How to improve your English scores

1. Try to expand your vocabulary and master common phrases

There is no doubt that the improvement of reading ability is inseparable from the recognition and mastery of English vocabulary. Vocabulary is the basic component of discourse. The vocabulary contained in an article in a junior high school English textbook and a news report in the New York Times is certainly very different. Without a relatively large vocabulary, learners will feel that there are new words everywhere when reading some difficult articles or books, and they will hit a wall everywhere. It will be difficult to grasp the meaning of the article, and there will be many problems in understanding. , it is impossible to read the article smoothly. On the basis of mastering vocabulary, you must also master the usage and meaning of commonly used phrases such as so as to, so long as, in order to, to sum up, for in-stance, not so…as…, rain cats and dogs, etc. . Although these phrases are composed of simple words, the meaning they express is also very important for the understanding of the article.

Vocabulary is as important to improving reading skills as bricks and tiles are to building a house. Without building materials such as bricks and tiles, a house cannot be built. If the vocabulary is too small, it is impossible to read English articles, let alone understand them. Therefore, in order to improve our reading level, we must learn to continuously accumulate new vocabulary and expand our vocabulary. What kind of words should be memorized and what kind of words should not be memorized? This also needs to be treated differently. Never memorize words randomly, no matter what kind of words are used to memorize them. This is especially true for beginning English learners. Many people believe that the larger the vocabulary, the better, and the more vocabulary they can remember, the better. In fact, the problem is not that simple. There are hundreds of thousands of English words, and the more commonly used ones number between 50,000 and 60,000. Even the common vocabulary of ordinary people in English-speaking countries is only ten to twenty thousand. We don't have to memorize all the English words, and it's impossible. For English learners, choosing a better dictionary is very important. This will allow you to understand which words are commonly used and which words are rarely used. For example, the Macmillan English Dictionary highlights the 7,500 most commonly used words in red based on the corpus. We should focus on mastering these words, because these words appear most frequently. No matter what we do in the future, these can be regarded as the foundation. vocabulary. In addition, you should determine the basic vocabulary that must be mastered at this stage based on your English learning goals at a certain stage, and then gradually expand the scope later. The amount of English vocabulary required by junior high school and high school students is different. The vocabulary required by the College English CET-4 and CET-6 is also different. Before mastering the basic vocabulary at this stage, it is meaningless to blindly pursue memorizing "advanced" words and difficult words, because those words are rarely encountered, and even if they are memorized, they are of little use. Therefore, you must be selective when memorizing words, focusing on commonly used words and words that you should master during your own learning stage. There is no need to memorize some very uncommon words and words that are far beyond your own level. There is no need to memorize many proper nouns such as names of people and places unless they appear frequently.

There are many ways to memorize vocabulary. For example, we can prepare a small vocabulary book, copy the new words we want to remember in the vocabulary book, and attach phonetic symbols, parts of speech, example sentences, etc. If you want to understand a new word accurately, it is best to write down the English explanation of the word. You can carry the vocabulary book with you. You can take it out and read it when you have time. Make more use of the fragmented time to memorize it. Continuous repetition of the memorization will deepen the impression of the memorized words. In addition, you can also read more extracurricular English articles or literary works that are equivalent to your own English level. Try to guess new words based on the context when encountering them. For new words that appear more often, you can look up the dictionary and copy them in the notebook you carry with you. In a small notebook. When you have free time every day, take out the vocabulary book and memorize it. This is not time-consuming and the effect is very good if you memorize it repeatedly.

2. Master the grammatical rules and connect with the context

It is true that improving reading level simply by improving vocabulary is not enough. Even if we know every word, we are not guaranteed to understand the meaning of the sentence. This requires us to master the grammar rules and analyze the structure of the sentence. Grammar is the rules for combining words into sentences and then into chapters. But there is no point in learning grammar purely for the sake of learning grammar.

For English learners, grammar is just an indispensable auxiliary system. Many of the problems we encounter in learning English can be answered in grammar. For example, when to use some or any, when to use a/an or the, etc. To understand sentences with complex structures and difficult to understand, we must master the rules of grammar and analyze each sentence to grasp its main stem. Mastering English grammar and being able to skillfully apply your English grammar knowledge to English reading practice are the basic skills that must be possessed to improve reading comprehension.

