Prose and Poetry Comprehension
Prose and poetry comprehension tests what you can do with a passage: identify theme, speaker, setting, sequence, character motive, imagery and tone, and support each answer from the text.
Reading method
Read the whole passage once for situation, then again for structure. In prose, track who does what, where the turning point is, and how the ending comments on the beginning. In poetry, mark line breaks, repeated words, refrain, parallel pairs and concrete images. Tai oral poetry often uses parallelism and repetition; those are meaning-bearing devices, not decoration. Answer in the terms asked: “theme”, “tone”, “character” and “imagery” are different targets.
Worked example
Consider a couplet: “The river keeps our songs; the loom keeps our names.” The repeated frame “keeps our...” is parallelism; river and loom are concrete images of heritage; the likely theme is cultural continuity, not travel or weaving technique. A strong answer names the device, quotes the words, and links them to the theme in one sentence.
Traps
Retelling the plot instead of answering the question; calling every poem “beautiful”; confusing the poet with the speaker; ignoring a change in tone between stanzas; and giving an interpretation with no textual support. If a line is ambiguous, state the two possible readings and choose the better-supported one.