Mastering Scanning: Your Secret Weapon for CELPIP Success!

Have you ever run out of time on the reading section of the CELPIP exam? If you have, you're not alone on the CELPIP reading test.

If you try to read every single word, you're setting yourself up to not have enough time to answer all of the questions, which means you're going to have a lower score on this section of the exam. The problem is that you're trying to read everything and. And because you're trying to read everything, you're just not finishing.

If that is something that you're struggling with, then I want to invite you to sit down and enjoy today's episode because we're going to be talking about the second half of the dynamic duo of skimming and scanning. Now, I've talked about skimming in another episode at length, so I'm not going to go into it in this one. Instead, we're going to focus on scanning.

So if you're looking for a way to make it through the reading section of the CELPIP exam, then this episode is going to be for you. Hi, I'm Aaron. Welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly. No, that's not what this is called anymore. Hi. Hi. Hi, I'm Aaron.

Welcome to the CELPIP Success Podcast.

This is the podcast where motivated English learners just like you learn how to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam.

You know, if you've been a regular listener to this podcast for the past two or so years, then you will know that I am using a different type of title now, the Self of Success Podcast. It used to be the Speak English Fearlessly Podcast.

And actually, if you were able to listen to all of my O takes, I don't know if I'm going to include them in this episode, but I am still getting used to that name.

I started to read my intro as the Speak English Fearlessly podcast because that is what I have been introducing this podcast as for the past two years. But since the last episode, maybe the one before that, actually, I can't remember, but since the last episode, I've decided to change my title.

And the reason, the main reason why is that I've just been thinking about what I've been putting out every week. The vast majority of the content has been becoming more and more focused on helping you get ready for the Self up exam.

And yes, we do talk about things that will help you to speak English fearlessly.

And I will continue to be talking about those things because, well, that's something that's really near and dear to my heart is helping you to speak English without fear. But I guess, like, the vast majority of my content has a lot to do with the CELPIP exam.

So I just kind of figured that I should make sure that the title is actually in line with what I'm talking about during each episode. So that's kind of like a little explanation about what's going on here. The reason why I changed the format of the podcast is not going to change.

The way I present things in the podcast is not going to change. The topics aren't going to change.

The only thing that's really changing is the title, just because I think it's more in tune with what I'm actually talking about. So, yeah, I hope that makes sense. That's just the main reason why I decided to change the name.

All right, so let's get on with today's episode because that's why you're here. You want to know about scanning. You want to know how you can do better on the reading section of the CELPIP exam.

And I want to, and I am excited to walk you through some of the things that I think it's going to make a big deal, a big change for you. And I've got to talk about good news here for you.

I think that many people, maybe even you, might fail to realize that you're already an experienced scanner. You're probably even an expert at it.

It's a skill that you use and that I use on a day to day basis, but we just never attach like an official name to it. Scanning. You don't believe me? Well, if you've ever engaged in any or all of these activities, I bet you have done at least one of these.

But I'm willing to bet you've done all of them. Then you're already using your scanning skills. So here's the first thing.

Have you ever looked for a name, maybe your own, in a long list of other names?

Have you ever had to find a friend's name or your own name, like say for example, on a special event list or at a school, say, for where you're when you're hunting for your grades? I remember doing this when I was in university. Our professors would post our grades on this big long list.

It was, I don't know how many students we had in our grade, probably over a hundred. Even then it wasn't a grade, it was in university, what am I saying grade for?

But in this university, they would post our grades in this big long list. And they didn't use names, but what they did use was our social insurance numbers. Not the whole number, just the last four digits.

And in order to find out what our grade was, we would have to take the last four digits of our social insurance number, go up to this big massive page and scan through it looking for our number. And when we hit that number, that's where we would find our grade. So you had to scan for those four digits to find what you were looking for.

And actually, just yesterday at work, I was scanning through a three page printout of names trying to find a certain person that I needed to deliver a card to. So, yeah, we use scanning all the time when we're looking for our own name or, or other people's names in a big long list.

I bet you've done that at least once in your life. Or how about this one? Looking for a phone number. Phone books are largely a thing of the past, thankfully. Have you ever used a phone book?

