This document provides a summary and review for the College Board's College Evaluation and University Admission Test (CEAUAT) in English. It discusses reading comprehension, identifying facts versus opinions, and includes practice exercises to distinguish between factual statements and statements of opinion. The document was prepared by Professor Carmen Cembalest in January 1994 and revised by Professor Thelvenitsie Hernández in June 2006. It is the property of the Universidad Metropolitana's Virtual Campus School of Continuing Education.

1. Escuela de Educación Continua
Repaso para la Prueba de Evaluación
y Admisión Universitaria
(College Board)
INGLÉS
Reading Comprehension
Facts and Opinion
Preparado por
Prof. Carmen Cembalest, Enero 1994
Revisado por
Prof. Thelvenitsie Hernández, Junio 2006

2. Este manual es propiedad del Campus Virtual de la Escuela de
Educación Continua de la Universidad Metropolitana. El mismo
no puede ser reproducido parcial ni totalmente sin la autorización
expresa del Decano Asociado del Campus Virtual de la Escuela
de Educación Continua de la Universidad Metropolitana.
Escuela de Educación Continua de UMET, enero 2012

3. Reading Comprehension:
The explanation and exercises that follow are geared to test your ability to read
and understand a passage. When you read a paragraph or an essay, you must
follow certain guidelines that will help you understand and analyze the ideas
brought up by the writer.
a. Context Clues – These are words (that you know the meaning of) around the
words you are reading, that help you determine the meaning of the new word.
b. Synonyms – Words with the same or nearly the same meaning.
c. Antonyms – Words with opposite
d. Cognates – Words that are spelled alike or almost alike, sound alike and have
the same meaning in English and Spanish. False cognate, then, are words that
sound alike, but do not have the same meaning.
e. Inference – You draw conclusions or deduct from the information given.
f. Transitional devices – Establish a bridge between two ideas. They also help the
reader to find out the kinds of developmental paragraphs in an essay.
g. Prefixes and suffixes –
 A prefix is a word part added to the beginning of a base word or word
root. Ex. discover (prefix)
 A suffix is a word part added to the end of a base word or word root. Ex.
speechless (suffix)
h. Analogies – expresses an agreement of likeness between things in some
circumstances. This relationship is between the meaning and or the usage of
English words, and is usually offered as a sentence written in an abbreviated
form.

4. Fact or Opinion
When reading a selection critically, you evaluate what is written and make your own
judgements. A critical reader should be aware of the difference between factual statements and
statements of opinion and be able to recognize them whenever they appear.
A factual statement can be shown to be either true or false by objective means, either by some
form of measurement or by referring to official records or impartial document.
Statements of opinion deal with attitudes, personal evaluations, or probabilities, and reflect the
feelings of the person expressing them. Such words as good, worst, most, too, and better are
often clues to statements of opinion.
Practice Exercise XXI:
Identify the following group of sentences as Fact or Opinion on the line to the left.
__________ 1. All cakes should have chocolate frosting.
__________ 2. Switzerland is the most beautiful country in the whole world.
__________ 3. Six percent of the American history class failed the final examination.
__________ 4. Thanksgiving Day is always on a Thursday.
__________ 5. It rains too much in this part of the state.
__________ 6. This desk is thirty-three inches high and twenty inches wide.
__________ 7. Lewis Caroll was bron on January 27, 1832.
__________ 8. Alaska has the longest coastline of any state in the Union.
__________ 9. Stopping for a pizza after the game is a good idea.
__________ 10. Ice-skating requires much more skill than skiing.