2 APPLYING YOUR READING SKILLS @ Practise answering reading comprehension questions Exercise 1 You will probably find the following extract easier to understand than some of, the more informative writing you have already looked at. Be careful, therefore, that you do not fall into the trap of reading it passively. It is important that you continue to concentrate on extracting the meaning as fully as possible. With this type of writing you are not looking just to identify relevant facts but also, for example, to indicate an understanding of the motives and personal of the characters described. Think about this as you answer the questions which follow the passage. First read the extract. The writer describes the effect of severe weather conditions on her father’s farm in Australia. } ee eee eee year. In 1940, tho slight fall was of no consoquence bocauso our major ‘worry was that the accumulation of growth on the land would produce serious | bushfires, Theso did oocur on land quito cioso to us, but my fathor’s foresight £ in getting cattle to eat down the high grass preserved Coorain from that danger. } In 1941, the only rain of the year was a damp cold rain with high wind which came during the lambing season in May and June and carried off many ewes and their newborn lambs. After that there were no significant rainfalls | for fivo years. The unfolding of a drought of those dimensions has a slow and inexorable quality. The weather perpetually holds out hope. Storm clouds £ gather. Thunder rolls by. But nothing happens. Bach year as the season for { rain approaches, people begin to look hopefully up at the sky. It mocks them with a few showers, barely enough to lay the dust. That is all.Practise answering reading comprehension questions It takes a long time for a carofully managed grazing property to doclino, but three years without rain will do it. Once the disaster begins, it unfolds swiftly. So it was with us. ‘My father and would set out to work on horseback as usual, but instead of our customary cheerful and wide-ranging conversations he would be silent. ‘As we looked at sheep, or tried to assess the pasture left in a particular } paddock, he would swear softly, looking over the fence to a neighbour's { property, alroady eaten out and beginning to blow sand. Each time he said, ‘If It doesn’t rain, it will bury this feed in a few week: Tt was true and I could think of nothing consoling to say. His usual high spirits declined with the state of the land, until the terrible day when many of our own sheep were lost because of a sudden cold rain and wind when they had too little food in their stomachs. By 1942 it was, apparent that the drought could be serious. Shortly afterwards, tho first terrible dust storm arrived boiling out of tha central Australian desert. One sweltering late afternoon in March, I walked, ‘out to collect wood for the stove. Glancing towards the west, [saw a terrifying ? sight. A vast boiling cloud was mounting in the sky, black and sulphurous yellow at the heart, varying shades of ochre red at the edges. Where I stood, ? the air was utterly still, but the writhing cloud was approaching silently and ? with groat speed. Suddenly I noticad that thare were no birds to bo sean or heard, All had taken shelter. I called my mother. We watched helplessly. Always one for action, she turned swiftly, wont indoors and bogan to close windows. Outside I collected the buckets, rakes, shovels and other implements that could blow away or smash a window if hurled against one by the boiling wind. Within the hour, my father arrived home, He and my mother sat on the back step not in their usual restful contemplation, but silonced instead by dread. ‘A dust storm usually lasts days, blotting out the sun, launching banshoo winds day and night. It is dangerous to stray far from shelter, because the sand and grit lodge in one’s eyes, and a visibility often reduced to a few feat can sake one completely disorientated. Animals which become exhausted and lie down are often sanded over and smothered. There is nothing anyone can ! } do but stay inside, waiting for the calm after the storm. Inside, itis stifling. ! } Every window must bo closed against the dust, which seeps relontlossly through tho slightost crack. Meals are gritty and sloop olusive. Rising in tho morning, one sees a perfect outline of one’s body, an after image of white where the dust has not collected on the shests. ‘As the winds seared our land, they took away the dry herbage, piled it £ against the fences, and then slowly began to silt over the debris. It was three : days before we could venture out, days of almost unendurable tension. ? } The crashing of the boughs of trees against our roof and the sharp roar as a noarly empty rainwater tank blow off its stand and rolled away, triggered my father's recurring nightmares of France during World War 1, so that when he did fall into a fitful slumber it would be to awake screaming. It was usually I £ who woke him from his nightmares. I, the child in the family, would waken and attempt to soothe a frantic adult. oe2 APPLYING YOUR READING SKILLS When wo emergod, there were sovoral foot of sand piled up against the i windbreak to my