Reading and Responding: Finding and Using Evidence
What you must know
Reading tasks in this course use notices, advertisements, emails, timetables, short articles and personal messages. You must recognise text types and their conventions: Cercasi (wanted), Affittasi (for rent), Si prega di (please), Vietato (forbidden), Orario (timetable), Ingresso (entry), Saluti and Cari saluti in letters.
Build vocabulary for the exam topics: family, school, work, holidays, shopping, health, weather. Learn to scan for cognates and near-cognates (prenotazione, informazione, possibile) while watching for false friends (camera = room, not camera; parente = relative, not parent; fattoria = farm, not factory; morbido = soft, not morbid).
Grammar that carries meaning in texts: comparatives (più... di, meno... che), superlatives (il più), impersonal si (si vende, si può), and the future for opening hours and plans (sarà aperto, partiremo).
Traps in questions
- Questions asking for inference (Perché...?, Che cosa suggerisce...?) need a reason drawn from the text, not just a copied phrase.
- Details spread across the text: a price may be in one line and the condition in another.
- Time and date formats: il 3/5 means 3 May; dalle 9 alle 12 is a range, not a single time.
- Copying without adjusting: if the question asks quando, do not copy a whole sentence; give the time.
Worked example
Text: Cercasi ragazzo per aiuto in negozio. Sabato mattina, dalle 9 alle 13. No esperienza necessaria. Telefonare dopo le 18. Question: Che cosa deve fare una persona interessata? The answer is not the job but the action: Deve telefonare dopo le sei di sera. Notice the conversion of 18 to sei di sera.
Rule of thumb
Answer in the language and form the question uses, and always check whether the item asks for a fact or a reason.