ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research has, in many senses, been accomplished with the help and
encouragement of many people. Therefore, I would like to express my deepest and
humblest gratitude also warmest appreciation to the following people.
First and foremost, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my ever
supportive supervisor, Ms. Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh, Ph.D. for her valuable
guidance, constructive advice, and unconditional support during the time I tried to
complete this thesis.
I would also express my huge thanks to all of my lecturers at Faculty of Post-
Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies as their
invaluable lectures and guidance laid the foundation for the fulfillment of this
thesis.
I would also like to show my gratefulness to my colleagues who spent a great
deal of time discussing some of the issues related to my research, offering their
insights and perspectives as well as my students at Vietnam Maritime University in
data collection process using survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview.
Last but definitely not least, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my family
for their unconditional support and words of encouragement.
i
ABSTRACT
This study was conducted at Vietnam Maritime University with a view to exploring
test-taking strategies relative to learners’ performance in TOEIC Reading
Comprehension as well as identifying differences in reading strategies among high
proficiency and low proficiency students at Vietnam Maritime University.
The subjects involved in the study are over 100 students of Vietnam Maritime
University (VMU) chosen randomly from 4 TOEIC classes. Two classes are at
Elementary Level (TOEIC Level 1), the other classes are at Intermediate Level
(TOEIC Level 2). The data was collected from survey questionnaires, interviews
and administration of two TOEIC tests for students. The results indicated that
students at VMU put more emphasis on using reading strategies when they attended
the TOEIC course. In addition, this study also revealed some differences in reading

Abstract iii
iii
Lists of figures and tables iv
Table of contents v
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study 1
2. Research aims and research question 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Significance of the study 2
5. Method of the study 3
6. Organization of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Reading 5
1.1.1. Definition of reading 5
1.1.2. Purposes of reading 6
1.1.3. Reading process 6
1.2. Reading comprehension 7
1.3. Reading TOEIC Test 8
1.3.1. Test 8
1.3.2. TOEIC Test 9
1.4. TOEIC reading comprehension strategies 10
1.5. Study of cognitive process 13
1.6. Summary 15
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Settings 16
2.2. Participants 16
2.3. Research method 17
2.3.1. Data collection instruments 17
2.3.2. Data collection procedures 18

are more and more difficult. In today’s context, the A, B, C certificates used for
people wishing to find a job are out-of- date, and the so-called IELTS, TOEFL or
TOEIC have been the best choices. TOEIC, together with other requirements for job
seekers, is preferred by most companies in order to assess their employees’
qualifications. Therefore, a lot of people are trying hard to achieve the success in a
TOEIC Test.
In addition, being a lecturer of English at VMU, through my teaching experience, I
have found out that my students are always afraid of reading as compared to other
skills. Students find reading difficult and stressful, and unfortunately, they have to
sit for a TOEIC- based test which includes Reading and Listening comprehension
for the final examination. Therefore, many of the students get an awful results
because of low scores in English subject in which reading is always a target of
blaming.
Previously, although much literature has been devoted to TOEIC related topics;
little was revealed about the cognitive processes underlying the performance of
Vietnamese candidates in the TOEIC Reading Test, except for the exploratory study
by Phạm Đức Long (2013) on “teaching and learning of TOEIC reading
comprehension skill”.
For all of the reasons stated, this paper is among the first attempts putting the
emphasis onto “test-taking techniques for TOEIC Reading Comprehension to
students at Vietnam Maritime University” so as being help to solve out their
problems.
1
2. Research aims and research questions
The original aim of this study is to gain an insight into how test-takers employ
different reading strategies in TOEIC Reading comprehension. As the first attempt
to explore the ongoing thinking processes during performing reading tasks, once
finished the paper could serve as a useful source for TOEIC candidates who are
planning to sit for the test as well as TOEIC trainers who want to have a closer look
at how their trainees would actually perform in the real test for better TOEIC

comprehension. Retrospection is a data-collecting method in which participants are
asked to report their mental processes after solving a matter.
Firstly, apart from the surveyed 100 students, 15 students were chosen to participate
in the semi-interviews as soon as they finished taking TOEIC Test. With the aim of
making the responses more confident in the interview, all the questions are simple
and understandable for students to answer.
Secondly, questionnaires are delivered to the students after they take the TOEIC
test. They were offered to tick or circle the answer that best reflects their
viewpoints.
6. Organization of the study
The rest of the study includes two parts as follow:
Part 2 consists of:
Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents related theoretical background of the study
in which concepts of reading and test-taking strategies for TOEIC Reading
Comprehension test would be discussed.
Chapter 2, Methodology, covers four major parts, namely, participants, instruments,
data collection, data collection procedures, and data analysis.
3
Chapter 3, Results and Discussions, presents, analyzes and discusses the findings in
order to answer the research questions of the study.
Part 3, Conclusion, provides summaries of the main findings, suggestions for better
results, limitations of the study, and lastly, recommendations for further related
researches.
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature Review
In this chapter, relevant knowledge collected from various sources will be presented
so that it can suitably serve as a foundation for the research. The paper is divided
into two parts including theories on reading difficulties and TOEIC reading.
1.1. Reading
1.1.1. Definitions of reading

