Reading TOEFL: Asah Reading dengan Baca Novel (Part 1)
Apakah kamu punya hobi membaca? Jika iya, maka latihan reading tes TOEFL yang satu ini bisa jadi cara yang menyenangkan sekaligus efektif. Nantinya jika kamu telah terjun ke dalam lingkungan akademis atau pekerjaan yang menggunakan bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa utama, membaca artikel panjang, jurnal ilmiah, hingga novel akan menjadi hal sehari-hari yang kamu hadapi. Jadi tidak ada salahnya bukan, mengasah kemampuan reading tes TOEFL lewat membaca novel?
Dalam artikel kali ini, gaya penulisannya serupa dengan novelis Amerika seperti Robert Ludlum dan Tom Clancy. Dalam artikel kali ini, kata-kata kunci akan ditulis dengan cetak tebal. Bisa jadi ada banyak kata yang tidak familiar bagi kamu, tapi jangan khawatir. Akan ada banyak petunjuk yang bisa membantu kamu memahami kata-kata yang kurang familiar. Mari kita mulai latihan berikut ini:
Langkah 1:
Perhatikan kata-kata berikut ini. Pelajari kata yang tidak familiar. Beberapa kata biasa ditemukan dalam latihan akademis lainnya:
abandon, agony, allowance, animosity, bunker, ceasefire, citizen, class, consequence, decade, device, disparity, disport, economy, enthusiastically, expanded, fiscal, floorboard, fundamental, hatch, hostile, hut, impressively, instances, instinct, institution, misnomer, nature, noetic, occupy, old fashioned, phonograph, privileged, prosperity, quagmire, region, renewed, response, ruling, seismograph, stark, stipend, technically, trapdoor, village, vinyl
Langkah 2:
Baca paragraf berikut yang mengandung kata-kata tertulis di atas. Tingkat kesulitan dalam artikel di bawah ini setara dengan yang biasa muncul dalam tes TOEFL. Perhatikan kata-kata yang dicetak dengan huruf tebal.
Welcome to Korea
As the decades had passed since the ceasefire of the Korean War, the disparity between North and South Korea had grown greatly. The economic disparity had become undeniable in the 1960s and 1970s, when South Korea began to truly recover from the war, and its economy began to grow impressively. The disparity had only expanded after that time, becoming very big indeed in modern times.
Today, South Korea enjoyed great economic prosperity. In stark contrast, North Korea’s present financial situation was painfully unpleasant. Many citizens were starving, although a lucky few received a small emolument from their government, a fixed payment given to citizens with strong connections to the ruling class. Some especially privileged citizens were paid their stipend in cash, but many less important members of this class of North Koreans were given an allowance of food instead of money.
As this disparity in standards of living had grown bigger between the North and South, there had been political consequences. In response to the nations’ fiscal inequality, the North had shown increasing animosity toward South Korea. This animosity turned into full hostility every few years, with North Korea occasionally sinking South Korean ships or firing missiles at South Korean villages near the North-South border. In both these short instances of war and the longer periods of peace, The North’s animosity and hostility extended to America and its citizens.
Measuring the now-fundamental disparity of living standards between Northerners and Southerners on the Korean Peninsula had always been a very noetic practice for Prestwich. He had enjoyed studying the nature of the Korean region and the security risks there. But now he was really in North Korea—an American, leading a team of Americans in a hostile territory. As he looked around at the abandoned—but still dangerous—village, he struggled to stop thinking so deeply and academically about North Korea. He had to abandon his noetic “professor-think” and start to think more instinctively.
This would be a military and political quagmire, one that neither the North, the South, or America truly wanted. Really, no one in the world wanted to go through the agony of a second Korean War. Although, Prestwich reflected, a second Korean War was a misnomer. The first Korean War had technically never ended. There was a ceasefire but no treaty. The war then, even with relatively few recent hostilities, was a continuing institution that greatly influenced the politics of the Pacific Rim as a whole.
Prestwich gave the command, and the men all walked into one of the small huts in a neat line. Corporal Hennessy, who had been at the front of the line, smiled and lifted a thick wooden floorboard on the floor of the hut. Underneath the board was a trapdoor with a computerized combination lock. In a move that greatly bothered Prestwich, Hennessy entered the secret combination to the trapdoor without being clearly ordered to do so.
Hennessy and his four fellow soldiers enthusiastically jumped down into the hatch. Prestwich quickly ran down after them. In the room beneath the hatch, one could immediately see a strange pair of items. There was a seismograph that had been placed there by the North Koreans due to rumors that the South had an earthquake-making weapon and planned to use it. Near the earthquake-
Measuring device was an old fashioned phonograph. This second item still had a very old vinyl record of classical music lying on it, ready to play.
To Prestwich’s horror, Hennessy turned on the phonograph, and loud classical music began to play. The rest of the soldiers spread themselves around the underground room, disporting themselves by playing with the various objects left in the bunker, which looked as if it had been occupied very recently.
Apa langkah selanjutnya? Kita sambung dalam artikel part 2, ya!
