North Carolina Foundations of Reading Practice Test

Disable ads (and more) with a membership for a one time $2.99 payment

Prepare for the North Carolina Foundations of Reading Test. Study with interactive flashcards, multiple choice questions, hints, and detailed explanations. Master reading concepts and excel in your exam!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

Practice this question and more.

Context clues are primarily used for what purpose in reading?

To summarize the text
To understand the meaning of unfamiliar words
To identify the main idea
To critique the author’s intention

The correct answer is: To understand the meaning of unfamiliar words

Context clues are primarily used to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words. When readers encounter a word they do not know, they can look at the surrounding words, sentences, or phrases for hints that help clarify the unfamiliar term's meaning. These clues can come from definitions, examples, synonyms, or antonyms presented in the text. This strategy enhances comprehension and vocabulary acquisition, making it easier for readers to make sense of the material and continue their engagement with the text without needing to consult a dictionary. The other options, while important in different aspects of reading, do not focus on the role of context clues. Summarizing the text involves distilling the main ideas and overall content rather than decoding specific words. Identifying the main idea requires synthesizing information from the text but does not rely on context clues for individual words. Critiquing the author’s intention is a higher-order thinking skill that involves analysis and interpretation of the text's purpose, also independent of context clues related to vocabulary meaning.