Building Skills for Proficiency - Cesur Öztürk - Pelikan Tıp Teknik Yayıncılık

This book is intended for intermediate and advanced learners of English who are preparing for examinations in English, such as English proficiency examinations given by Turkish universities, YDS (Foreign Language Test), IELTS and the TOEFL. It also covers a lot of material which is relevant to Cambridge Proficiency Examinations. While it may be used in a classroom situation to teach grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension, it is basically a self-study book.

The material in it is so designed that it ensures steady progress towards mastery of English. Its major components are grammar, vocabulary and reading.

Major grammatical patterns are dealt with thoroughly, and learners ability to recognize these patterns is improved through unit by unit tests aimed at reinforcing the structures taught. While answering test questions, learners may refer to the original examples related to the testing point by means of the page references given in the key to tests.

Vocabulary is presented in two parts: Part 2 and Part 3. Part 2 covers basic academic vocabulary needed for proficiency examinations given at Turkish universities. The vocabulary items included in this part have been selected on the basis of their frequency, range and usefulness. These words have been arranged according to the frequency of occurrence as far as possible. Important words are recycled, i.e., used in different contexts cyclically in subsequent sections to make sure that learners remember what they mean.

Part Three contains advanced academic vocabulary. Though the words in this part are, on the whole, less frequent than those presented in Part Two, it is essential to know the meanings of these words in order to understand more advanced texts.

Reading comprehension is taught systematically by focusing on all the important skills involved in the reading process. Great care is taken to make this complicated process easier for learners. It is hoped that the exercises provided and the suggestions made in the book will facilitate reading comprehension and enable learners to understand and answer reading comprehension questions better. In some texts, important academic words are printed in bold type to draw learners attention to them.

It is worth noting at this stage that to derive maximum benefit from this book, learners are strongly advised to do wide reading. Reading will reinforce not only grammar but also vocabulary items presented in this book, making the book more effective than it would otherwise be.

Sample tests will give learners a chance to test their linguistic competence. If they discover that they are weak in a certain section, they can study the relevant sections more intensively.

The material in the book has been selected with utmost care and is based on a wide range of sources including test books, grammar books, vocabulary books, dictionaries, various academic course books, newspapers, magazines, such as Time and Newsweek and two major sources of news media, the BBC radio and television broadcasts and CNN International.

Users of the book are advised to read English newspapers and journals on the Internet. Suggested media sources include the Independent, the Guardian, the BBC News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Economist, New Scientist and Scientific American.

Appendixes contain useful information about words that take prepositions, transitional words, prefixes and suffixes word forms, special academic vocabulary for YDS and important conjunctions useful for YDS.

The book has been written in English to help learners to familiarize