Reading Comprehension of Expository and Argumentative Passages
Reading comprehension of expository and argumentative passages
Hokkaido's reading passages are typically several hundred words of expository or argumentative prose - often a magazine-style essay on language, science, or social change - followed by 内容説明, 理由説明, 指示語, and 一致/不一致 items. The test is whether you can follow an argument's architecture, not whether you can decode every sentence.
Read for function, not just meaning
- Label each paragraph: claim, evidence, counter-argument, concession, conclusion. Argumentative passages almost always contain a concession (admittedly / it is true that / critics argue) followed by a rebuttal (yet / however / the evidence suggests).
- Separate the author's voice from reported voices. When a passage says 一部の研究者は…と主張する, a question like 「筆者の考えに最も近いもの」 usually targets the author's rebuttal, not the reported view.
- Resolve 指示語 to the nearest noun phrase that agrees in number and fits the logic: it / this / such a view / they.
Worked example
Passage: 「Critics of new bike lanes argue that they slow traffic and hurt local shops. Yet studies in several European cities report retail sales rising after lanes were installed. The objection, then, is less about evidence than about the inconvenience drivers fear.」 Question: 「The objection ... drivers fear」とはどういうことか。 Reasoning: (1) less A than B compares two grounds, so the author claims the critics' real basis is B, not A; (2) evidence points back to the European studies; (3) therefore the answer must say the economic claim is unsupported by data and the real concern is drivers' inconvenience - not that bike lanes are harmful.
Marks-losing traps
- Choosing an option that is true in the real world but absent from the passage.
- Attributing a critic's claim to the author.
- Ignoring hedges (tend to, in most cases, may): options with always / all / never are usually wrong.
- Skipping the final sentence of a paragraph, which often carries the point.