Georgia Highlands College - Academic Support RFRT Online Tutorials

TUTORIALS
Introduction • The tutorials help you practice reading and thinking through the various kinds of passages and questions on the Regents' Reading Test (RRT). • There are literal, vocabulary, inference and analysis questions on the RRT. You can practice all these in the 8 passages in the tutorial. • For explanations of the 4 types of question, click "more" in the center column below. • For hints and tips for answering questions, click the passage name under "Tips," below. Directions 1. To practice, click the passage title. The passage and questions appear. 2. To answer a question, click the box next to your choice. 3. To see why your choice is right or wrong, be sure to read the explanation in the yellow box above the questions. 4. To go on to the next question, you must get the current question correct, so keep trying each choice until you get it right. 4. To see your total score, look in the yellow box above the questions when you have answerd all the questions correctly.
• Literal questions		Tips
Passage 1: "Sleep" Passage 2: "Automation"	Literal: Recognizing information and ideas presented explicitly in passages. (more...)	Passage 1 tips Passage 2 tips
• Vocabulary questions
Passage 3 : "Communication" (10 questions)	Vocabulary: Identifying the meanings of words as they are used in passages. (more...)	Passage 3 tips
• Inference questions
Passage 4: "Reading the River" Passage 5: "Holmes"	Inference: Synthesizing and interpreting material that is presented in a passage. (more...)	Passage 4 tips
• Analysis questions
Passage 6: "Smoking" Passage 7: "Agenda Game" Passage 8: "The Power Game"	Analysis: How or why a passage is written rather than what a passage is about (more..)	Passage 6 tips

Content of the Passages

The Regents' Testing Program Reading Test is a multiple-choice test with 54 items and an administration time of one hour. The test consists of nine reading passages with five to eight questions about each passage.

The passages are from magazines (e.g., Newsweek, National Geographic), newspapers, literary works, and other written material that, in the judgment of committees of faculty members, all students receiving college degrees should be able to comprehend.

The passages on the test usually range from 175 to 325 words in length, treat topics drawn from a variety of subject areas (social science, mathematics and natural science, and humanities), and entail various modes of discourse (exposition, narration, and argumentation).

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More about the Questions

The questions on the test have been designed to assess the following four major aspects of reading:

Vocabulary: entails identifying the meanings of words as they are used in passages. The student may use context clues, structural analysis and/or a general understanding of the meaning of the passage to determine the meaning of a word.

Literal Comprehension: entails recognizing information and ideas presented explicitly in passages. Literal comprehension items require a student to recognize (1) details or facts, (2) a sequence of events, (3) a comparative relationship, (4) a cause and effect relationship, or (5) the referent for which a word or group of words has been substituted in a passage.

Inferential Comprehension: entails synthesizing and interpreting material that is presented in a passage. Inferential comprehension items involve the following skills: (1) identifying the main idea of a passage or paragraph, (2) inductive reasoning, (3) deductive reasoning, and (4) interpretation of figurative or other language.

Analysis: is concerned with how or why a passage is written rather than what a passage is about. In general, analysis items require inferences to be made about the style, purpose, or organization of a passage.

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