Strategy Guide Notes - Reading Comprehension

Front 1

4 Steps to the Simple Story

1) Get oriented

2) Find main idea of each paragraph

3) Set aside the details

4) Articulate the simple story

Back 1

1) Get oriented

• Read first sentence carefully
• Understand topic and look for main ideas
• Understand main idea of 1st paragraph

2) Find main idea of each paragraph

• Pay close attention to first sentence
  

3) Set aside the details

4) Articulate the simple story

Hint 1

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 1

Front 2

Breaking down the Passage

Focus on the passage components and language clues

Passage Components

• The Point
• Support and Background
• Counterpoints, Acknowledgement and Implications

Back 2

Language Clues

• Big picture (In general;To begin with; Finally; X argues that)
• Foreshadowing (Traditionally;For some time; It had been assumed; Some people claim; Statement of a problemor question; Conventional wisdom)
• Changes in direction (However; While; Instead; Granted; It is true that;despite; Nevertheless; Nonetheless; That said; Even so; Supposedly)
• Detail (For example; Furthermore; Moreover; Likewise; In thesame way; In other words; Namely; a Semicolon)
  

Hint 2

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 2

Front 3

Breaking down complex sentences

Back 3

1) Break sentence down into smaller ideas (ignore jargon)

2) Make connections to thing you already know; simply ignore complex language

3) Link to previous information

4) Anticipate

Hint 3

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 2

Front 4

Mapping the Passage

3 Key things to map:

1) The point

2) Purpose of each paragraph

3) Any other info you would include in the simple story, by paragraph

Tactics: Abbreviate;Use arrow for Cause & Effect; Use arrow to show change over time; Colon toattribute opinion; Note examples as ‘e.g.’; Use arrows for increase anddecrease

Back 4

Example:

1)Drs use a lot of ABs

• Sometimes doesn’t work
  
• Inc. in superbugs

2) Other things cause SBs too

BUT Drs should still be careful in prescribing ABs (P)

Hint 4

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 3

Front 5

General Questions

• Primary purpose

• Paragraph (purpose or relationship to other paragraph)

Back 5

4 Steps:

1) Identify Question

2) Find support

3) Predict answer

4) Eliminate and find match

Common Traps:

1) Direct contradiction - Passage says the opposite

2) Extreme - Extreme word without support in the passage

3) One word off - Looks very tempting but one or two words are wrong

4) Out of scope - Goes beyond what the passage is saying

5) True but not right - Passage does say this, but it does not answer thequestion asked (look out for wrong paragraph)

Hint 5

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 4

Front 6

Specific Questions

3 Primary types of specific Qs

1) Detail → explicitly stated

2) Inference → not explicit

3) Specific purpose → why the author mentions a specific piece of info

Back 6

4 Steps:

1) Identify Question (detail, inference or specific purpose)

2) Find support (use map; reread 2-3 relevant sentences; beware traps)

3) Predict answer

4) Eliminate and find match (if cannot delete 4, then compare remaining answers)

Hint 6

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 5

Front 7

Detail Questions

"According to the passage"

• Use map
• Reread particular passage
• Predict
• Match

Back 7

Inference Questions

• Answer must be true based on information presented in the passage, but the answer will not be explicitly stated in the passage
  
• Question stem will often contain info to indicate the relevant paragraph
• Try to formulate answer before looking at the options

Hint 7

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 5

Front 8

Specific Purpose Questions

• Why the author mentions a specific piece of information
• The author (detail) in order to...
• Try to predict answer

Back 8

Except Questions

• "Except" can be either a detail or inference question
• 4 answers cited in passage, 1 is not
• Go straight to the answers and try to find it in the passage - label answers as true or false

"Except" doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in the passage, it means that it doesn't agree with the question stem

Hint 8

Strat Guide 7 - Chapter 5