5
1.1.2. Purposes of reading
The purposes of reading refer to readers’ aims and objectives. Therefore, different
readers may have different purposes in their mind with the reading text in their
hand. According to Ruiqi (2007), basically there are two main reading purposes
including reading for getting information and reading for pure fun or enjoyment.
Grabe and Stoller (2002), however, divided reading purposes into seven subtypes
which are more specific: reading for search for simple information, reading to skim
quickly, reading to learn from the text, reading to integrate information, reading to
write, reading to critique the text and reading for general comprehension.
1.1.3. Reading process
Reading process is claimed by Gascoigne (2005) to be a selective process which is
characterized as an active process of comprehending. So far, there have been three
widely accepted reading models developed to depict the act of reading or the way
and procedure that readers use to construct meaning from the reading texts. The
three reading models are bottom-up, top-down and interactive (Barnett, 1989).
In bottom-up model, reading is compelled by the text, proceeds from part to whole,
constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases, sentences. Readers process the text
in linear direction (Nunan, 1991). Therefore, in this model, readers are believed to
play a rather passive role. The basis of bottom-up reading model lies in the
linguistic knowledge of the reader (Samuel & Kamil, 1988).
In top-down model, the understanding of the text is constructed from whole to part.
The readers predict what come next, test their prediction and adjust or confirm. In
this model, readers actively use their background knowledge. Goodman (1967)
described reading using top-down model like a “psycholinguistic guessing game” in
which the “reader reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been
encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (p.135).
6
Interactive model is a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches. This
model was discussed as the process of combining textual information with the

the ways to mark them, or on the types of test tasks, etc. According to test purposes
as the grouping principle, we can classify tests into four common types as below:
Types of test Purposes
Proficiency
tests
To see how good students are at language, or use of the language. The
contents of a proficiency tests are not chosen according to what has
been taught, but according to what is needed for a particular purpose.
Achievement
tests
To see how well students have learnt the language taught in class.
Achievement tests are often at the end of term or end of the year and
test the main points of what has been taught in that time.
Placement
tests
To identify a student’s level of language and find the best class for
them. These are essential in large institutions that frequently receive
8
new students.
Diagnostic
tests
To identify problems that students have with language. They help
teachers diagnose the language problems students have and to plan
what to teach in future.
1.3.2. TOEIC Test
In 2005, the Ministry of Education and Education testing Institute- based in US
regarded the use of TOEIC to asset students’ English language proficiency. Thus,
universities in Vietnam can apply the TOEIC program to teach and evaluate
students’ learning outcomes instead of the old program and tests for A, B, C
certificates.

the right answer. These include skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, and
understanding vocabulary in context. Readers must be able to identify synonyms
and implied information. A clue is that the order of the questions follows the order
to the information in the reading passage.
Lougheed (2007b) suggests that reading skills such as “skimming, scanning, using
the context and reading fast” (p.228, see more in the 5
th
Appendix) should be
practiced sharply to enhance reading comprehension. He goes on to add that a
competitive tip is to “read the questions before read the passage” (Introductory
Course, p.151). It might be inferred that when readers have a particular question in
their mind, they can read fast and purposefully. Furthermore, TOEIC examinees “do
not read the answer before they read the passage” (Lougheed, 2007a, p.151). It may
be understood that when test-takers master each reading question, they should find
the answer in the passage instead of looking for answer options (A), (B), (C), (D)
after each question. It can be seen that Lougheed (2007c) reveals that TOEIC
examinees should find not only direct answer but also “synonyms, paraphrases, and
implied answers” (p.170). It is not enough without mentioning four main question
10
types: “main idea questions, detail questions, inference questions and vocabulary
questions” (Lougheed, 2007a, p.151) which readers are highly recommended to
prepare for the new TOEIC test.
According to www.masterthetoeic.com, one of the most important skills readers
will need to develop for the TOEIC is Skimming - this will help readers with many
Questions in Part 6: Text Completion and Part 7: Reading Comprehension,
especially with Inference Questions. Skimming means to quickly look through a
Text, focusing only on certain words. These words give you an understanding of
the general information or ideas in the Text. The key to Skimming is to NOT READ
every word.
Instead, focus on the following kinds of Key Words:

