Reading Comprehension
Most comprehension marks are lost not because the passage was hard, but because the answer did not match the question.
How to work through a passage
Read the questions first
Two minutes on the questions before the passage tells you what to look for. You then read with a purpose instead of reading blindly and reading again.
Read the passage once, quickly
Do not stop at every unfamiliar word. You are looking for the shape of it: what it is about, who is in it, what happens, what the writer thinks.
Take one question at a time, and find the place
Almost every answer lives in a particular sentence or two. Go back and find that place before you write anything. Answering from memory is where errors come from.
Underline the instruction word in the question
Name, state, give two reasons, explain, in your own words, why. This word decides the shape and the length of your answer.
Answer, then check it against the question
Read your answer beside the question. Does it answer that question, and all parts of it? Would someone who had not read the passage understand your answer?
The three kinds of question
1. Questions where the answer is stated
The answer is in the passage in plain words. Find it, and give it accurately. How far was the nearest library? — Eleven kilometres. Do not add anything; extra material cannot gain marks and may contradict you.
2. Questions where the answer is implied
The passage does not say it, but it shows it. What does the passage suggest about Mr Alwis? The passage never calls him trusting, but it tells you he kept no fines and said nothing about late books. Your answer names the quality and points to the evidence: He was trusting: he charged no fines and said nothing when books came back late.
3. Questions about language
Find a word which means…, What does 'it' refer to?, Why does the writer use…? For a word, check that your choice is the same part of speech as the definition given. For a reference word such as it, this or they, look at the sentence before, and check by reading the sentence with your answer put in place of the word.
A worked example
From the passage about a village library, used in the interactive activity below.
Question: What does the writer suggest about the way Mr Alwis ran the library? Give a reason for your answer.
He ran it in a trusting and informal way.
He kept only a simple notebook in which borrowers wrote their own names, he charged no fines, and when a book came back late he said nothing.
Why this answer works
- The first sentence answers the question directly and immediately. Do not begin with a long introduction.
- The second sentence gives the evidence, because the question asked for a reason.
- The evidence is put in the student's own words, not copied whole from the passage.
- Nothing else is added. There is no comment on whether this was a good way to run a library, because that was not asked.
The habits that gain and lose marks
Do
- Answer in your own words when the question asks you to.
- Give the exact number of points asked for — two reasons means two.
- Use complete sentences unless a single word is asked for.
- Go back to the passage for every answer.
- Check that a why question is answered with a reason, not a description.
Do not
- Copy a long sentence from the passage and hope it contains the answer.
- Write everything you know about the topic in case the answer is somewhere inside it.
- Answer from general knowledge instead of from the passage.
- Leave a question because the passage seemed difficult — the answer is usually easier than the passage.
- Ignore the marks: a question worth four marks needs more than a four-word answer.
Practise on a passage
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Vocabulary
Working out unfamiliar words from the sentence around them.
Paper I
Where the shorter comprehension tasks appear.
Past papers
Practise on real passages under timed conditions.