Proficiency in Listening and Reading Comprehension (PLRC) book is intended to help pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced learners of English who are preparing for proficiency examinations, such as English Prep Exemption Tests, ERASMUS English Proficiency Exams, TOEFL (ITP, CBT & iBT), TOEIC Exams, (New) YDS, e-YDS & YÖKDİL Exams, IELTS, CAE, FCE & PTE Exams, English Proficiency Exams for Army Personnel and General English Proficiency Exams. It can also be used in classroom teaching sessions or/and can be a self-study book for mastering English Language Proficiency.
The content of the book is so designed that it ensures a steady and rapid progress toward mastery of advanced structure of English, the skills of listening and reading comprehension and target oriented vocabulary practice.
In chapter one, advanced reference grammar practice covering ten major sections of the English Language grammar are presented with specific examples and supported with tests and exercises. In the end of this chapter a GATE (Grammar Achievement Test in English) test is given.
Chapter two contains a listening part that covers three main sections: intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced. In each section every listening comprehension passage is reinforced with comprehension questions. The passages contain nearly thirty different topics ranging from economy to military and are made up of forty-two comprehension passages and fifteen paragraphs. To ensure the learners' listening comprehension, almost three hundred questions are given. All the passages in this chapter were professionally recorded by two native speakers of English. The purpose of this is to make learners familiar with actual pronunciation and intonation of the English language.
In chapter three, specifically chosen reading comprehension passages are given in four separate sections: intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced and authentic. In each section, the passages are reinforced with comprehension questions and the vocabularies related to the passages are given as well. The learners may benefit from these specific words and expressions to overcome the difficulties while reading. However, some words may have more than one meaning, so the learners are strongly advised to use an English dictionary. Due to practical reasons, the passages are designed from intermediate to authentic. The purpose of this is that the learners can improve their understanding by beginning from simple to complex. The authentic passages were not necessarily edited because with such practice learners are expected to read newspapers, magazines and journals more easily.
In this chapter, sixty seven passages are given in almost thirty different topics. In this completely revised edition, recent happenings in the world such as terrorist attacks to World Trade Center are given through original news magazine language. To update the reading section, some passages are extracted and some new ones are inserted. And some of the passages are reinforced with TOEFL and YDS type questions.
Word practice is an indispensable part of such a book. Chapter four covers academic, scientific, social and exam type vocabulary. Various exercises and tests are given. Most confused and misused words are covered as well.
Chapter five is the testing section. Three proficiency tests with listening questions and four screening tests and a general English proficiency test are given. This chapter is so deigned that learners will be able to self evaluate themselves in listening and reading comprehension progress after studying the referred section of the book.
In general, this book focuses on the learners' Listening and Reading Comprehension ability and intends to enable them to be successful in two skill-based proficiency examinations.
In preparing this book, wide range of references, such as text books, science books, vocabulary books, test books, newspapers, magazines, and journals have been chosen with utmost care and the passages have been selected within this range.
In the appendix, the answers to the tests and exercises in the book are given and the tape scripts of the listening comprehension tests are included.
