Reading (Pānui)
Reading (Pānui)
The Reading domain tests comprehension of written te reo Māori: notices, letters, descriptions, and short narratives. You need to locate information, understand sequence, and infer meaning from context.
Core rules and concepts
- Identify the text type first. A letter often opens with Tēnā koe and closes with Noho ora mai and Nā. A narrative often uses I tērā rā or Kātahi ka.
- Particles do grammatical work: i marks a past action or direct object; ki marks direction or goal; mā/mō mark for whom; o/a mark possession.
- Possessives must agree: taku (my, a-category) vs tōku (my, o-category); tana vs tōna.
- Negation changes the answer: kāore, ehara, kaua.
- Macrons and punctuation affect meaning, so read them as part of the word.
Worked example
Text: I te ata o te Rātapu, ka haere a Mere ki te whare karakia. Kāore ia i te mōhio ko tana hoa a Hine kei reira. Question: Did Mere know Hine would be at church? Reasoning: Kāore ia i te mōhio = she did not know; ko tana hoa a Hine kei reira = that her friend Hine was there. The negation applies to the whole clause. Answer: No, she did not know.
Traps that cost marks
- Reading over a negation and answering the opposite.
- Confusing tana (his/her) with taku (my).
- Treating ki te as 'to the' when it introduces a purpose (ki te hoko = to buy).
- Ignoring macrons in words such as kē and ke.
- Guessing an unknown word from English instead of using the sentence context.