SCANNING AND SKIMMING

TECHNIQUES
 Scanning & Skimming
2

 How Much Do You Have to Read?

 How to get through the vast amount of reading given
for each course
 How to cover whole pages of text without having to
read every single word

The technique has basically two parts:

1. efficient scanning
2. recognizing the main points of a text
 Scanning
3

 Scanning rapidly covers a great deal of materials in

order to locate a specific fact or piece of
information
 Scanning is very useful to find a specific name,
date, statistic or fact without reading the entire
article.
 Efficient Scanning
4

 Take the key words and phrases to follow the

general sense of the passage.
 Nouns and verbs tend to be content words

rather than the grammatical words like articles

and prepositions.
 11 Escape in Crash
5

1. What crashed?
ELEVEN …… lucky………..
…landing ……….. Maredy 2. How many passengers were
….Wednesday. …………… there?
……Cessna ……………….. 3. Were they hurt?
…damaged ………………… 4. Where were they going?
….survived without ………. 5. What did the Director of the
….Injury. ….…... scheduled Civil Aviation Authority
….…. Wye ….. Rambak, say yesterday?
…………..director …………
6. When is the investigator
yesterday……… investigator
going?
….. safety department……..
already …. determine ……… 7. Why?
 11 Escape in Crash
6

ELEVEN passengers had a lucky escape when

their light aircraft crashed on landing at a remote
strip in Maredy on Wednesday. The plane, a
Broadens Airways Cessna 206, was extensively
damaged – but the eleven passengers, including
the pilot, survived without a single serious injury.
The plane was on a scheduled flight from Wye to
Rambak, where it crashed. Civil Aviation director
Mr Steven Woods said yesterday an investigator
from the air safety department had already flown
into the area to determine the cause of the crash.
 Several factors help you
7

a) Whenever you scan a text, you should be looking

for things that you don’t know. Don’t waste your
time reading things that you know already!
b) You should have clearly in your mind the reason
why you are reading the text.
c) If you ask the initial question ‘What do I expect to
learn from this passage’, you will have a very
much clearer idea of what you are looking for.
 SKIMMING
8

 ‘To skim’ means to go quickly across the

surface of something, without going deeply into
it.
 In reading, ‘skimming’ means going quickly
through a book, chapter or paragraph to see
what the main subject is or what the main
subjects are.
 It is very important to know how to skim when
reading. If we can not skim, we will take a lot
of time reading texts which are not much use to
us.
 Paragraph 1
A. Tells us where the University of
The University of
Lancaster is in a rural setting Lancaster is
B. Tells us where the city of
9 in the country three miles
South of the centre of Lancaster is
Lancaster. C. Tells us about the University of

It is easy to get to Lancaster

Lancaster quickly by road or Paragraph 2
A. Describes how far away Lancaster
rail. London is three hours
away by train. Manchester is from other places
and Liverpool only an hour B. How easy it is to travel to
by motorway. Lancaster from other places
The University is in a very C. Tells us how far Manchester and
beautiful position. On one Liverpool are from London
side there are fine views of Paragraph 3
the sea and the River Lune, A. Describes the beautiful city of
and on the other the Penine Lancaster
Mountains. Away in the far B. Explains the geography of the
distance rise the mountains of University
the Lake District. C. Describes the beautiful location
where the University is
10

BANGKOK.
A. Bill on fisheries ready
A Thai Airways Boeing
737 commercial jet on a B. Dollar tumbles in
special New Year’s run, U.S.A.
crashed into a hill last C. Bus crash kills ten
night killing all eleven D. New Year disaster in
persons on board. Thailand
11

JAKARTA. A. Afro-Asian youths to

Over 70,000 telephones attend
will be installed in communications
seminar
Jakarta over the next
B. Aviation talks end
three years, said without agreement
Achmad Tahir on
C. Phones in Indonesian
Friday. He said top capital to be increased
priority would be given D. Priority to be given to
to this task. rural development
12

PEKING. A. China pledges aid for

About a hundred Papua New Guinea
people were killed or B. Vietnamese troops
injured in an cross Thai border
earthquake Thursday C. Quake in Yunnan
near Kunming in causes deaths.
Southwest China
D. Earth tremors felt in
according to the
Bogor
national news agency.
13

BANDUNG. A. Indonesian and Chinese

FMs talk about trade links
Indonesia Foreign
B. Chinese Foreign Affairs
Minister Mochtar Minister assures Hong
Kusumaatmadja and Kong residents
his counterpart Wu C. Bandung meeting a great
Xiuquen of China success
D. Afro-Asian unity
discussed direct trade essential for future
between their nations. progress.
14

STOCKHOLM. A. Heart disease world’s

The first non- biggest killer
American person to B. Plastic heart recipient
receive a permanent doing well
artificial heart C. U.S. doctors to visit
remained in a good hospitals in Sweden
condition in Sweden’s
D. Intensive heart-care
Karolinska hospital.
unit to be opened soon
15

LAS VEGAS.
A. ‘Ban boxing’ says women
Marvellous Marvin medical associations
Hagler knocked down
B. Las Vegas to improve
Thomas “Hit Man” hotel standards
Hearns at 2.01 mins C. Hagler stops Hearns in
in the third round of third round
the World D. Fighting broke out in Las
Championship fight Vegas last night
last night.
16

KUALA LUMPUR. A. Jamu Air Mancur

The Malaysian banned in KL
Government has B. KL bans import of
banned the import Chinese oranges
from Indonesia of a C. Poison found in
backache cure saying imported fruit
that it contains toxins D. Air links between KL
substances. and Jakarta to increase
17

The Director General A. Drug-taking a major

problem in many
for Drug and Food countries
control, Dr. Midian B. Local medicine too
Sirait, has denied expensive
that locally made C. Minister wants to train
medicines are more local pharmacists
expensive than D. Local medicines not
imported remedies. expensive says D.G.
18

A. Telecom co-operation
BANDUNG. with Malaysia
PT Inti has B. New Malaysian
constructed six more Ambassador to
Indonesia
satellites in Malaysia
under a five year C. Spy satellites not the
answer to controls
contract.
D. New electric power
station for central
Java
19

A. Bali quake causes panic

DENPASAR.
B. Indonesia working on
An earthquake quake research
shook parts of the
C. Earthquake rocks
island on Sunday Manado
morning causing D. Sulawesi not completed
great alarm but no free of tremor
casualties.