NB Grade 10 FI Reading common mistakes
NB Grade 10 FI Reading · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Choosing an answer because it repeats words from the passage rather than because it matches the passage's meaning.
Under time pressure, students scan for familiar vocabulary and treat word overlap as confirmation, missing that distractors are often built by copying the passage's wording while reversing or distorting the idea.
What to do instead
Require a paraphrase check: after selecting an option, restate it in your own words and locate the exact sentence that supports that restatement. If the support line only shares vocabulary but not the claim, eliminate the option.
Answering from personal opinion or prior knowledge instead of from what the text actually states.
Informational passages on familiar topics (health, environment, technology) trigger strong background assumptions, and students mistake their own knowledge for textual evidence.
What to do instead
Annotate each paragraph's main claim and mark where the text says it. For every answer, point to a line number or quote in the margin; if no line can be cited, the option is unsupported.
Confusing the main idea of a literary text with its plot summary, retelling events instead of identifying the theme or central conflict.
Narrative details are concrete and easy to recall, while theme requires abstraction, so students default to the safer-sounding sequence of events.
What to do instead
Practice the 'so what' ladder: summarize the plot in one sentence, then ask what the character learned or what the ending implies, and write a theme statement that names an idea (e.g., loyalty, loss) rather than an event.
Treating a narrator's or character's words as the author's own viewpoint.
Students read first-person narration as transparent reporting and do not distinguish an unreliable, limited, or biased perspective from the text's overall stance.
What to do instead
Before answering, label the narration (first or third person) and ask whether the narrator has full knowledge, a motive, or a limitation. Test each option against 'the narrator says' versus 'the text suggests'.
Guessing a word's meaning from its sound or a vague association rather than from the sentence's context clues.
Students rely on partial recognition of a root or a similar-sounding word and skip the surrounding syntax that constrains the meaning.
What to do instead
Use a substitution routine: cover the word, read the sentence, predict a meaning, then insert each candidate and check grammar (part of speech) and logic. Confirm with a contrast or definition clue nearby.
Ignoring punctuation and connective words that signal contrast or cause, such as however, although, therefore, and instead.
These small words carry the argument's direction but are visually unobtrusive, so students read past them and invert the author's point.
What to do instead
Circle every contrast and cause-effect connective during a first pass. When an option hinges on a relationship, check whether the text signals contrast or consequence before choosing.
Treating an inference as a wild guess or, conversely, as something the text states outright.
Students misunderstand inference as either unsupported speculation or direct quotation, so they pick options that are too extreme or too literal.
What to do instead
Use the 'must be true' test: the correct inference is strongly implied by specific details and cannot be false given the text. Reject options that require information the passage never supplies and options that merely restate a sentence.
Selecting an absolute option containing words like always, never, all, or only without checking whether the passage supports that strength.
Absolute language sounds confident and authoritative, and students equate confidence with correctness rather than testing the claim's scope.
What to do instead
Flag every absolute qualifier in the options. Compare it to the passage's own hedging (some, often, tends to); if the text hedges and the option does not, eliminate it.
Describing what a technique is (e.g., 'it uses a metaphor') instead of analyzing how it shapes meaning or affects the reader.
Students have learned literary terminology as labels and stop at identification, which feels like a complete answer but does not address the question's purpose.
What to do instead
Use a three-part frame for every analysis response: name the device, quote or describe the specific instance, then state the effect on meaning or tone. If the answer lacks the effect clause, revise it.
Judging an argument by whether the student agrees with it rather than by the quality of its evidence and reasoning.
Persuasive passages on debated issues invite personal reaction, and students conflate 'convincing to me' with 'well supported in the text'.
What to do instead
Evaluate separately: list the claim, the evidence offered, and any unstated assumption. Ask whether the evidence is relevant, sufficient, and representative regardless of the student's own view, then answer about the text's reasoning.