Literacy: Reading Purpose, Evidence and Language
What the test asks you to do
The literacy check-in rewards careful reading rather than fast reading. You need to locate information stated directly, link ideas across paragraphs, infer what is suggested but not said, and judge how language choices shape meaning. Know the difference between literal questions (the answer is on the page), inferential questions (the answer follows from clues) and evaluative questions (you weigh effect, purpose or reliability). Also revise text structures such as cause and effect, problem and solution, and compare and contrast, plus the functions of figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification and imagery.
Traps to watch for
Distractors often reuse exact words from the text while changing the relationship between them, so match meaning, not vocabulary. Watch for absolutes such as always, never and all, which usually overstate a passage's claim. Check pronoun reference: a they or this may point to the previous sentence, not the whole paragraph. In vocabulary questions, test the word back in the sentence; the common meaning is often wrong. For purpose questions, ask who wrote the text and why, not what it is about.
Worked example
Passage: The council planted 200 seedlings along the creek. Three years later, only a third had survived, because summer flows had dropped.
Question: What does this suggest about the planting program?
Steps: (1) Find the numbers: 200 planted, one third survived, so about 67 survived. (2) Find the stated cause: reduced summer flows. (3) Reject the program was a complete failure (too absolute) and the seedlings were the wrong species (not stated). The supported answer is that survival was limited by water availability.
Rule of thumb
Every answer must be traceable to specific words in the text. If you cannot point to the line that supports it, the option is probably a trap.