Inference, over-reading and a faulty vocabulary item in an unseen passage
Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.
For eleven months the three street lamps on our lane had been dead, and we had learned to walk that stretch with our eyes on the ground. Bela, who ran the tea stall at the corner, said the darkness had been good for business: people stopped, waited, drank a second glass. When the municipality finally replaced the lamps in March, nobody celebrated. Bela put out two extra stools the same evening, as though she had been expecting the light all along, and the lane filled with people who had not stopped there in a year.
Shampa answers three questions. (a) “Why did nobody celebrate?” - “The people of the lane were poor and had no money to celebrate with.” (b) “What does the writer suggest by saying Bela put out extra stools as though she had been expecting the light all along?” - “Bela was a clever businesswoman who knew the light would come back.” (c) “Find a word in the passage that means a continuous piece of road.” - “lane”.
1. Mark her three answers out of 2, 2 and 1, and explain what separates a defensible inference from a guess.
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(a) 0 out of 2. Nothing in the passage mentions money, and the answer ignores the two time signals that carry the meaning: “eleven months” and “finally”. The point is resignation, not poverty - the repair arrived so late that it felt overdue rather than like good news. An answer that could be swapped into any passage about a poor neighbourhood has not read this passage.
(b) 1 out of 2. “Clever businesswoman” is half-supported: the passage does say the darkness was “good for business”. What she misses is the timing - the stools go out “the same evening”, before the crowd arrives, which suggests Bela had been ready all along, and there is a quiet irony in the fact that the official repair merely caught up with her. Award the mark for the business reading, withhold the second for the missing irony.
(c) 0 out of 1. “Lane” is the road itself, not a section of it; the word the question wants is “stretch”.
The rule to put on the board: every inference must be pinned to a word or phrase in the text - say which one, or quote it. “Supported by the passage” is not the same as “true in general”.
2. Write the model answers you would put on the board for (a) and (b), then state the evidence rule you want the class to apply when they write their own answers.
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Model (a): Nobody celebrated because the wait had been so long that the new lamps felt like something owed rather than a gift; the words “eleven months” and “finally” carry this. (Two sentences are enough for two marks; the second sentence is the one that earns the mark, because it names the evidence.)
Model (b): Bela is shown as someone who had already adapted to the dark and was ready for the light before the officials acted - putting the stools out “the same evening” makes the repair look like her plan rather than theirs. There is gentle irony in this, and it is directed at the municipality, not at Bela.
Evidence rule for the class: for any “why” or “what does the writer suggest” question, write the answer, then write the word or phrase from the passage that proves it. If you cannot point to one, you are guessing. Teach them the three legitimate moves - quoting a phrase, pointing to a time or contrast word (“finally”, “as though”, “the same evening”), and noting what the writer leaves unsaid - and warn them against the fourth, importing facts from outside the passage. Insisting on the pointing sentence also protects them in the exam, where examiners reward the phrase even when the phrasing of the answer is clumsy.
3. A classmate writes “path” for (c) and says it means the same thing. Decide the answer, and then say how such a vocabulary item should be set so that only one answer is possible.
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“Path” fails on two counts. First, the instruction is to find a word in the passage; “path” does not occur, so the answer cannot be credited however good the synonym is. Second, the meaning is off: a path is a footway, while the passage is describing a section of a made-up road, which is why “stretch” is the answer and “lane” is the trap - “lane” is the whole road, not the section of it.
The deeper problem is the item itself. If “lane”, “stretch” and “road” are all plausible to a candidate, the question is testing guessing rather than reading. A well-set substitution item should: name the paragraph or line range so the search area is limited; say what part of speech is wanted; and be checked against the passage to confirm that only one word fits the meaning given. Better still, give the sentence frame - “the word ______ in line 2 means a continuous piece of road” - so the candidate must match both meaning and position. Keep one deliberate near-miss in the passage (“lane”), because distinguishing the general word from the precise one is exactly the skill the item should reward, but make sure the near-miss fails the definition and not merely the examiner's preference.