Vocabulary and grammar are the basic elements that constitute an article, but it is necessary to grasp the content, central idea, author's meaning of the entire article as a whole, and pay attention to the context, and pay attention to the relationship between sentences, paragraphs, etc. To understand the relationship between paragraphs, one must be good at understanding the implication and grasping the style and characteristics of the article and the author's tone and attitude. Don't understand word by word or translate sentence by sentence. When you encounter a new word, don't rush to look it up in the dictionary. Instead, guess the meaning based on the context or word formation. Even if the meaning of some new words cannot be guessed, as long as it does not affect the understanding of the full text, you must look it up in a dictionary. But when you encounter keywords that affect your understanding, you can quickly look them up in the dictionary. Without paying attention to the context and grasping the article as a whole, no matter how large the vocabulary is or how good the grammar is, the reading ability will not be greatly improved. When we read, we should focus on understanding the main idea of ??the full text and find the meaning suitable for the context of the article among the many meanings of a word. We also need to adopt corresponding reading methods and techniques according to the different themes and forms of the articles. For example, narratives with strong storytelling can find key sentences based on the progress of events and understand the main content of the events; argumentative essays with perspective can quickly grasp the main context of the article by focusing on the first paragraph, last paragraph and central sentence; and expository essays can quickly grasp the main context of the article. You should pay attention to the main methods and different angles mentioned in the article.

Some people will encounter this situation when reading: they know the words and can understand the sentences, but they are not impressed after reading the article. This is because the understanding of the article frame structure is not deep. When reading, pay attention to the title of the article and the first paragraph of the article. The title of the article is the theme of the article, and the content of the article revolves around the theme. The first paragraph is more important. It often introduces the main idea of ??the article and points out the author's intention and background in writing the article. The central sentence of each paragraph (usually the first sentence) is also very important, because the central sentence is the topic sentence of each paragraph, and the entire paragraph is stated or discussed around the topic sentence. The last paragraph of the entire article is often the conclusion of the article or the author's intention in writing the article. So when we read an article, when we see the title of the article, we should stop for a moment and think about what the article is about and how it will be written. Then you will read it with interest. Then, as you read on, pay special attention to the first and last sentences of each paragraph, and remember them carefully. In this way, when reading the full text, you can not only grasp the main content, arguments, and arguments of the full text, but also learn the author's logical reasoning methods and skills. And the framework structure of the entire article, that is, the conception of the article.

3. Improve reading speed

There are so many English materials. How to quickly find the information we need in the huge English materials is very important for English learners in their future work and study. Very important. Even from an exam-taking perspective, it is necessary to improve reading speed. After all, the exam time is limited and it is impossible to spend too much time on each article. If the speed is too slow, it will be difficult to read all the materials, which will inevitably affect the answer time.

To improve your reading speed, you can carry out targeted training in speed reading, such as using timed reading methods to practice how to search for the information you need most from a large amount of information. For this reason, learners should choose some quick reading materials to read, or use ordinary reading test questions as training materials. It is very important to control the reading time. Use relevant skills to do the practice questions at the end of the article immediately after reading to check the accuracy of your understanding. Learners can take a certain amount of time every day to conduct training in this area according to the actual situation, and then carefully analyze their own problems in reading speed and comprehension accuracy, and take corresponding countermeasures. If you read quickly but your comprehension accuracy is low, you should slow down accordingly. If the comprehension accuracy is very high, the reading speed can be further improved. Generally speaking, it is normal for the speed reading training comprehension accuracy to reach 70%-80%.

We each have a reading speed that we feel is natural.

The training of speed reading is only for yourself. There is no need to compare with others, just constantly defeat yourself. But one thing must be remembered: increasing reading speed is never at the expense of accuracy of comprehension. There's no point in going fast if you can't understand and remember what you've read. In addition, we cannot require that all articles be read at the same speed. In fact, there are many factors that slow us down in reading, such as familiarity with the topic of the article, the number of new words, the complexity of the sentence structure, etc. What we need to remember is that our reading speeds vary with different types of reading materials. Mastering the essence of speed reading is how to ignore redundant information and remember the important information.

To improve reading speed, two reading abilities are indispensable: skimming and searching.

Skimming is also called browsing. The key is to read as fast as possible, understand the main idea and theme of the article by browsing the full text, and have an overall concept of the structure of the article. When skimming, you should pay special attention to the beginning and end paragraphs of the article, the first and last sentences of each paragraph in the article, as well as the means of connecting chapters and the signal words in the text, because they are often the most important information about the content of the article. A concise summary.

Reading is a way to quickly find a specific fact or a specific piece of information from a large amount of information, such as a person, event, time, place, number, etc., without flattering the irrelevant parts. A quick way to skip and not read. Reading is high-speed reading. Its reading speed can be ten times the common reading speed, and can exceed 2,000 words per minute. Reading is usually done after understanding the general meaning of the article. Use to find the information you need accurately. By using search, readers can skim through as much printed material as possible in the shortest time and get the information they need. For example, you can use this method to check a certain date, name, place, number, etc. in the article.