question was worth 1 point, they should spend about 1 minute on each question. If
they spent 9 minutes doing the first question, they would have less than 1 minute for
the other 9 questions!
By not wasting time on the hard questions, test-takers should have time at the end of
the test to come back and do the rest. It is possible that you may even find hints for
hard questions further on in the test. This strategy is best applied to the TOEIC
Reading section.
Forster et al. (1997, p.129) continue to reveal that reading the questions with
carefulness is the first step followed by predicting possible correct answers. The
second step comes to information-identifying skills. In “Strategies 1: Building
TOEIC/TOEFL test-taking skills”, it is pointed out that the questions asked may not
impose as the orderly information in the text. In addition to that, from my teaching
experience, I agree with such researchers in term of wrong answers in TOEIC
reading comprehension which may be resulted in by choosing “too general, too
vague or too specific” answers (p.129).
As Forster et al. (1997, p.9) recommend, answers B and C are the two most popular
answer to questions in TOEIC, so it is worthy to advise students to mark B or C
12
when they have no idea for the answer to a specific question. Moreover, these
researchers suggest that when students encounter a new word which they have not
seen before, it is better to depend on surrounding words in the sentences for
guessing the new word in the context.
1.5. Study of cognitive processes
To study the content of cognitive process which cannot be observed, a number of
research techniques can be employed. The following table summarizes the
procedure of the five common methods with the use of verbal protocol.
Method Description
Retrospection
The subject solves a problem and is questioned afterwards about
the thought processes during the solving of a problem.

“one is going to be asked questions afterwards” (Someren, Barnard & Sandberg,
1994, p.25) and produce “incomplete verbalization” (Xiangdong & Chunyan, 2012,
p.405).
Nevertheless, this method has been utilized in a number of second language studies
to investigate students’ test-taking strategies (Wu, 1998; Weir, Hawkey, Green, &
Devi, 2006; Xiangdong & Chunyan, 2012). To lessen the negative points of the
method, in the current study, the researcher choose to conduct retrospective
interview immediately after the reading process along with the use of action
protocol which, in this case, would be the reading answer sheets, the immediate
products of the reading task, to help the subjects better recall their cognitive
processes while reading.
1.6 Summary
To sum up, this chapter provides different current theories of both reading and
sources of reading difficulty in order to give a clear overview on the matter of the
study. The following chapter will deal with the methodology with which the study
was conducted.
14
CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY
After reviewing a theoretical basis for the study in the previous part, in this chapter,
the researcher will discuss the methodology used to implement the research. The
chapter will cover four major parts, namely, participants, data collection
instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures.
2.1. Settings
This study was conducted at the Center of Foreign Languages, VMU. At VMU,
students have to take sit for a TOEIC-test which includes Reading and Listening
comprehension for the final examination. Therefore, in each English class, normally
ranging from 25 to 30 students per class, there is a mixture of different students-
15
that means students came from different departments and levels of English. Often,
students coming from Maritime Economics Department are better in English than

“why” to enable the participants recall more information relevant to their test-taking
processes (Xiangdong & Chunyan, 2012) and to collect a direct report rather than
just interpretation (Someren, Barnard & Sandberg, 1994).
2.3.1.2. Questionnaire
A questionnaire for students who had finished TOEIC courses (see Appendix 1)
with items relating to the subjects’ strategies , current level of English as well as
their English learning experience will be used to provide the researcher with a
comprehensive knowledge of the subjects’ experience in learning English and their
understanding of different reading strategies. In order to help the participants to
understand the questionnaire completely, Vietnamese was used.
2.3.1.3. Reading test
The reading tests include one full TOEIC Reading Test administered by the center
which the researcher learn about the subjects’ current English reading proficiency
marked in accordance with the TOEIC marking scale and two other partial tests.
These two tests are carefully chosen from TOEIC Preparation materials so that they
include three parts: Incomplete Sentences, Text Completion, Reading
comprehension.
Also, the test paper with the marks that the subjects make during the reading
process would serve as useful data for further analysis. Every notes or marks on the
paper will be kept to help the researcher trace back the subjects’ cognitive process
as they perform the reading tasks.
2.3.2. Data collection procedure
17
The procedures of data collection went through three main phases in chronological
order: delivering questionnaires, holding semi-structured interviews and carrying
out the observations.
2.3.2.1. Delivering questionnaires
120 questionnaires for students were randomly distributed to four classes having
students from different levels in foreign language center at VMU. The reason to
deliver such number of questionnaires was to eliminate the invalid ones and get

concerning.
1) Which test-taking techniques became more effective for TOEIC Reading
Comprehension test to the students at Vietnam Maritime University?
2) What are differences between the reading strategies employed by high
proficiency and low proficiency students at Vietnam Maritime University?
For the first category, the descriptive statistics of frequency method was employed
to illustrate the most strategically-planned strategies and the most popularly-
exploited practical experience among the students.
For the second category, the researcher also exploited the descriptive statistics
between the reading strategies by high proficiency and low proficiency students.
2.3.4. Summary
The second chapter gave a clear view on the methodology of the research including
participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis
procedure. Based on the aims of the study, using triangulation of questionnaires,
observations and semi-structured interviews was considered as the best choice to
collect the thorough and in-depth information from the respondents and can make
the data gained afterward reliable and comprehensive. All of those findings are as
follow in the next chapter.
19
CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The data, after being collected from the questionnaires, the observations, and the
semi-structured interviews, would be analyzed and interpreted to answer the two
research questions.
3.1. Research Question 1
Which test-taking techniques became more effective for TOEIC Reading
Comprehension test to the students at Vietnam Maritime University?
20