General English Level 6 Version 2.1 © 2004 acl Pty Ltd GELEV6 Unit 03 Topic 02.doc UNIT 03 Changing jobs TOPIC 02 Changing work BEFORE YOU READ – DICTATION 1. Close your books. 2. Follow your teacher’s instructions.  SPEED READING 01 Changing the way we work How fast can you read? Speed reading is an excellent way for you to improve your reading speed and your comprehension. There are two speed reading activities in General English Level 6. Your teacher will explain how to do these activities. Introduction to speed reading For speed reading activities you must be able to do two things: read fast and understand what you have read. Speed is important when you are reading in many situations, where you have a lot to read and not much time, for example, in exams. Speed reading – in fact any kind of reading - involves three stages: skimming (reading for gist), scanning and reading for detail. The first stage involves reading the whole of the text very quickly to get a general understanding of the content. This is called skimming or reading for gist. In the second stage you should read the questions and then read the text again. It is still not essential to remember everything you read. This is called scanning. This means looking for specific information. Look at this question The Happy Chef is  a) a type of food  b) the name of a restaurant  c) a very happy cook  d) the name of a dish To answer this question you would read quickly through the text looking or scanning for key words such as happy, chef, food, restaurant, dish. Finally, in the last stage you may be asked questions that are more specific. In this instance you need to read more carefully and pay more attention to the content and context. This is called reading for detail. Look at this question. In the sentence, ‘I don’t know why I’m feeling so blue today.’ What does the word ‘blue’ mean?  a) depressed  b) very rare  c) pornographic 70