ANSWERING  COMPREHENSION  QUESTIONS   CORRECTLY---ENGLISH  LANGUAGE  --- O--LEVEL.

PHOTO | FILE Students of Moi Girls High School in Eldoret town tackle their English Paper One exams, during the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Examinations that kicked off on October 18, 2011.

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The Comprehension question is usually set in Paper Two. It is the first question in the paper. In most cases, the comprehension passage addresses topics on emerging (contemporary) issues in the society.

The passage can be got from newspapers, magazines or even text books.

The student is expected to develop effective reading skills that will help him/her answer comprehension questions effectively. The student must read and understand the passage.

To perform well in this question, the candidate is expected to know the different types of questions asked under the comprehension passage. This knowledge will help the student prepare well in advance.

These questions can be broadly divided into:

• Factual questions
• Inference questions
• Questions on summary and note making
• Questions on grammar and sentence structure
• Questions on vocabulary
• Factual questions

These are questions based on facts or ideas from the passage. They are recall type of questions. The student is expected to recall/remember what he/she has read.

When answering recall type of questions, the student is expected to use words and phrases from the paragraph that contains the answer. The candidate should then zero in on the sentence that contains the answer i.e. the sentence that answers the question.

Before a student starts answering comprehension questions, he/she must first understand the passage. There are questions that will require the student to show his/her understanding of the passage.

INFERENCE QUESTIONS

These are questions that are not lifted directly from the passage. The student is expected to infer from the details given in the passage. These questions include:

i. Application questions where the student is expected to relate what has been read in the passage to a different situation.

ii. Questions that require the student to make judgement on the ideas that have been presented in the passage.

Questions on summary and note-making.

a) Summary writing

In summary writing, the student is required to give information from the passage in a given number of words. The student must write complete sentences. The required information must be written in continuous prose. In this question all the rules of grammar must be observed: rules on tense, punctuation, spelling etc.

The students should stick to the instructions given in the question.

Let us look at the phrases that can be used in summary writing questions and see how students should tackle them:

i) In about 50 words, describe the characteristics of fake phones.

The student must count the number of words he/she will use to answer this question. In this question, “In about 50 words”, the student should not go beyond 55 words and not below 45 words. An allowance of 5 words is given as the maximum or minimum number of words to use. Nothing is marked beyond the maximum number given.

ii) In not more than 50 words describe the characteristics of fake phones.

Unlike the first question, this one expects the student to use a maximum of 50 words. Nothing is marked beyond this. Students are therefore expected to read and understand the question.

b) Note-making

The student’s answer here must be in point form. Unlike in summary writing, in note-making, the answer is not given in continuous prose. There must be an indicator that these are notes. To show that they are notes, the student should use numbers, letters, hyphens, bullets, etc. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING TO INDICATE THAT THEY ARE NOTES. A student who does not make notes is penalised.

QUESTIONS ON GRAMMAR

The student will be expected to answer a question or two on grammar and sentence construction. The grammar questions are based on sentences from the passage.

The student might, for example, be asked to rewrite a sentence, add a question tag. In this question, knowledge of English grammar is required. All the rules of grammar must be observed. Any grammatical mistake is penalised. No mark is awarded for answers that have grammatical mistakes — wrong punctuation, wrong tense, wrong spelling, etc.

QUESTIONS ON VOCABULARY

These are questions that test the student’s ability to give the meanings of words and expressions. In this question, the candidate should give the meaning of words and expressions in the context in which they have been used. Give the contextual meaning of the words or expressions.

The meaning of the words/expressions must be given in the same tense as the word in question. For example, give the meaning of the following word as used in the passage:

Trudging: Walking slowly

The meaning of the word is given in the same tense as the word in question. Students should take note of this. For a student to answer vocabulary questions correctly, he/she must first understand the passage.

All questions must be answered in the tense in which they are asked.

Students might be asked to give the attitude of the writer towards his/her subject matter. The student is expected to make judgements based on the ideas presented in the passage. Answers to such questions are not got directly from the passage.
Examples of comprehension questions:

i. According to the writer, who are the real leaders? (recall question). It can be got direct from the passage.

ii. With illustrations, describe the attitude of the writer towards the leaders. (evaluation question) Student must make judgement based on ideas presented in the passage.

iii. In note form identify the deficiencies of leadership. (Note-making) Must be in point form.

iv. “You will never be a leader until people see you as such,” he said. (rewrite in reported speech) (Question on grammar)

v. What do you think the writer means by the statement, “He saps the energy of his staff.” (Inference question)

To answer comprehension questions effectively:

• The student must read and understand the passage.
• The answers must be given in the correct tense.
• Use complete sentences when answering your questions.
• Questions on note-making must be in point form.
• Summary writing must be in continuous prose.
• Give the meaning of words using the tense of the word in question.