I grew up with them and it's as boring as it sounds. It's just this massive book filled with phone numbers.

And if you were trying to call a certain business or a friend and you didn't have their phone number written down, you would open up this big book, you would go to the alphabetical location in the book of your friend or the business that you were trying to find, and you would just start to scan through looking for their name. It was a big slow process. Thankfully, like I said today, we don't use that too much.

We just Google it, or we have it already in our contact list in our cell phones. But you probably do need to use your scanning skills with your cell phone.

And if you're looking for a number, I mean, I've had this happen to me several times where I have multiple calls that come in on my cell phone during the day, some of which have names attached to them. So I don't need to really do too much of scanning.

But there's a lot of other numbers that come in that are not registered or they don't have someone's name attached to it.

And I might just remember, you know, the, the time that the nut that the call came in, or I might remember, you know, the first few digits of the, of the number that came in.

So I'll have to scroll through those list of numbers until I find the time roughly when that call came through or the number that I vaguely remember what it was. I will be scanning through those numbers until I find the one that I'm looking for. Have you ever tried to do that? Or how about this one?

This one we do quite a bit of actually.

If you're looking for a popular restaurant on Google, have you ever used Google Maps to find a restaurant that has a certain review rating or that offers a certain kind of food, or that has a certain price point? For my work, I need to do this all the time because I help to organize bus outings for the residents that we serve every month.

And so I am always looking on Google Google Maps. Google. I almost say Google. And I just said Google. I meant to say Google Maps.

I am always looking on Google Google Maps to find restaurants where we can take our residents on bus trips.

But I'm always looking for certain things like a certain price point, a certain star rating, just to make sure that it's something that our residents will enjoy.

And I don't know if it's the same as where you live, but often when I go, when I type in restaurants near me, I get this long list of places that I could choose from. So I will scroll through looking for a certain number of stars, a certain number of dollar signs to let me know how expensive that place will be.

And when I find a spot that looks like it could be a good fit, then I'll stop scrolling and I'll press the button, press the link, and explore that restaurant a little bit more closely just to see if it's what I'm looking for. So those are just three ways that maybe you use scanning on a regular basis. And you could probably think of other ways where you use scanning.

But the truth is, we use our scanning skills all the time. But like I said a moment ago, we just don't think of what we're doing as scanning.

We just think we're looking for a name or a phone number or a place to eat. But in reality, we're using one of the most important and powerful tools to succeed on the reading section of the Celpip.

Alright, so to scan effectively, you need to become a keyword hunter. You need to become a keyword hunter. Scanning is not reading every word.

Remember, I've said this before already in this episode, but reading every word is a time trap. You're drastically reducing your chances of finishing on time if you try and read the entire article of the exam. You don't have to and you shouldn't.

Instead, when you're scanning, like I said a moment ago, you're hunting. You're hunting for details such as names, dates, locations, statistics, places.

And all of these keywords are found in the question itself, that's what you're hunting for. Here's an example. If the question asks, when did the program XYZ start?

And I couldn't come up with the name of a program, so I'm just, you know, coming up with a random program xyz, the word when is giving you a hint. It's telling you that you're probably, probably going to be looking for a date.

And it also gives you another keyword, the name of the program, Program xyz. In this weird and wonderful example, you can take those two keywords. You're looking for a date, and you're looking for program xyz.

And you'll jump over to the article and let your eyes quickly float through the text. And every time you come up on a date, if you see a date being mentioned inside the text, slow down and read around it.

Or if you see program XYZ being mentioned, slow down and read around it. Hopefully you're going to find a date and program XYZ relatively close together.

And if you do, there's a good chance that you're finding or that you have found the answer that you're looking for. So scanning depends on a keyword. Scanning depends on you having something that you're looking for in the text.

And as I was explaining, when you're scanning, you're moving quickly. You're not reading every word. You're quickly allowing your eyes to move in a zigzag pattern through the text as you search for your keyword.

And I was already kind of explaining how this works. But when you do find that keyword, you need to slow down. That's.

