Reading

PERIOD 1

Week 1 (August 11 - 17)

During this week, I read the interesting articles: "JENNIFER AS SELENA: RETHINKING LATINIDAD IN MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE", written by  Frances R. Aparicio.

Also I start reading the book "Fifty Shades of Darker", written by E.L. James. This week I read 2 chapters. 


Reflection

The fact of reading articles or any text in English that relates different subjects helps me to enrich my vocabulary as it uses words or phrases that were not quite used to hearing or had not used before.

Week 2 (August 18 - 24)

I solved some similar exercises to the TOEFL test about reading in ... 

http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/toefl_reading.html

For my Audio Programming class I read chapters 1, 2 and 3 of "The SuperCollider Book". It was very interesting, because all the tools that use the SuperCollider software, are in English.

Reflection
One of the hardest classes that I have this semester is Programming Audio. My professor recommended to practice each week reading and doing the exercises of the book in order to improve in everything we did in classes. I think it is a good opportunity to practice English because this program handles all library functions and help in this language so it is important to understand each of their concepts.

Week 3 (August 25 - 31)

I´ve continue reading the book "Fifty Shades of Darker", written by E.L. James. This week I read the chapters 3, 4, and 5.

In the website: http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Reading-Comprehension.html

I practiced with 8 readings the part of reading and comprehension after that I solved the questions about each passage. 

Reflection

When I was doing all the exercises about reading and comprehension I realize that I need to practice a little bit more because I think that had a lot of distractions around me so I could not focus at all in it. 

Week 4 (September 1 - 7)

During this week I solved a lot of TOEFL type exercises trying to answer some questions about the passage finding main ideas find word meanings etc. 




Also I look for all my notes of the workshop curse of last semester just to review them and put it in practice when I continue solving different type of exercises. 

Reflection

I guess that doing those kind of TOEFL exercises help me to improve my ability to read and understand quickly.

Week 5 (September 8 - 14)

I read the article "Categorizing sound for the establishment of source characteristics"(Meng, J.D.) because I have to write an essay about it.

Also I continue reading and practicing with "The SuperCollider book" with the chapters 4 and 5.

Reflection

I think that activities such as write an essay help me not only in reading so in writing too because I read and understand the part of the text and vocabulary and I practice the fact of write with special words  covering some points such as BULATS exam.

Week 6 (September 15 - 21)

I read the part of Reading and Listening of a BULATS book. 
Also I solved the exercises that complete that part and put in practice all the tips and recommendations that I read before.

Reflection

When I was reading the BULATS book I understand that those tips could help me for TOEFL too because although it are different exams you could apply those recommendations because you are doing the same. 

Reflection period 1

Since we start learning English we always practice reading and comprehension in spite of that I guess that as in Spanish there are a lot of things actually we do not understand at all maybe because sometimes we are not acquainted with the vocabulary. That fact could be a problem at the moment we were solving some questions or doing an interpretation about the passage. That´s why it is important that all along we are reading something and we don´t understand a word or a phrase, we look for the meaning and match it with the context of the reading, that could help us to understand as well a lot of words and extend our vocabulary. 

PERIOD 2 

Week 7 (September 22 - 28)

I´ve continue reading the book "Fifty Shades of Darker", written by E.L. James. This week I read the chapters 6, 7,8 and 9. 

In order to prepare myself to my BULATS and TOEFL exams I made a list with all the tips and recommendations that can help me to answer the reading parts easily than before. 


Reflection
"Fifty Shades of Darker" is an amazing book I recommend it so much because so far what I've read has caught myself in the story. On the other hand I still have not decided whether to take the BULATS or TOEFL test so I'm getting ready in the same way to make a decision in the future.

Week 8 (September 29 - October 5)

During this week I start looking into the 

official BULATS website for checking what 

are the types of exercises that it require. 

Suddenly I did the sample tests that they 

show in their site.

Reflection

Practice in BULATS is was very useful 

because I realized what are the things I need 

to know and what I need to practice more 

for being prepared.

Week 9 (October 6 - 12)
I read the article "Extraction of Physical Parameters in the sound field by multidimensional analysis", written by Takashi, Nishi in order to write an essay about it.

I made some exercises and I could say that I´m better because I put in practice all the strategies I´ve learned before. 

Reflection
As I mentioned before the activity of read texts and then write essays about those help myself to practice reading and writing so each time I have that type of activities I look for new vocabulary to improve my tasks. 

Week 10 (October 13 - 19)

I watched some videos about tips and 

strategies on TOEFL Reading Section. 

I'm almost done reading "Fifty Shades of Darker" and I´m very exciting because of the end.

Reflection

With the exercises that I did during this week I´ve learned a lot of new skills to put in practice at the reading part of each exam such as read after skimming,try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words in the passages, practice making general inferences and conclusions based on what is implied in the text and being fast but try to avoid thinking about the clock. 


Week 11 (October 20 - 26)

I decide to take BULATS exam so the fact that is going to be soon  makes me very nervous so I try to find some tips and things I should know before taking the exam.

Reflection

I´ve learned that it is important identify specific information, main ideas, opinion, attitude, implied meaning and paraphrase, interpret and predict posible answers.

Week 12 (October 27 - November 2)

This week, for my Differential Equations class, I read an article called: "On the performance of Usain Bolt in the 100 m sprint", written by JJ Hernández Gómez. 

I finally finished reading "Fifty Shades of Darker"and I can say I was not expecting the ending I really feel stunned so I just can not wait to read the next part.

Reflection

This time I put in practice my knowledges not so much in TOEFL or BULATS  exercises I practice the strategies more in texts I usually read and I could say a lot f things were easier than before. Sometimes I used to spend more time reading and reading just to understand some items but now that was easier. 

Reflection period 2

With all of the previous things I realize that we need to kept practicing and improving a lot several details. I investigated what were the types of exercises it ask relative of reading  so I found the paragraphs that needed to be completed, which worried me a lot because the last time I present the exam that kind of exercises , however I continue searching tips, examples, and doing many exercises and activities that help me to practice to improve my skills.