Language SkillsUnderstanding Questions

Understanding Questions

• Understanding questions focus on what the writer has said.• This type of question tests your awareness of main ideas

and important details included in the text.• Understanding questions will often ask you to:

1. “Identify” – briefly indicate ideas or details from the text.

2. “Explain” – describe, in detail, ideas or details from the text.

• Unless it is clear that you are being asked to provide a quotation, you should always answer Understanding questions in your own words.

Understanding Questions - Process

This type of question typically requires you to do two things:

1. Find a particular piece of information in the text.

– Highlighting or underlining this information in the passage can sometimes be helpful, or quoting it as part of your answer.

2. Translate that information into your own words.

Understanding Questions - Overview

1. Consider the following questions:a) Where should I look for the answer to the

question?b) How many marks is it worth?c) What type of question is it?

2. Find the information in the passage.3. Translate that information into your own

words.

Understanding – Example QuestionJim scarcely recognised his long grey hair and grey cheeks, the strange face in a strange mirror. He would stare at the ragged figure who appeared before him in all the mirrors of the Columbia Road, an urchin half his previous size and twice his previous age.

1. Identify four changes in his appearance that Jim notices when he looks at himself in the mirror. 4 marks

• “long hair”– His hair had grown.

• “grey cheeks”– His face was pale / drained of colour.

• “half his previous size”– He had lost a lot of weight.

• “twice his previous age”– He looked a lot older than he used to.

Understanding – Example QuestionJim scarcely recognised his long grey hair and grey cheeks, the strange face in a strange mirror. He would stare at the ragged figure who appeared before him in all the mirrors of the Columbia Road, an urchin half his previous size and twice his previous age.

1. Identify four changes in his appearance that Jim notices when he looks at himself in the mirror. 4 marks

• “long hair”– His hair had grown.

• “grey cheeks”– His face was pale / drained of colour.

• “half his previous size”– He had lost a lot of weight.

• “twice his previous age”– He looked a lot older than he used to.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

1. Explain why Winston did not attempt to use the lift in his block of flats. 2

• “Even at the best of times it was seldom working,”– It was usually broken.

• “at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours.”– Just now, electrical power was only available at night.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

1. Explain why Winston did not attempt to use the lift in his block of flats. 2

• “Even at the best of times it was seldom working,”– It was usually broken.

• “at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours.”– Just now, electrical power was only available at night.