Comprehension: Reading and Understanding Passages

• Reading involves the eyes and brain, and is fundamental to knowledge acquisition.
• Focus on reading and comprehension involves careful and methodical study of a passage's components.

Studying Comprehension Passages

• The first step involves previewing the passage, paying attention to its content to devise a way of getting the required information.
• Previewing prepares to study in a "questioning" manner, like rephrasing the title as a question.
• Effective studying requires reading the passage more than once.
• Reading speed should correspond to the difficulty of the language.

First Reading

• The first reading should be rapid, to obtain a general impression of the central ideas.
• This allows insight into the writer's tone, purpose, and the passage's theme.

Second Reading

• The second reading should be slower, isolating main ideas, subjective points, and direct statements.
• This stage demands attention to details and general ideas revealed during the first reading.
• Focus should be on sentences summarizing ideas, examples, statements providing clues to the writer's viewpoint, and statements suggesting ideas.

Answering Questions

• Comprehension passages require analysis of the contents.
• Understanding is tested by demanding a summary of the salient points.
• In-depth study encourages inferring information not presented directly.

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)

• MCQs are a fast method of testing understanding, using alternatives to disguise answers.
• When answering, avoid marking more than one answer.
• Ensure all other options are incorrect before marking an answer.
• Use a process of elimination, discarding incorrect answers.
• There is usually a correct answer unless otherwise stated.
• Some answers might be suggested but not confirmed, only partly correct, or logically true but not specifically mentioned.
• Some options are generally known as zero answers (e.g., none of the above).

Traditional Type Questions

• These questions require answers in your own words.
• Examples include questions about the writer's attitude, viewpoint, or summarizing the central idea.
• In-depth understanding is needed to obtain necessary clues.
• Some demand answers obtainable only in the passage, require explaining specific words in context, or demand personal opinions relevant to the text.
• Some demand personal deductions based on what is implied or suggested.

Categories of Comprehension Questions

• Tools used by examiners to test understanding include:
  • Direct reference questions, require directly referring to the text.
  • Inference questions, require inferring from the text and establishing relationships between sentences.
  • Supposition questions, require thinking about ideas extending beyond the passage and expressing views related to the outside world.
  • Evaluation questions, require evaluating the passage in terms of information and the effectiveness of the writer's language.

Summary

• A summary, synopsis, or recap is a condensed version of an original work, about one-third of the original length.
• It highlights major points to help the reader get the message concisely.
• A paragraph can be summarized in a single sentence.

Synopsis

• A synopsis is a summary of a plot, identifying main characters and what happened to them.
• Synopsis use is limited to novels, plays, and stories; summaries are used for other reading materials.

Written Summary

• When summarizing, begin with a lead stating the title, author, text type, and main idea.
• Structure the summary with clearly arranged ideas, paraphrased with new words, without quotations.
• Since you do not retell a story, dramatic structure is unnecessary.
• Prefer the present tense or the historic present.
• If the material is a book or dissertation, present major facts in common scientific language.

Summary in Non-Fiction

• Simply highlight the author's point of view without analysis or assessment.
• Provide numerical ratings and evaluations of titles covered.
• Shorter, more concise non-fiction summaries are called abstracts.

Strategies for Writing Summaries

• Determine what to include in the summary.
• Summary writing requires clear distinctions concerning important, less important, and trivial information.
• Judge the main ideas and supporting details at the paragraph and topic levels.
  • For paragraph summarization, focus on one paragraph at a time.
  • For section summarization, focus on the multi-paragraph section.
  • For multi-section summarization, read each section and create at least three summarizing statements out of each.

Summarizing Paragraphs

• Condense the content of the entire paragraph into a few sentences.
• Read the paragraph, determine what it says, and express its essential meaning in a short, simplified form.
• Achieve understanding by translating it into your own words and reducing it for review.

Steps to Summarize

• Read the paragraph to determine its basic idea.
• Read it again to pick out essentials, summarizing mentally and taking notes.
• Express the content in your own words without consulting the paragraph.
• Compare your summary with the original and make necessary revisions.
• In writing summaries, stay focused.
• For drama texts, use the present tense; for poems, stories, or novels, the present tense is also preferred (though past tense can be used if it fits better); maintain tense consistency.