4. To overcome bad reading habits

To improve reading speed while ensuring accurate understanding of the article, it is necessary to overcome some bad reading habits, such as: speaking out loud Reading, pointing with hand or pen, translation reading, repeated reading, etc.

Reading aloud often manifests itself in different forms. Some people like to read aloud while reading, while others just move their mouths silently. Sometimes they don’t even move their mouths, just their tongues. , The throat is moving. This way of reading virtually affects the brain's thinking speed. Reading aloud will limit reading speed and efficiency by speaking speed, because normal silent reading speed is almost twice as fast as reading aloud. If you focus on reading aloud, you will naturally lose sight of the meaning of what you are reading. In fact, an efficient reader can just see the printed symbols and directly understand the decisions expressed by these symbols without going through the sound stage. Therefore, in order to overcome this bad reading habit, we must train ourselves to develop the ability to directly perceive literary symbols through our visual organs. The sole purpose of reading aloud is to practice English pronunciation. If you are reading to understand the content, there is no need to read aloud.

Some people, worried about reading the wrong line, or in order to "concentrate", use their fingers or pen tips to point at the article and read it word by word, sometimes accompanied by constant nodding or using their feet to find the beat. These activities will inevitably affect the scanning speed of the eyes and the thinking of the brain, making it difficult for people to concentrate, thus slowing down the reading speed. An efficient reader does not pay attention to the position of words, nor does he spend an equal amount of time on each word, but focuses on the content of the idea that the author is trying to illustrate.

Translation reading refers to continuously translating sentence by sentence during the reading process, and assists understanding by translating into the mother tongue. This is also a wrong reading method, which will undoubtedly waste time and energy and greatly reduce the reading speed. Reading in translation is also detrimental to developing the habit of "thinking in English".

Another bad habit is to repeatedly focus on a word, phrase or phrase when encountering new words or unfamiliar phrases in reading, and sometimes even return to the beginning of the sentence or even the beginning of the paragraph to reread. Such repeated reading will interrupt coherent thinking, delay the opportunity for short-term memory, affect the overall reading speed, and even make people anxious and affect their normal performance. There are also people who have developed an inferiority complex about reading, that is, they think they will definitely not be able to read it the first time, so they repeat it many times and waste a lot of time.

All these four bad habits need to be paid attention to by English learners who want to improve their reading skills, and they should be avoided as much as possible. When reading, it is not about using both mind and mouth, but to concentrate and concentrate; it is not to read word by word, but to read coherently according to meaningful groups; it is not to use translation to help understanding, but to make the English words in the brain Directly produce meaning; we cannot stick to the understanding of individual words, phrases, and sentences, but should grasp the central idea of ??the entire text as a whole. Only in this way can the reading speed be accelerated and the accuracy of understanding improved.

In addition, there are other bad habits that need to be overcome when reading, such as subconsciously swinging the head from side to side, playing with pens, rulers, keys and other small objects, making noises from time to time, etc. In the process of reading, some people often try to use their eyes to focus on each word they are reading, and stay very close. This way, when he reads down a line, he will move his head slightly, and when he turns his head to read the next line, he will quickly turn back so that the tip of his nose is pointed to the left side of the writing. Readers are often unaware of this habit of moving their heads, and it is this unnecessary movement that greatly affects the reading speed. Therefore, we must overcome this problem and develop the habit of only moving our eyes when reading.

5. Do a lot of extensive reading

Learning English requires a lot of extensive reading. But few people actually do a lot of extensive reading. Many people just stick to the textbooks and test questions, without a considerable amount of extracurricular reading to match. In fact, the amount of reading in textbooks is far from enough for English learners, and is far from the amount of reading required to master a language. Although classroom teaching has always focused on cultivating students' reading skills, too much emphasis has been placed on the analysis and explanation of vocabulary, phrase usage, and grammar. In fact, classroom teaching cannot guarantee that students can achieve sufficient reading. This requires learners to spend more time outside class reading a large number of extracurricular English readings, cultivate a sense of English, and become familiar with the usage of English and related background knowledge. "Read 300 Tang poems by heart, and you can recite them even if you don't know how to compose them." A lot of study is a very effective way to learn a language well. Reading a certain amount of material can lead to a certain sense of language. In this way, you can reduce errors when using the language and learn a foreign language quickly.

