WHAT IS THE AUTHOR’S MAIN PURPOSE IN PARAGRAPH 4

5. What is the author’s main purpose in paragraph 4?a.To show how Lawson’s improvements made bicycles popular.b. To show how innovative Lawson’s design was.c. To show how dramatically bicycle designs have changed.d.To show why bicycles are so popular today.Determining Meaning from ContextOf course, during the TOEFL exam, you won’t be allowed to use a dictionary. So how will you figure out whatunfamiliar words mean? And how can you fully understand what you are reading if you don’t know all thewords? Fortunately, by looking carefully at context—the sentences and ideas surrounding an unfamiliar word—you can often figure out exactly what that word means. The vocabulary questions in the reading compre-hension section of the TOEFL exam do test your knowledge of English vocabulary—if you know the wordin question, you often don’t even need to consider the context. But vocabulary questions are also designedto test your ability to use context to determine meaning. That’s because this is an essential reading compre-hension skill. Even if you are completely fluent in English, you will come across unfamiliar vocabulary wordsin your reading. And familiar words may have meanings with which you are not familiar. You will need con-text to figure out what those words mean in those situations.So let’s look at an example to see how you can use context to determine meaning. Read the sentencesbelow carefully and actively.By the end of the day, I was famished. I’d skipped breakfast and had only eaten a pear for lunch.What does famished mean? a. famousb. very tiredc. very hungryd.impatientThe context here clearly suggests answer c,very hungry. The second sentence tells us that the speakerhad no breakfast and very little lunch. It’s safe to conclude, then, that famished has something to do with eat-ing (or rather, not eating). Famous may sound like famished, but nothing in the passage suggests that famishedhas anything to do with being famous—or with being tired or impatient, either.When you come across unfamiliar words, then, your job as a reader is to look for context clues that canhelp you determine what that word means. Here’s another example:I am so angry! The autographed picture of Michael Jordan turned out to be bogus. The manwho sold it to me had signed it himself!Bogus most nearly meansa. fake, falseb. believablec. interestingd.expensiveHere, the second sentence gives us the clue we need to figure out what bogus means. Because the manwho sold the picture “signed it himself,” we know that it’s not really Michael Jordan’s autograph on the pic-ture. Therefore, the autograph is a fake, and ais the best answer. It may also have been expensive, but thereare no context clues to suggest that meaning.Tips for Vocabulary QuestionsWhen you’re trying to determine meaning from context on an exam, two strategies can help you find the best answer: