This book helps students improve the skills required to meet the demands of college work. The Third Edition features thirty-eight readings - including thirty new selections - drawn from books, magazines, and newspapers. Students learn reading and study skills as they read real-life material. Readings, of varying length and difficulty, have been chosen for their high interest level, diverse writing styles, and timely coverage of current issues. Improving Reading Skills is based on the premise that good vocabulary is essential for good comprehension skills. Students become actively involved with vocabulary through the "Word Origins" sections, which provide the history of a word, its root, and its progression into the English language. Extensive exercises after each reading build the following skills: determining the main idea and the author's purpose, comprehending main ideas, distinguishing between main ideas and supporting details, recognizing supporting details, making inferences, drawing conclusions, distinguishing between fact and opinion, analyzing organization and seeing relationships, understanding and using vocabulary, and writing paraphrases and short summaries. (copyright www.bn.com)