Reading comprehension

An inference

HintYou read between the lines — the writer leaves the clue, you supply the meaning.

The whyRetrieval finds words that are actually on the page; an inference builds on them. Questions signal it with verbs like 'suggests' or 'implies'.

A fact

HintThe sort of thing you could settle with a record, a measurement or a photograph.

The whyAn opinion reports what a writer believes, so it cannot be checked. Words like "clearly", "best" and "should" are usually opinion signals.

Skimming

HintA fast pass over the surface, like a stone bouncing across a pond.

The whyYou use it to decide whether a text is worth reading properly, or to grasp the shape of an article before answering questions on it.

scanning

HintWhat you do to a timetable or an index — eyes moving fast, brain hunting one thing.

The whySkimming and scanning are often confused: skimming takes in the whole text lightly, while scanning ignores nearly all of it to find one target.

Context

HintThe company a word keeps — everything around it that narrows down what it could mean.

The whyGood readers guess from the sentence before reaching for a dictionary. The words either side usually rule out most meanings on their own.

Summarising

HintWhat you do when a friend asks what a film was about and you have thirty seconds.

The whyA good one keeps the main ideas and drops the examples. Copying whole sentences out of the passage is the commonest way to lose marks here.

A quotation

HintThe bit you lift word for word and fence off with speech marks.

The whyThe best ones are short — a few words you can actually pick apart. A whole sentence dropped in usually carries more than you can explain.

Persuade you

HintThe job of an advertisement or a campaign leaflet — it wants you on its side.

The whyPurpose comes in a small family: to inform, to explain, to entertain, to change minds. Naming it first makes every other choice easier to explain.

First person

HintThe narrator is inside the story, telling you their own version of events.

The whyIt buys closeness and imposes limits — you hear one character's thoughts directly, but you only ever see what that character sees.

Biased

HintThe word for a referee who wants one team to win.

The whyIt shows in what is left out as much as in what is said. Loaded word choices and one-sided evidence are the usual giveaways.

Sarcasm

Hint'Well, that went brilliantly,' said just after dropping the cake.

The whyTone of voice carries it in speech; in writing you have to spot it from the mismatch between the words and the situation around them.

An unreliable narrator

HintThe story comes from someone who lies, forgets, or does not understand what they are seeing.

The whyThe reader has to read past the telling to work out what actually happened, and the gap between the two is usually the point of the book.