Comprehension: three answers that look right and score nothing
A candidate in the NECO comprehension section is given this passage and three questions.
'The market opened at dawn, but Mama Nkechi had been there since four. She counted her tomatoes into piles of five, wiped her hands on her wrapper and waited. By noon the sun had driven most buyers indoors; by two, half her stock was still unsold. She did not lower her price. Afterwards she said that a woman who sells cheap in the afternoon teaches the market to wait for her ruin.'
Questions: (a) Why did Mama Nkechi reach the market so early? (b) What does the writer suggest about her attitude to pricing? (c) What does 'her ruin' refer to?
Her answers: (a) 'She had been there since four.' (b) 'She did not lower her price.' (c) 'Her ruin means that she is ruined.' She has 25 minutes left for the remaining four questions and is writing in full sentences, one line each.
1. Mark each answer out of two and explain precisely why each falls short.
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(a) 0/2. She has copied a time clause, but the question asks why. The passage never states the reason, so the candidate must infer it: she travelled from home, tomatoes are perishable, and early arrival secures a good position and the first buyers. Model: 'Because she had travelled some distance and wanted to reach the market ahead of other sellers, so as to secure a good spot and sell her perishable tomatoes before the heat of the day.'
(b) 1/2. 'She did not lower her price' is a fact lifted from the text, not an attitude. The word 'suggest' signals inference. Model: 'She was proud and far-sighted: she believed that cutting prices in a slow market would teach buyers to expect cheap tomatoes and leave her permanently poorer.'
(c) 0/2. She has defined a word with itself. 'Refer to' asks what the expression points to in context. Model: 'It refers to her own eventual collapse in business: by selling cheap she would train buyers to wait for her desperation, and would then be forced to accept any price.'
The pattern is the same in all three: she has answered a what question when she was asked a why, a suggest or a refer to question.
2. State a single working rule the candidate can apply to all comprehension questions, and show how it would have caught each of her three errors.
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Rule: read the question word first, then build an answer that begins with that word's demand, using the passage for evidence rather than as the answer itself.
Test it against the three items:
- The question word 'why' demands a reason with 'because' or 'in order to'. Her copied clause has no causal link, so the rule exposes it immediately.
- 'Suggest' demands a statement about belief or implication, not a report of behaviour. 'She did not lower her price' describes what she did; the answer must say what that shows.
- 'Refer to' demands the thing pointed at, in context. Repeating the word 'ruin' answers nothing.
A second, mechanical check: cover the passage after writing the answer. If the answer still makes full sense and still answers the question, it is in her own words and shaped to the task; if it collapses, she has merely lifted. All three of her answers collapse. She should also stop writing one full sentence per mark-line; two lines per question is a better use of her remaining 25 minutes.
3. The passage contains one metaphor and one implied contrast between noon and two o'clock. Explain how a candidate should handle such features when a question asks about them.
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The metaphor is 'teaches the market to wait for her ruin'. The candidate should not treat it as decoration or as a riddle. Two moves:
- Unpack the vehicle: who is the teacher, who is the pupil, what is being taught? The seller is the teacher, the market (buyers) is the pupil, and the lesson is that cheap afternoon prices are available.
- State the tenor: the result is that buyers delay, she is forced to sell low, and her business fails.
So a full answer would read: 'She means that once buyers learn that prices fall late in the day, they will stop buying early, and she will be left with unsold stock and no choice but to sell at a loss.'
The implied contrast is the movement from 'by noon most buyers had gone indoors' to 'by two, half her stock was unsold'. The candidate should note that the writer does not say she was desperate; the detail about unsold stock implies pressure, which is why the next sentence ('she did not lower her price') is presented as a decision rather than a fact. Noticing the order of sentences is what turns a literal reading into an inference.