mother’s garden; the contours of new sandhills were } beginning to form in places where the dust eddied and collected. There was no question that there were also many more bare patches where the remains : of dry grass and herbage had lifted and blown away. It was always a miracle to me that animals could endure so much. As we } checked the property, there were dead sheep in every paddock to be sure, = but fewer than I'd feared. My spirits hogan to riso and I kept telling my fathar £ # the damage was not too bad. “That was only the first storm,’ he said bleakly. He had seen it all before and knew what was to come. From The Road from Gsomin: An Australian Memoir, by ill Kee Comway, Vintage, 1982 Note: The marks allocated to each question, for this and any subsequent exercises, are given as a guide only and should not be taken as a definitive representation of an actual examination mark scheme, 1 What do we lear about the rainfalls inthis part of Australi inthe years 1939, 1940 and 19412 (marks) 2 Which one word does the writer use in paragraph 6 to describe the results ofthe lack of rain? (1 mark) 3 Explain, using your own words, why the writer's father was worried about the lack of rain paragraphs 5-6). (2 maris) 4 What two things led to the deaths of many sheep on ‘the terible day? (2 marks) 5 Re-tead paragraph 7 from ‘Shorty afterwards." toWe watched helpless’ and expan, using your own words, what were the main signs of the approaching dust storm, @maris) 6 \Write a summary of the dangers and problems caused by a dust stor (Garagraphs 7-3, ftom ‘Always one for action." 10 ‘to awake screaming. (7 marks) 7 Re-tead the end of paragraph 9 (from ‘The crashing..." toa frantic adult) and explain what you think the writer means by this section ofthe passage. mars) 8 In the second to last line ofthe passage, wy do you think the writer uses the word “eleakly to describe how her father spoke? (mars) {9 Re-read paragraphs 4-7. Give three words or phrases which describe the fathers thoughts, and explain what each of them tells you about his state of mind during this period. (6 marks)Practise answering reading comprehension questions Exercise 2 Read carefully the passage “Leela’s Friend” and then answer the questions which follow. i The young i Sidda was hanging about the gate at a moment when | Mr Sivasanker was standing in the front veranda of his house, brooding over ; the servant problem. “Sir, do you want a servant?’ Sidda asked. ‘Come in,’ said Mr Sivasanker. As Sidda opened the gate and came in, Mr Sivasanker looked at him hard and said to himself, ‘Doesn't seam to be a bad sort... . At any rato, the fellow looks tidy.” “Whore wore you before?” he asked. Sidda said, ‘In a bungalow there,’ and indicated a vague somewhere, the doctor's house.” ‘What is his name?” ‘Idon't know, master,’ Sidda said. ‘He lives near the market.’ “Why did they sond you away?” “They left the town, master,’ Sidda sald, giving the stock reply. Mr Sivasanker was unable to make up his mind. He called his wife. ‘She looked at Sidda and said, ‘He doesn’t seem to me worse than the others ‘we have had.’ Leela, their five-year-old daughter, came out and gave a cry of joy. ‘Oh, Father!’ she said, ‘I like him. Don't send him away. Let us keep him in our house.’ And that decided it. ‘Sidda was givon two meals a day and four rupees a month, in return for which ho washed clothes, tonded the garden, ran errands, chopped wood and looked after Leela. ‘Sidda, come and play!” Leela would cry, and Sidda had to drop any work ‘he might be doing and run to her, as she stood in front of the garden with ared ball in her hand. His company made her extremely happy. She flung the ball at him and he flung it back. And then she said, ‘Now throw the ball, {into the sky.’ Sidda clutched the ball, closed his eyes for a second and threw the ball up. When the ball came down again, ha said, ‘Now this has touched the moon. Come. You sae here a little bit of the moon sticking.’ Leela keenly examined the ball for traces of the moon and said, ‘I don’t see it.’ “Youmustbe very quick about it,’ said Sidda, ‘because it all will evaporate and go back to the moon. Now hurry up...’ He covered the ball tightly with his fingors and allowed her to peop through a little gap. “Ah, yes,’ said Leela. ‘Isee the moon, but is the moon very wet?” ‘Cortainly, it is,’ Sidda said. “What is in the sky, Sidda?” ‘God,’ he said. ‘Ifwe stand on the roof and stretch our arm, can we touch the sky?” ‘Not if we stand on the roof here,’ he said. ‘But if you stand on a coconut tree you can touch the sky.” “Have you dono it?’ asked Leela. “Yes, many timos,’ sald Sida. ‘Whenever there is a big moon, I climb a coconut tree and touch it.”2 APPLYING YOUR READING SKILLS “Does the moon know you?" “Yes, very well. Now come with me, I will show you something nici ‘They were standing near a rose plant. He said, pointing, ‘You see the moon here, don’t you?” “Yes.” ‘Now come with me,’ he said, and took her back to the yard. He stopped near the well and pointed up. The moon was there, too. Leela clapped her hands and screamed in wonder, ‘The moon is here! It was there! How has that happened?’ “Thave asked It to follow us about.’ ‘Leela ran in and told her mother, ‘Sidda knows the moon.’ At dusk he took Leola in and she held a class for him. She had a box filled with catalogues, illustrated books and stumps of pencils. Tt gave her groat joy to play the teacher to Sida, She made him squat on the floor with a pencil between his fingors and a cataloguo in front of him, She had another pancil and commanded, ‘Now write.’ And he had to try and copy whatever she wrote in the pages of her catalogue. She knew two or three letters of the alphabet and could draw a kind of cat and crow. But none of these Sidda could copy, even remotely. She said, examining his effort, ‘Is this how I have drawn the crow? Is this how I have drawn the 3?’ She pitied him and redoubled her offorts to teach him. But that good follow, though an adept at controlling tho moon, was utterly incapable of plying the pencil. Consequently, It looked. as though Loola would keep him thora, pinned to his soat, until his stiff, inflexible wrist cracked. He sought relief by saying, ‘I think your mother is calling you in to dinner.’ Leela would drop the pencil and run out of the oom, and the school hour would end. From Molgudt Days, by RK. Narayan, Penguin, 1994 1 Which word in sentence 1 suggests that Mr Sivasanker is concemed about something? (1 mark) 2 Describe, using your own words, Mr Sivasanker’ fist response to the boy, Sidda, (2 marks) 3 Bxpain, using your own words, the phrase ‘giving the stock reply’ (@ marks) 4 What do you learn about Leela from the episode with Sidda and the ball? (4 marks) 5 Give two details which show that Sidda is an imaginative boy, and explain why you have chosen them, (4 marks) 6 Re-read the final paragraph and explain, using your own words, how Leela treats Sidda when she is ‘teaching’ him, (4 marks) 77 From the same section of the passage, choose two words or expressions which show that Sidda was not good at his lessons, and explain why you have chosen them (4 marks) 8 In ine 7 what do you think the writer means by using the expression ‘indicated @ vague somewhere"? (2 marks) 9 Write a summary of all you have learned about the history and character of Sidda from this passage. (7 marks)Practise answering reading comprehension questions Exercise 3 Read carefully the passage “The new school’ and then answer the questions which follow. THE NEW SCHOOL A young girl named Esther goes to a new school in Russia when her family are exiled from Poland, in 1941. ‘Th morning [ was to go to school for the first timo, I woke up in a blackness as mysterious as the heart of a dark forest, the sounds nearby its strange beat. But the howl of a wolf way out in the countzy gave me my bearings. Ttook up my little notebook, and a small stub of pencil, my only academic possessions, How long would they last? How small could I write? T quickly got dressed, as warmly as I could, although doop winter had not yet arrived. I pulled a swoater aver my thin little blouse, and struggled : into my black leather shoes, which were not only pinching but which were ‘beginning to crack from the wet and the mud, and endless drying in front of cour little stove. On went my one and only coat. I was ready to go. ‘Mother had to be at the bakery early that day and so, clutching my notebook ; and pencil, I went to school alone. It never occurred to me that for a child to ‘walk alone down a deserted Siberian road, so obviously a stranger, required ‘some courage. I was too busy trying to rehearso the Russian alphabet I would need to know in my new school. In room number five, a few children in caps and coats were seated at thelr desks watching the teacher write on the blackboard. She turned when I came in and looked at me so severely my heart sank. “You must be Esther Rudomin. From Poland. Your Russian will be poor.” Itwas as if she was reading from a dossier that would determine some sort of punishmont. ‘It will be my task to soo that you improve it. My namo is Raisa Nikitovna. Go to the last desk of the third row and sit down.” Without another word, she picked up a book, and called out a page number, Everyone had a book but me. The feeling must have been something like being the only soldier without a gun. I leaned towards the girl next to me and asked if might share her book. She grudgingly agreed. She was a very pretty gir] with short blonde hair, and eyes the special blue of northern countries. asked hername, but she told me to be quiet; there was absolutely no talking allowed in class. My first lesson in school in Siberia was memorable for being a chilly one. It was not only the Russian author's meaning that evaded me, lost as it was ina sea of strange letters formed in the Russian alphabet, but so did the book itself — literally. My classmate somehow managed to keep slipping it out of my field of vision, which forced me to strain, squirm, and nudge her to bring the book closer. Naturally, Thad barely read the first paragraph when Raisa Nikitovna bogan to quiz the class. To my horror, one question was directed at me. As I began to answer in my halting Russian, all the children turned to stare at me.2 APPLYING YOUR READING SKILLS When the lesson was finished, Raisa Nikitovna introduced me to the clas “This is Esther Rudomin, who comes from Poland. As you can tell, she does = { not know Russian well and she will have to work hard to catch up. She will i share her books with Svetlana. Stand up, Svetlana.’ Svetlana turned out to # be the pretty litte girl sitting next to me; the prospect of sharing with her { was not heartening. The more attention I got in class, the more she sulked. | Tsonsed that Svetlana wanted to be the queen bee and that I had become i her natural enemy. This was confirmed when I asked if I might come to ! her house and study with her. The answer was a sharp ‘No!’ I would be } allowed to go there to fetch books when she had quite finished with them, £ but otherwise I could jolly well trot home and study alone. At the end of my first day at school, I went home and collapsed on the sofa. Out of the confusion of the day, throo giants emerged to be slain: Svetlana, i Raisa Nikitovna, and the Russian alphabet. From The Endless Steppe, by Esther Hautzi, Puli, 1089 11 Give two details, from paragraphs 2 and 3, which suggest that Esther's family were poor, @ marks) 2 Wy did Esther mother not accompany her to school? (1 mak) 3 Explain, using your own words, what worried Esther most on her way to school G marks) 4 Describe, using your own words, the way Esther was treated and what her feelings ‘were when she fist met her new teacher. @ marks) 5 What were the problems Esther had when she tried to ead the book? G marks) 6 Explain what is meant by the word ‘halting’ In the phrase ‘my hating Russian’. (1 mark) 7 Re-read paragraph 9. Choose three words or phrases which Esthor uses to describe ‘Svetlana and explain what they tell us about Svetianas character. (6 marks) 8 Re-read the last paragraph. Explain fully using your own words, what Esther meant by her reference to the ‘thre giants. marks) 9 Write a summary of what happened to Esther during her first day at school and ‘what her thoughts and feelings were at cifferent times ofthe day 7 marks) Exercise 4 Read carefully the extract from The First Men in the Moon on pages 23-24, an early work of science fiction written by H.G.Wells and published in 190 ‘Then answer the questions which follow. The story tells of the adventures of the narrator, Bedford, and an eccentric scientist, Cavor, as they explore the surface of the moon having travelled there in a spherical space capsule, invented by Cavor. (Our knowledge of space travel and conditions on the moon has increased significantly since Wells wrote this book!)Practise answering reading comprehension questions SUNRISE ON THE MOON As we saw it first it was the wildest and most desolate of scenes. We were in an enormous amphitheatre, a vast circular plain, the floor of the giant, crater. Its cliff-like walls closed us in on every side. From the westward the light of the unseen sun fell upon them, reaching to the very foot of the cliff, and showed a disordered escarpment of drab and greyish rock, lined here and there with banks and crovices of snow. This was perhaps a dozen miles away, but at first no intervening atmosphoro diminished in the slightost the minutely detailed brilliancy with which these things glared at us. They stood out clear and dazzling against a background of starry blackness that seemed to our earthly eyes rather a gloriously spangled velvet curtain than the spaciousness of the sky. ‘Tho eastward cliff was at first merely a starloss selvedge to the starry dome. No rosy flush, no creeping pallor, announced the commencing day. Only the Corona, the Zodiacal light, a huge cone-shaped, luminous haze, pointing up towards the splendour of the morning star, warned us of the imminent nearness of the sun. Whatever light was about us was reflected by the westward cliffs. Itshowed a hugo undulating plain, cold and groy, a grey that deepened oastward into the absolute raven darkness of the cliff shadow. Innumerable rounded grey summits, ghostly hummocks, billows of snowy substance, strotching crest beyond crest into the remote obscurity, gave us our first inkling of the distance of the crater wall. These hummocks looked like snow. At the time I thought they were snow. But they were not — they were mounds and masses of frozen air. So it was at first; and then, sudden, swift, and amazing, came the lunar day. ‘The sunlight had crept down the cliff, it touched the drifted masses at its base and came striding with seven-leagued boots towards us. The distant cliff seemed to shift and quiver, and at the touch of the dawn a reek of grey >>2 APPLYING YOUR READING SKILLS ‘vapour poured upward from the crater floor, whirls and puffs and drifting ; wraiths of grey, thicker and broader and denser, until at last the whole : westward plain was steaming like a wet handkerchief held before the fire, and the westward cliffs were no more than refracted glare beyond. tis air,’ said Cavor. ‘It must be air — or it would not rise like this —at the mere tonch of a sun-beam. And at this pace ...” He peered upwards. