatively short time. Moreover, when teaching new words, I find their synonyms as many as possible, which helps students easily answer the question about new words. For example, the synonym of the word “disaster” is “catastrophe”; the synonym of “delay” is “hold up” By this method, my students could enlarge their new words gradually, which helps them do not only all the tasks easily but reading comprehension tasks as well.
2.2.2. Answering each kind of questions 
2.2.2.1. General skill
- Read the question first. Read the question, not the answer choices. When you know the kinds of questions you must answers, it will be easier to find the answers.
- Skim or read the passage quickly. Do not read word for word or in detail. Read quickly to find the main idea and general organization.
- Go back to the passage to answer questions. If you know the answer, you do not need to go back to the passage.
- Leave the difficult questions until last.
- Take a guess when you do not know the answer: If you do not know the answer, take a guess. When you are taking a guess, first use a process of elimination. How can you eliminate the wrong answer on a multiple-choice item? All multiple-choice questions follow the same principle. There is one stem and four answer choices. One choice is correct, and the three choices are distracters. In other words, they distract you, or take your attention away from the correct answer. 
One of the distracters is almost correct, and the other two are more clearly incorrect. You can eliminate these two clearly incorrect choices. If you cannot decide between the almost correct answer and the correct answer, take a guess. You may have an intuitive or unexplained feeling that one answer is correct. Use your intuition when you cannot decide. If you do not know the answer and do not have a feeling about the correct answer, use a guess letter (A, B, C or D). Use the same letter to answer every item you do not know. Using the same letter will give you a better chance to get a correct answer.
- Answer all questions. Never leave any items unanswered. If you have no time left, use your guess letter.
2.2.2.2. Skill for each type of questions.
2.2.2.2.1. Answer main idea questions
- How to identify the question:
	What is the topic of the passage?
What is the subject of the passage?
What is the main idea of the passage?
What is the author’s main point in the passage?
With what is the author primarily concerned?
Which of the following would be the best title?
- Where to find the answer: The answer to this type of question can generally be determined by looking at the first sentences or the last ones of each paragraph.
- How to answer the question:
+ Read the first line or the last line of each paragraph.
+ Look for a common theme or idea in the first lines or the last line.
+ Scan quickly over the rest of the passage to check that all ideas in the rests of the passage support the idea given in the first/ the last sentences.
+ Eliminate any definitely wrong answers and choose the best answer from the remaining choices.
Students should leave this type of question until last because they will get general idea of the passage when doing the other ones. At that time, it will be easier for them to choose the best answer.
* Example: 
My mother is a very caring woman. She takes the responsibility for running the household. She is always the first one to get up in the morning to make sure that we leave home for school having eaten breakfast and dressed in suitable clothes. In the afternoon, after hospital, she rushes to the market, then hurries home so that dinner is ready on the table by the time Dad gets home. (Unit 1 – Reading - Tieng Anh 12 – Basic)
The main idea of this passage is that
 A. A caring mother	B. A kind mother
C. A bad mother	D. A beautiful mother
* Answer: The main idea of the passage is that the woman tries her best to take care of her children and her family. Moreover, we can see “caring woman” in the first sentence, and the ideas of the others support idea in the first line. Therefore, the correct answer is A. 
2.2.2.2.2. Answer stated detail questions
- How to identify the question: 
According to the passage
It is stated in the passage
The passage indicates that
Which of the following is true..?
- Where to find the answer: