Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation

Preparing for the National 5 exam

Learning intentions

•To learn how to tackle each type of question in the exam.•To revise the different language features (word choice, imagery, sentence structure, tone, linking…)•To learn the methods and formulas for answering questions.

Success criteria

•I will be able to identify what I need to do in each question.

•I will be able to identify features of language and comment on them.

•I will be able to use formulas to gain the maximum marks.

What you will be assessed on…

• You will be given a non fiction passage• You will have 1hr to read the passage and

answer 30 marks’ worth of questions about it.• The exam tests your ability to understand the

writer’s ideas and to analyse and evaluate the language he/she uses to put those ideas across.

• You will earn marks for everything you get right.

Key Reminders

• Marks – this will give you a guide for how much to write. Be careful – there are some big markers!

• Paragraphs – you will be told which paragraphs contain the answer. Only use info from that paragraph – otherwise score ZERO!

• Bold – key instructions will appear in bold. Read these carefully and follow.

Questions…

• Will ask you to show your understanding of a text using your own words.

• Will ask you to analyse the writer’s language and evaluate how effective you find it.

Practise identifying questions

•Look at the questions on ‘Superstition’. •Can you identify which questions ask you to understand and which ask you to analyse and evaluate?

The answers

Understanding1, 2a, 3, 5b, 7

Analysis and evaluation2b, 4, 5a, 5c, 6

Understanding questionsLook out for the following instructions:•Explain in your own words…•Summarise in your own words…•Referring to key ideas, explain…

The method:1.Look at the line numbers you are directed to. Mark them off. 2.Highlight the phrase(s) that you need.3.Explain them in your own words4.Bullet point your answers (one bullet point per mark)

In your own words, give two reasons why the writer cannot buy a ticket in advance for the solstice. (2)

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll give you a ticket so you can come back tomorrow, if you like, but I can’t give you one for the actual solstice, Saturday. We start selling them at two-thirty on the actual solstice. It’s first come, first served.”

Answer?

In your own words, explain what effect was created by these costumes. (2)

Around here, men wore guns as part of their everyday uniform, packing Winchesters to match their broad-brimmed hats and high-heeled boots… Their quaint costume gave even the most arthritic an air of strutting boyishness that must have been a trial to their elderly wives.

Answer?

Referring to key ideas, explain clearly what made the Badlands a “hard-to-travel” country before reaching Fallon County. (2)

The first missionary explorers had given the place this name, a translation of the Plains Indian term meaning something like hard-to-travel country, for its daunting walls and pinnacles and buttresses of eroded sandstone and sheer clay. Answer?

Summarise, in your own words, why the haggis recipe makes the writer ‘queasy’. (3)

Haggis is a braw dish, so long as ye dinnae look at the ingredients,” said one canny Scotsman - and how right he was. A haggis recipe from my mother-in-law's 1975 Glasgow School of Cookery book makes me queasy just reading it. Any recipe that involves grating liver (if life's too short to stuff a mushroom, it's definitely too short to grate offal), washing your “sheep bag”, ensuring that your windpipe is “hanging out of the pan” and then boiling it for three hours until it is “warm-reekin” is not for the faint-hearted. And what exactly is meant by the ingredient “pluck”? A quick inspection of the dictionary reveals it to be the liver, heart, lungs and windpipe of the sheep - a gruesome combination on any shopping list. Times may be tough and the recession may have heightened the appeal of the cheap cut, but there are limits. Much as I love lamb, I draw the line at wolfing down its vital organs.

Context Questions

• You may be asked to work out from the context what a word or expression means. In this case the examiners think you may not know the given word but that you should be able to work it out from the word that surround it in the passage.

Use this formula

The word/expression ‘_______________’ as used here means ___________________.

I can work this out from the context because…

How does the context help you understand the word ‘intuition’?

It wasn’t often you had this kind of intuition about somebody, but as soon as he saw her looking at the seeds, he was certain she was going to steal them. He moved closer to her, picked up a watering can and weighed it in his hand, as if this was somehow a way of testing it, then he saw her dropping packet after packet into the bag.

The word ‘intuition’ as used here means that you sense or guess something.

I can work this out from the context because it says that he guesses that she will steal the seeds and then he watches her doing this.

Link Questions

• Sometimes you will encounter questions which ask you about the effectiveness of a sentence… This sentence may be a link.

• Remember – linking joins together the previous idea with the new topic.

• Link words/phrases e.g. and, but, however, on the other hand…

Where do I find it?

This paragraph discusses the advantages of chocolate.

Can you think of an appropriate link sentence?

This paragraph discusses the disadvantages of chocolate.

Paragraph One Chocolate is fantastic…

Paragraph TwoChocolate has a dark side…

What is its function?

It has a dual function:

1.It refers back to the previous paragraph to remind or sum up what has gone on before.2.It introduces the subject of the next paragraph.

How do I answer the question?

QuestionHow does the sentence “Despite the numerous advantages…” provide an effective link?

Answer“Advantages” refers back to the topic of paragraph one which discusses the positive aspects of chocolate and its delicious flavour. “Despite” leads forward to the topic of the next paragraph which is about the health risks of eating chocolate.

• “………….” refers back to the previous paragraph which discusses ………

• “………….” leads forward to the topic of the next paragraph which is about …………….

What does the question look like?

• How does this sentence have a linking function?

• How does this sentence provide a link in the argument?

