Scanning a Notice for What It Does Not Say
A student reads a short Chinese notice about a community evening class. The notice states the class runs on Tuesday and Thursday, that the fee is 200 yuan for eight sessions, and that participants should bring their own materials. It adds that '名额有限，先到先得'. The student's task is to answer three questions in English: how many weeks the course runs, whether beginners may join, and what to do if unable to attend a session. The student answers: four weeks, yes beginners are welcome, and phone the office. Checking the notice, the teacher finds that the number of weeks is not stated, beginner suitability is not mentioned, and no contact method appears. The student scored 1 out of 3 and insists the notice 'implied' the answers.
1. Explain how the student produced three unsupported answers, and what reading habit caused the errors.
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The student has inferred beyond the text and then reported the inferences as facts. Eight sessions on two days per week does yield four weeks arithmetically, so that answer is a defensible calculation - but it should be presented as an inference ('eight sessions at two per week suggests about four weeks'), not as something the notice states, and the notice never fixes a calendar length. Beginner suitability is pure assumption: nothing in the notice addresses level, and the student has supplied a friendly detail that notices often include but this one does not. The contact instruction is the most serious error: 'phone the office' invents information, and acting on it would waste time. The underlying habit is filling gaps from expectation - what such notices usually say - instead of marking gaps as gaps. The phrase '名额有限，先到先得' signals urgency about enrolment, which may have primed the student to assume a helpful, complete notice.
2. Rewrite the three answers so they are accurate, distinguishing what is stated, what is inferred, and what is absent.
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Question one: the notice does not state the number of weeks; it states eight sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which implies roughly four weeks if one session falls on each day. Question two: the notice does not mention the level or whether beginners may join, so this cannot be answered from the text; the reader would need to ask the organiser. Question three: the notice gives no contact details and no absence policy, so it cannot be answered from the text. This three-way labelling - stated, inferred, absent - is the discipline the task rewards. It also protects the reader: an answer that says 'not stated' is correct and useful, whereas a confident wrong answer is worse than no answer.
3. The notice's phrase '名额有限，先到先得' is the only persuasive language in the text. Analyse its function and explain why a careful reader should notice it.
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The phrase means places are limited and are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Its function is to create urgency and prompt immediate action, which is why it appears in enrolment notices. A careful reader should notice it for two reasons. First, it is the one place where the text is doing rhetorical work rather than conveying procedure, so it marks where the writer wants to influence the reader. Second, urgency can discourage questions: a reader hurried into enrolling may not check the things the notice omits - level, contact details, absence policy. Recognising the persuasive move helps the reader separate the practical facts (days, fee, materials) from the pressure to act, and to ask the missing questions before committing. This is exactly the critical-reading skill the task is testing.