Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension tests whether you can extract meaning from an unseen passage at three levels: literal (stated facts), inferential (what the wording implies) and evaluative (purpose, tone, attitude, effect). Marks are lost less often through weak reading than through answers that ignore the question's command word.
Core rules
- Match the command word. 'State', 'identify' and 'list' want brief factual answers; 'explain', 'suggest' and 'account for' want a reason attached; 'in your own words' forbids lifting whole phrases; 'with reference to the passage' requires quoted or closely cited evidence.
- Separate main idea from supporting detail. A paragraph's main idea is usually carried by its first or last sentence, but check that the rest of the paragraph supports it before committing.
- Trust passage order. Questions almost always follow the sequence of the text, so the detail for question 3 sits before the detail for question 4.
- Examine pronoun reference. Phrases like 'this reluctance' or 'such claims' point back to a specific noun phrase; name it explicitly rather than paraphrasing vaguely.
- For vocabulary-in-context items, substitute your candidate word back into the sentence and test the fit.
Worked example
Passage: 'The market opened at dawn, but by seven the yam stalls were stripped bare; the vendors folded their tarpaulins with the grim efficiency of people who had seen this before.' Question: What does 'grim efficiency' suggest about the vendors? Reasoning: 'Efficiency' is normally positive; 'grim' reverses the charge. The clause 'who had seen this before' signals repetition, so the vendors are not panicking - they are practised at loss. A full-mark answer names both halves: 'They work quickly and without fuss because disaster is familiar to them.' An answer that says only 'they were sad' misses the efficiency; one that says 'they were good workers' misses the grimness.
Traps
- Copying a whole sentence when the question asked for one reason.
- Offering your own opinion where the question asks what the writer thinks.
- Ignoring 'only', 'mainly' or 'except' in the stem.
- Leaving a two-part question half answered.