• What is the purpose of this sentence?• Show how the sentence acts as a link.

Explain how this one-sentence paragraph is an effective link.

His father looked at the sweating horse, and after a pause he said that that would be alright. Howard could see he knew the berries weren’t ready yet, like the ones behind the steading that they always picked; and he understood that this was a lesson being set up for him when he came home without brambles: not to tell lies. And there’d be another lesson behind this one, the real lesson: that his father had been right about that sort of new-fangled nonsense coming to grief.

In spite of this, he forgot it all and slipped through the Racecourse fence.

A crowd mobbed around the grandstand where they served drinks and sandwiches. He made his way through the high society of Lanark….

Word Choice

• A good habit to get into is answering word choice questions by considering what the word normally means (denotation) and explaining what it makes you think of (connotations).

• You must focus your answer on the ideas that are suggested/implied etc.

• Quote ONE word + suggests• “_______” suggests…

Sentence Structure QuestionsWhen faced with a question of this type, you should think about the following:

(1)Is the sentence noticeably long/short?(2)Is it a proper sentence? What is missing?(3)Does it fit a type of sentence e.g. command, question etc.(4)Has punctuation been used in an interesting or odd way? (5)Are there any words in the wrong order? In particular, has anything been placed at the beginning or delayed till the end?

The Five Key pointsClimax/anti-climax

Repetition

Inversion

Sentence length

Punctuation and lists

Punctuation… ellipsis Dots often used to tail off at the end of a sentence or to show a gap

in speech.: colon Often used to introduce a list, a quotation, an explanation. Expands

on an idea which comes before the colon. - dash Sometimes used like brackets to add in information in the middle of a

sentence or used to tag on an extra piece of info.‘ ‘ inverted commas Often used to indicate speech, to mark of quotation or to

suggest that something is ‘so called’. ( ) brackets Gives additional information which is not really necessary – the

rest of the sentence makes sense without it.; semi colon Used to join two sentences that are closely related. They can

also be used to create balance. “It was the best of days; it was the worst of days.”

“The road… tapered to infinity…”Explain how the content and structure of the second sentence in Paragraph 3 help to make the meaning of this expression clear.

Hill lead to hill let to hill, and at each summit the road abruptly shrank to half its width, then half its width again, until it became a hairline crack in the land, then a faint wobble in the haze, then nothing.

Comment on the writer’s use of word choice and sentence structure in her description of the clouds in the final sentence of Paragraph 14.

There was a breeze, and the shivery call of a curlew descending. On all sides there are low hills, holding the plain between them. To the south, the skyline is dominated by two much bigger, more distant hills, a peak and a plateau. Though you wouldn’t know it from here, they belong to another island, to Hoy. Above these dark hills, in horizontal bars, were the offending clouds.

By close reference to the final sentence, show how the writer creates the impression of a “hub-bub” at the auction by (a) word choice and (b) sentence structure.

Through all the hub-bub, the slithering of seaboots, the clattering of boxes, the chugging of engines, the shrieking of seabirds, the slurping of tea from enamel mugs, white-coated auctioneers immemorially grunt their prices, and lorries rumble away over the cobbled quays.

What impression does the writer wish to convey in the first sentence? Explain two ways in which the sentence structure contributes to this impression.

There was shouting through a loudspeaker, increased roaring of the engines, throbbing of planes, a movement of the crowd to get the best place on the rails, people running in their fashionable clothes.

Imagery Questions

• You will often be asked to explain why a comparison is effective.

1. Quote the image(s) you are being asked about. (simile, metaphor or personification)

2. Explain what is being compared to what – i.e. what is the literal root of the image – no matter how silly it sounds!

3. Explain how the image is effective.

The formula

Just as… (explain the literal meaning), so… (explain the metaphorical meaning).

He has a mountain of work to do.

This is effective because just as a mountain is large and challenging to climb, so the amount of work he has to do is enormous and will be really difficult.

Practice using the formula

Explain what these images mean and what their effect is. 1.Britain is witnessing a tidal wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe.2.Mark’s room was a depressing pigsty.3.The Empire State Building, that jumbo sized dentist’s drill.4.He exploded like a rocket when he heard the terrible news.5.She was like a ray of sunshine when she entered the room.

Here are some more… “... a fast-moving, barreling monster ...” (Paragraph 3)

Explain fully why this is an effective description of the wave.

Robertson, 23, who has been surfing since he was four, criss- crosses the globe with his fellow WQS competitors in pursuit of the best waves and a place on the coveted WCT tour. He may as well be going to surf on the moon for all he knows about Thurso East, but that’s part of the appeal.

“He may as well be going to surf on the moon ...” (Paragraph 14) What does this comparison suggest about Thurso?

Tone

1. Identify a tone

2. Write down the evidence of that tone from the passage - usually a quote.

3. Explain how the words that you have quoted create that tone.

Types of tone

• Formal• Informal• Polite• Serious• Humorous • Ironic• Emotive• Angry

Technique Reminders

• Alliteration – repeated consonant sounds over a few words in the same sentence e.g. She sailed swiftly to the shore.

• Onomatopoeia – word reflects the sound made e.g. plop, bang, whoosh.

• Repetition – if a word appears more than once, clearly it is to highlight a particular idea.

• Contrast – putting two opposing ideas together to highlight their difference.

• Jargon – technical words only used by specialists such as legal jargon (beneficiary, conveyance) or computer/technical (cache, encryption).