Reading for information is the kind of reading you do in your own language. You do not stop to analyze tenses and clauses when you pick up a book written in your native language. You understand structure without thinking about it. It is second nature to you. Now you must develop this skill in English. You must be able to read beyond the clause markers (标志语) and prepositions and other structure clues. You must learn to read for meaning. A reading comprehension test measures how well you understand the meaning of a passage. It measures your ability to understand the author’s main idea and the facts used to support the main idea. It measures your ability to read "between the lines" and use contextual clues to infer what the author implied. It measures your ability to do this as quickly as a native speaker of English. To improve your reading comprehension, you have to develop certain skills. These skills include skimming or scanning a reading passage, identifying the main idea and supporting statements; making inferences, and using context (上下文) clues to help you guess. Scanning means looking over a passage very quickly to find specific information such as a date, a name, or a particular word. Skimming means getting a quick, general overview of the passage. Both are techniques you will begin to use today and continue to use each time you read something in English or your own language. Every time you read, you should use a technique called SQ3R: Survey, Question, Read, Review and Recall. What is the function of a comprehension test It measures how well you ______ of a passage.