That's when you slow down, and that's when you start to read carefully around that keyword to see if that sentence or if that paragraph is actually pointing to the answer, if it's giving you the answer that the question is asking you about. All right, so here are some bonus scanning tips. This is probably the most important thing. It's kind of like a mindset shift for you.

Trying to read the entire article feels like it's the point of the reading section of the celvip. It feels like that's what you're supposed to do, but in reality, it's not.

Reading the whole thing feels like the right thing to do because you're used to reading the whole thing to do well on most tests you've encountered in school up to this point. But this is not the case on the celbip. Reading the entire article. I've said that before it's a time trap, so don't fall for it.

Skimming and Scanning to pull out key information the exam is asking you about is the point, and it's where you're going to get your score from not reading the whole thing. The second thing that I want to give you as a bonus tip is that you need to know where to look first.

Today's episode is focused on the skill of scanning, because I've covered skimming pretty well on a previous episode, which I'll link to in my show notes.

But skimming should be the first thing that you do, and it's where you quickly read the title, the text in bold that you find in the article, and the first line of each paragraph. This will hopefully give you a general idea of how your article is organized, which is going to help you to know where to begin your scanning work.

So always begin with taking a minute or two to skim before you scan. The next idea for you is One at a time. You need to look for the answers to only one question at a time. Scan separately for each question.

Like don't try to do more than one question at once. Do it one at a time.

And when you locate a keyword, read the surrounding text carefully to see if it is relevant and then reread the question to determine if the answer you found is an actual fit for what you're looking for. And this tip comes from an article that I found over at Butte College.

Their website is going to be linked into the show notes today, but you can read up on that if you would like to check it out a little bit more. So only look for one answer at a time. Don't try to combine them. Next, and this is these next two points are really important.

First, beware of trick phrases.

Be on the lookout for words or phrases or ideas that look right are the same keywords as in the question, but are actually talking about something completely different in the context.

In other words, what those keywords or phrases are being used for in the article may have nothing to do with what the exam is asking you about, but if you don't slow down to check it out and read it first, you might get tricked into choosing that as an answer. So when you do find a keyword, don't immediately choose it. Double check in the context and the next really important one is sort of similar.

But Beware of sneaky synonyms. Train yourself to recognize a synonym. You most likely will be working with them a lot.

In the reading section of the exam, you're probably not going to find too many instances or examples where the question the keywords in the question are going to be the exact keywords that you find in the article itself. They're probably going to change that up and get you looking for something that means the same thing as what is found in the question.

For example, if you're looking for when something started, you might find similar wording in the article where they're saying where they're talking about when something launched. Or if you're looking for when a building was built, it might be talking about when it was constructed inside of the article.

If you're hunting for a problem, for example, you might find it being talked about in the article as challenges or issues. You see what I mean? Very often this will happen to you on the reading section of the exam.

You'll be looking for one thing and end up finding a synonym of it inside the article itself. So get used to doing that. You don't need to read every single word in order to succeed on the reading section of the CELPIP examination.

Scanning smartly is your secret weapon to saving time and scoring higher on the celpip. And if you like this episode, if you found it helpful, you're going to love the CELPIP Success School.

As a member you'll develop the reading skills we talked about today as well as speaking, listening and writing skills all focused on the celpip. You can say goodbye to wondering if you're doing the right thing to prepare for the exam.

Because inside the CELPIP Success School, I'll help you go step by step as you practice the skills you most need. Members also enjoy the power of community. You don't have to prepare for your exam alone anymore.

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As a member you will have access to our weekly live group coaching calls where you can get your questions answered as well as enjoy hands on practice with the skills you need to master for the test and you'll have one on one access to me for support as we work together towards your goals. Best of all, for a limited time you can gain access and save big at the same time until the end of June.

That's June 30th to join and save 70% off the regular price. But this deal is going away at the end of the month and I'm going to be changing my prices as well as the services that I offer.

These changes will apply to new members who join after June 30th. Current members will continue to enjoy the great low price and service they already have. And you can too.

Just go to celpipsuccess.com listener and join today. You'll save 70% off the regular price if you join before June 30th. That's celpipsuccess.com forward slash listener.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you again next Tuesday. Bye bye.