Reading a Rental Advertisement with Hidden Conditions
A Year 12 student reads a short Chinese rental advertisement as part of a reading comprehension task. The text says: "两室一厅，靠近大学，月租2500元，包水费，不包电费。押金两个月。最短租期六个月。不能养宠物。周末看房请提前一天预约。" The student must decide whether the flat suits an exchange student who will stay five months, has a small cat, and whose budget is 2600 yuan per month including all bills. The text is 60 characters and students have five minutes. No dictionary is allowed.
1. Evaluate whether the flat suits the student. Identify every condition in the text that affects the decision.
Read the worked answer
The flat does not suit the student for two independent reasons. First, the minimum lease is six months (最短租期六个月), but the student needs only five months, so the lease requirement fails. Second, pets are not allowed (不能养宠物), and the student has a cat. The budget also needs checking: rent is 2500 yuan, water is included (包水费), but electricity is not (不包电费). With a 2600 yuan ceiling, only 100 yuan remains for electricity, which is unrealistic in most cities, so the budget is probably also a problem. The deposit of two months (5000 yuan) is a large upfront cost but is not part of the monthly budget. A complete answer names all four relevant conditions, not just the pet rule, because the question asks for every condition affecting the decision.
2. The student says, "I only need to find one reason it doesn't suit me." Explain why this approach loses marks on a reading comprehension question worded this way.
Read the worked answer
The question asks the student to evaluate suitability and identify every relevant condition. A single reason answers a yes/no question, but not an evaluation question. Marks in reading comprehension are usually allocated per relevant detail identified and per correct inference. Stopping at the pet rule would earn partial credit for one detail but miss the lease length, the electricity exclusion, and the budget inference. There is also a comprehension risk: if the student misreads 最短租期 as a maximum, they might wrongly conclude the lease is fine. Listing all conditions forces the reader to check each one against the scenario, which is exactly what the task tests. In the exam, a structured answer that works through each condition one by one is safer than a quick judgement supported by one point.
3. Explain how the phrase 包水费，不包电费 tests more than vocabulary knowledge.
Read the worked answer
Recognising 包 as 'to include' and 电费 as 'electricity bill' is vocabulary knowledge. The task tests something further: understanding that included and excluded costs change the real monthly cost, and applying that to a stated budget. A student who translates the phrase correctly but does not subtract the excluded electricity from the 2600 yuan ceiling has decoded the words without using them. The paired structure 包……不包…… also signals a contrast the reader must hold in mind. This is inference: combining text information with the scenario's numbers to reach a conclusion the text does not state directly. The advertisement never says 'too expensive for you'; the reader must construct that judgement. Exam reading tasks routinely reward this kind of integration, so students should be trained to convert every stated cost and condition into a consequence for the person in the scenario.