Comprehension
Passages
Course Code : 1118
Subject : Functional English
Course instructor : Ms Ayesha Jawaid
Introduction:
The word comprehension means the ability to
understand what you listen or what you read. It is an
exercise which aims at improving or testing one’s
ability to understand a language.
The stories, the poem, the questions, and answers
were unseen to you before you read them. Similarly,
in a comprehension test, you are given a passage or a
paragraph or two. These paragraphs show the idea or
mood, concerning issues, their solutions that the
author provides. Your main task is to answer the
questions asked from the passage.
Importance of Reading skills:
Reading comprehension is a commonly asked part in most of the
Government and banking exams.
It is to check the ability of the candidate to read a text, process it
and understand it, meaning it checks your vocabulary and text
comprehension.
It is a tricky game as the passages are ones we have not read
before and we have to comprehend it a time bound manner.
Reading comprehensions are one session where you can score
well once you get through the passage. Though it might appear
as a huge task to complete in a shorter time, we can surely
answer the questions with some tips and tricks.
Misconception Regarding Comprehension Test:
There are some misconceptions related to the way of answering the
comprehension test. These misconceptions are
It is possible to understand the key idea of the paragraph by just
reading the first and the last sentence. But this is not always correct.
Reading the questions first will help to understand the paragraph
better. This is not always true because, It is not possible for a person
to remember all the questions. Also, the questions are sometimes
indirect in nature. The order of the questions is not always in
accordance with the paragraph.
It is advisable to avoid these misconceptions in order to get
better insights about the passage.
Requisite Skills:
To develop a better level of comprehension one requires certain
skills:
Logical ability
The ability to infer
Analytical ability
Reasoning ability
Ability to understand the main motive or the idea of the author.
Reading speed
Vocabulary power
Remembering some important information from the paragraph
otherwise, we need to refer the paragraph again and again which
will consume more time.
Important Strategy to Solve
Comprehension Passages:
Read the passage as fast as possible.
Get involved with the paragraph to understand it.
Underline important lines or parts of the passage to
answer the questions. It will also help to understand
the main idea of the passage or the tone or mood of
the author.
Try to translate a complex line in an easy one in your
own words and your own language. This will help you
in analyzing the main idea of the paragraph.
Underline or mark the keywords.
One Small Tip:
Every time, you read something do not ignore
an unknown word to find its meaning
immediately. This will help you a lot to learn
new words but don’t forget to use them in
your day to day conversations, whenever
possible. In this way, keep working on your
vocabulary without stopping
Types of Reading skills
One of the first things you learn about teaching is
that there are different reading techniques and
the students should be aware of which technique
is most suited, depending on the reading task
required by the text or by their teacher.
Train students to know the different reading
techniques and when to use them is indeed
important, especially under exam conditions.
Reading techniques:
The four main types of reading
techniques are the following:
Skimming
Scanning
Intensive
Extensive
Skimming:
Skimming is sometimes referred to as gist reading. For
example: figures and names
Skimming is reading a text quickly to get a general idea of
meaning.
selective reading method.
Skimming may help in order to know what the text is about
at its most basic level.
You might typically do this with a magazine or newspaper
and would help you mentally and quickly shortlist those
articles which you might consider for a deeper read.
Scanning:
Scanning involves getting your eyes to quickly focus across sentence
and is used to get just a simple piece of information.
Interestingly, research has concluded that reading off a computer screen
actually inhibits the pathways to effective scanning and thus, reading of
paper is far more conducive to speedy comprehension of texts.
Something students sometimes do not give enough importance to
illustrations.
These should be included in your scanning. Pay special attention to the
introduction and the conclusion.
Intensive Reading:
Intensive reading involves learners reading in detail with specific learning
aims and tasks.
You need to have your aims clear in mind when undertaking intensive
reading.
Remember this is going to be far more time consuming than scanning or
skimming.
If you need to list the list of events in a long passage, you will need to read it
intensively.
This type of reading has indeed beneficial to language learners as it helps
them understand vocabulary by finding the meaning of words in context.
This is one reason why reading huge amounts of information just before an
exam does not work very well.
Extensive reading:
Extensive reading involves reading for pleasure.
Because there is an element of enjoyment in extensive reading it is unlikely that
students will undertake extensive reading of a text they do not like.
It also requires assimilation of the text and content in front of you.
If the text is difficult and you stop every few minutes to figure out what is being said or
to look up new words in the dictionary, you are breaking your concentration and
diverting your thoughts.
THANK YOU