To learn English well, you need to expand the amount of magazine reading, which has also been proven by practice. Generally speaking, people who learn English well have read a considerable number of English articles, newspapers, magazines or books. Only those who read more can truly learn English well. Although this principle is simple, many English learners may not do it. Nowadays, many people are very utilitarian in learning English. Their purpose of learning is just to pass the exam or get some kind of certificate. They are not willing to seriously expand their reading volume, but engage in question-based tactics. The result of this is often that although the exam is passed and the certificate is obtained, the actual English level has not improved much. There is actually no necessary connection between English proficiency, English scores, and English certificates. Especially in today's society, competition is becoming more and more fierce. More and more units value the ability to use actual English rather than grades and certificates. Therefore, it is necessary to lay a solid foundation down-to-earth and truly improve one's English ability.

So, how should English learners carry out extensive and extensive reading in daily life?

First choose appropriate reading materials

In order to read effectively, you must choose some reading materials that are suitable for your current English level. If you only have a high school level, you should not choose original English novels or English newspapers such as China Daily, because you will encounter many difficult vocabulary and it will be very difficult to read, and you will soon become discouraged and frustrated, which will lead to People who read become fearful and may even deny the progress they have made. In fact, learners with only elementary English proficiency can find many English materials suitable for their level, such as "English Newspapers", "Learning English", "English Counseling Newspaper", "21st Century Newspaper", etc. You can also choose some simplified English or abbreviated English classics with annotations. Nowadays, you can see many English reading materials in bookstores. You can choose them by yourself. The standard is that you can basically understand them without looking up the dictionary and using annotations.

Some large publishing houses in the UK that specialize in publishing student English learning books have many graded reading materials suitable for English learners of different English levels. For basic English, the Longman English series of readers are very good graded readers. Readers can choose the corresponding level of readers according to their English proficiency.

Second, cultivate interest in reading

Interest is the best teacher. In order to cultivate your interest in reading English outside class, when choosing reading materials, you should choose a reading book that interests you and is not too difficult. In addition, there are many English magazines for English learners that are loved by most English lovers because they are close to life, have lively language, and have a wide range of knowledge. You can subscribe to one or buy and read it regularly.

In order to cultivate your interest in reading English, you can also do targeted reading based on social hot topics or issues that people around you are concerned about, and see how to talk about these topics in English. If you increase your relevant knowledge by reading relevant English articles or books, or you can express your views on a certain topic in another language, the joy that others cannot understand.

In addition, an English reading book with comprehension exercises that is similar to or slightly more difficult than your textbook is also a good choice. The characteristic of this type of book is that the articles in the book are short, interesting and highly readable, because there are comprehension exercises after the articles. Readers can do these exercises after reading the articles to check whether and how much they have understood.

It is very important to choose materials (or books) that are vivid, interesting, attractive and stimulating to cultivate interest in reading. This type of book has the following unique characteristics: it is very readable, making people immediately have the desire to read, and once they start reading, it makes people unable to stop, so that people will not feel that learning English is a heavy burden; it is easy to Reading will not cause reading difficulties and will help expand knowledge and improve cultural literacy.

Nowadays, the Internet has become an important part of most people's lives. Readers can combine the Internet with reading and read more English short articles or English news online. If you persist for a long time, you will definitely gain big results.

Third, develop the habit of rapid and extensive reading

The focus of rapid and extensive reading here is on "fast", so you must pay attention to the reading speed. To read extensively a large number of articles and books covering different topics, you need to read quickly, as long as you understand and master the main content of the text. You should make a clear reading plan based on your own reality, and specify how much content you should read quickly and extensively every day or every week. The amount of reading can be more or less, but it must be practical and feasible. You can order an English newspaper. The newspaper has a large vocabulary and covers a wide range of knowledge. This is very helpful for expanding your vocabulary and obtaining information. Don't read articles that are too difficult. Just know the general outline. In addition, you can read everything related to English at any time. For example: the name of the unit in English, recruitment advertisements written in English by foreign-funded companies in newspapers, English instructions on food packaging, English signs in hotels, names of departments in hospitals, etc. In fact, English has penetrated into every corner of our lives. If you are willing, you can learn it at any time. For example, you can think about the abbreviations of the frequently mentioned English words WTO, whether the English sign of the toilet should be WC or RESTROOM, and what are the English names of the things you commonly use.

