It is an effective method to train the reading skill by replacing the difficult words with the simple ones because students who study Chinese should first understand the meanings of the sentences and guess the meanings of the difficult words and then replace them with the simple ones that have the similar meanings.

There are four options, namely, “步骤、方面、程度、地方”, for the word “地步” in the sentence “没有想到我的错误竟然发展到如此严重的地步啊！”. When you go to school to learn to speak Chinese, teachers will tell you that “地步” indicates the degree of the things have reached and only “程度” has the same meaning with it.

One of the four words “位于、降落、生长、影响” will take the place of “坐落” in the sentence “花园新村坐落在常州市西郊”. Students in qualified Mandarin program should first realize that this sentence is expressing the location because “坐落在” means “ be located in”. Except for “位于”, no one word has something to do with the location.

In the sentence “这里的建筑富有伊斯兰教色彩”, the first level meaning of “色彩” is “color”. However, when it is used with “富有”, it means something carries a certain of characteristics or features. In the four words “颜色、内涵、个性、特点”, students who learn Mandarin should choose “特点”, meaning “feature”.

“忽视” is an important word to learn when the students study in China. The sentence “青少年的心理健康问题不容忽视” carries the meaning that we should never ignore the mental health of the young people. Therefore, “忽视” means the attention is not paid. In the four words “忘记、不注意、看不起、采纳”, only “不注意” has the same meaning.

One more practice is to explain the word “落实” in “中层干部要一直密切注意，直到这些指示最终得到落实” by one of the four words “执行、考查、尝试、承包”. Firstly, students who learn Chinese in China should know the meaning of “落实” is “to put something into practice”. Among the four words, only “落实” has the same meaning.

In order to practice reading by replacing the difficult words with the simple ones, students should firstly know the meanings of the words under the certain contexts because the same words may have different meanings in different situations.