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘What? L asked. ‘in the sky. Already. On the blackness ~a little touch of blue. See! The stars seem larger. And the little ones we saw in empty space — they are hiddent” Swiflly, steadily, the day approached us. Grey summit after grey summit was overtaken by the blaze, and turned to a smoking white intensity. Atlast thoro was nothing to tho wost of us but a bank of surging fog, the tumultuous advance and ascent of cloudy haze. The distant cliff had receded farther and farther, had loomed and changed through the whirl, and foundered and vanished at last in its confusion. ‘Nearer came that steaming advance, nearer and nearer, coming as fast as the shadow of a cloud before the south-west wind. About us rose a thin anticipatory haze. Cavor gripped my arm. ‘What?’ I said. ‘Look! The sunrise! The sun!” He turned me about and pointed to the brow of the eastward cliff, looming above the haze about us, scarce lightor than the darknoss of the sky. But now its Iine was marked by strange reddish shapes, tongues of vermilion flame that writhed and danced. I saw, a crown of fire about the sun that is forever hidden from earthly eyes by our atmospheric veil. ‘And then — the sun! Steadily, inevitably came a brilliant line, came a thin edge of intolerable offulgonce that took a circular shape, became a bow, bacamo a blazing scoptre, and hurled a shaft of heat at us as though It was a spear. Itseemed to stab my eyes! I cried aloud and turned about blinded, groping for my blanket beneath the bale. And with that incandescence came a sound, the first sound that had reached us from without since we left the earth, a hissing and rustling, the stormy trailing of the aorial garment of the advancing day. And with the coming of the sound and the light the sphere lurched, and blinded and dazzled we staggered helplessly against each other. It lurched again, and the hissing grew louder. I shut my eyes; I was making clumsy efforts to cover my head with my blanket, and this second lurch sent me helplessly off my feot. I fell against the bale, and opening my eyes had a momentary glimpse of the air just outside our glass. It was running — it was boiling — like snow into which a white-hot rod is thrust. What had been solid air had suddenly at the touch of the sun become a pasta, a mud, a slushy liquofaction, that hissed and bubbled into gas. ‘There came a still more violent whirl of the sphere and we had clutched one another. In another moment we were spun about again. Round we went and over, and then Iwas on all fours. The lunar dawn had hold of us. Itmeant to show us little men what the moon could do with us. From The First Mon in the Moon, H.C.Wolls‘More complex comprehension questionsiHow writers achieve effects 1 In paragraph 1 where are the explorers and ther space craft? 1 marke 2 Explain, using your own words, the meaning ofthe folowing words and phrases in italics as used in the passage: {) 'a disordered escarpment of drab and greyish rocks’ (2 marks) ') "The eastward cif was a frst merely a staress selvedge tothe starry dome.’ (2. marks) ©) ‘a thin edge of intolerable effulgence’ (2 marks) 3 By referring to paragraph 3, explain, using your own words, why the explorers were able to see the scenery around them (2 marks) 4 Explain full, using your cwn words, the fist effects ofthe appearance of the sun as described by the writer in paragraph 5. (A marks) 5 Explain, using your own words, why the ‘crown of fre’ around the sun isnot visible from Earth. (2 marks) 66 What effect does the writer achieve by the four-word paragraph, ‘And then ~ the sunt"? (2 marks) 7 Explain, using your own word, the effect on the narrator of the appearance of the sun, (2 marks) 8 Re-tead paragraphs 10-18 and then write a summary of everything that Cavor and the narrator saw as the sun rose, (7 marks) 9 Explain full, using your awn words, what happens to the explorer in the lest two paragraphs of the extract. (8 marks) More complex comprehension questions/ How writers achieve effects Some examination questions, especially those set for Extended or Higher Curriculum papers, will require more developed and longer responses, and may take different forms in order to test your reading skills. For example, you may be asked to produce 4 piece of continuous writing in which you show your understanding of a reading passage by using details from it with a different purpose from that of the original writer and addressing a different audience, Another type of longer question might ask you to write a detailed analysis of the writer’s use of language and how it sets out to achieve a particular response from readers. Understanding how writers achieve effects All good writers are aware of their audience and choose their words carefully in order to persuade their readers to share their viewpoint. To do this, they will pay particular attention to the tone of voice they use. The tone or register of a piece of writing is produced not just by the choice of vocabulary, but also by the length and types of sentences used, the choice of similes and metaphors as well as the use of other literary devices such as irony, rhetorical questions, alliteration and so on, When you are analysing the way a writer uses language it is important that first you decide on the purpose of the picce of writing and the audience for whom it is intended. You should always keep these points in mind and refer to them when analysing a writer’s use of language.