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Preview a longer text

Doing a very quick preview of 1.5 minutes.
Alarm clock showing 1.5 minutes
© University of Groningen

So far you learned that Step 1 – previewing – is a very important step, and in the previous exercise you could practise this with a short text. But now it’s the moment to practise with a longer text!

You can teach yourself to not start reading and studying right away, but to preview your study material beforehand. A preview gives you an overview of the material before you actually start studying. Just remember: You don’t need to understand the material at the previewing stage.

Assignment

You are going to practise previewing with a longer text below.

  1. Make sure you have a blank sheet of paper at hand so you can jot down any words from the text that you think are important.
  2. If you don’t know what certain terms or words in the story mean, don’t worry, you don’t need to know.
  3. Set a timer for 1.5 minute (= 90 seconds). That’s how much time you’ll have to identify the subjects that will be discussed in the whole text!
  4. Ready, get set, preview!

Good luck!

In the following video you can see how our students got on and we’ll show you an example of a good preview.

© University of Groningen
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