Fourth, pay attention to analyzing the characteristics of various types of reading materials

The purpose of reading articles is to obtain information. Different article genres will have different structural characteristics. Therefore, we should learn and understand the structural characteristics of various genres in order to locate the information we are looking for more accurately and quickly. There are three main types of reading comprehension articles: narrative, expository and argumentative. Narratives generally focus on telling stories or personal life experiences. The statements of events are usually followed by a certain concept of time, or in reverse order. The structural pattern of expository writing is easy to grasp. Generally, the explanation is based on proposing the explanation object, analyzing the explanation object from all aspects, and drawing conclusions or finding a way out. The argumentative essay mode is generally: put forward a point of view - make an argument - draw a conclusion. When presenting a point of view, the author will generally first put forward a generally recognized point of view or a claim or opinion recognized by some people, and then clarify and explain his own claim or opinion. This structural feature of argumentative essays determines that when reading argumentative essays, you must pay attention to the author's views and attitudes, analyze the main purpose of the article, and clarify the author's reasoning.

Grasping the important characteristics of articles of different genres will help readers to have a targeted focus when reading journals and improve reading efficiency.

In addition to grasping the genre characteristics of various articles, we must also summarize the characteristics of articles on various topics. For example, articles about environmental protection often talk about the continuous deterioration of the environment, analyze the causes of environmental deterioration, propose corresponding solutions or issue calls for environmental protection. After reading many such articles, you should analyze the main structural characteristics of this type of article, what are the main points, what vocabulary words often appear in the article, etc. Doing this will not only help you grasp the main content of similar articles as soon as possible in the future, but also help improve your ability to plan articles when writing.

Fifth, communicate more in English with others

After all, reading is to improve your knowledge reserve and is a "language input". When knowledge is enriched, there will naturally be a desire to communicate and share. Therefore, while expanding the amount of English reading, it is also necessary to conduct "language output", communicate in English with classmates, friends, and colleagues, talk about your own reading experience, or discuss a certain topic together. Because we have a lot of reading as a basis, we know many vocabulary and expression methods about this topic, so that the discussion can proceed smoothly and have a certain depth and breadth. In doing so, on the one hand, I exercised my English oral expression skills, and on the other hand, I consolidated the relevant knowledge accumulated through reading, killing two birds with one stone.

Sixth, keep summarizing and writing reading notes

While reading a lot and extensively, you should also pay attention to constantly summarizing your own experiences and lessons, write reading notes, and be familiar with what you read. Think analytically. As the saying goes: "A good memory is not as good as a bad writing." You may forget what you have read after a while. Write down your thoughts and experiences while reading. If you look back at it later, you will quickly recall it. The main content and viewpoints of the books or articles you have read, and find some regular things to guide your future reading practice. Reading notes can be long or short, but you must be careful to keep writing and not become a formality, otherwise they will not have much effect.

The above methods are all helpful to expand your reading volume. As long as you are willing to be down-to-earth and do it step by step, a large amount of and extensive reading will definitely bring you unexpected gains.

The cultivation of English abilities in all aspects is mutually reinforcing. Cultivating reading ability can also promote listening, speaking and writing abilities. In the process of reading, learners can deepen their grasp of vocabulary and grammatical phenomena by reproducing them, and develop the skills to express their thoughts with appropriate vocabulary, sentence patterns and grammar. Reading can increase vocabulary, expand knowledge, understand the customs, history, geography and other background knowledge of the country where the language is learned, and cultivate interest in learning English. It is also conducive to promoting the development and development of learners' intelligence, which will help them in their future work. Lay the foundation for further English learning. There is no end to learning, and learning English is no exception. As long as you build up the confidence to learn English well, master scientific and suitable learning methods, and keep working hard, your English level will continue to improve to new heights.

Summary

Learning must pay attention to methods, and the essential purpose of improving learning methods is to improve learning efficiency.

The level of learning efficiency is a reflection of a student's comprehensive learning ability. In the student era, the level of learning efficiency mainly affects academic performance. When a person enters society, he or she must continue to learn new knowledge and skills at work. At this time, a person's learning efficiency will affect his (or her) work performance, and then affect his or her career and future. It can be seen that developing good study habits and having high learning efficiency in middle school will be of great benefit to one's life-long development.

It can be said that people with high learning efficiency must be students with good academic performance (by implication, good academic performance does not necessarily mean high learning efficiency). Therefore, for most students, improving learning efficiency is the direct way to improve academic performance.

Improving learning efficiency does not happen overnight and requires long-term exploration and accumulation. We can learn from previous experience, but we must fully combine it with our own characteristics. Factors that affect learning efficiency include factors within learning, but more factors are outside learning. First of all, we must develop good study habits and make rational use of time. In addition, we must also pay attention to the cultivation of basic qualities such as "concentration, dedication, and perseverance." We must also have a deep understanding of our own strengths and weaknesses.

In short, "Nothing is difficult in the world, as long as there are people who are willing."

Hehe, come on~