Skimming and Scanning

People scan a text when they want to find ________ information.

• important

• different

• specific

Getting the main idea of a text by glancing over it in a short time is called ________.

• cramming

• skimming

• scanning

Which of the following does NOT involve skimming?

• reading the initial sentence in each paragraph

• looking quickly for words you're not familiar with

• looking at photographs in an article

• reading the first and last paragraph in a newspaper article

People are NOT scanning a text effectively when they ________.

• look for content words or visual clues

• read blocks of words

• know what they are looking for

• read every word in a text

People who find it helpful to use their _______ to guide their eyes would probably not find it easy when scanning text on a computer screen.

• eyes

• finger

• head

• knowledge