Comprehension Question Types You Need to Know About

Terminology Used in Comprehension

If you ever try to help your children in their school work, especially comprehension, you might be baffled by the terminology used by the schools. These terminologies can leave you scratching your heads. Here are some examples of terminologies used by schools across the island and what they mean.

Factual/Literal question (pri/sec): The answer to this question is explicit and students can easily find the answer from the passage.

E.g. Who was Jane trying to avoid?

Quotation (pri/sec): Students are to quote the answer directly from the passage. The quoted answer must be exactly the same as in the passage, if not marks will not be awarded.

E.g. Quote a phrase that suggests that Jane was trying to avoid John.

Paraphrasing (sec): students need to rewrite the keywords using their own words to convey the same idea.

Eg. Why did Ed lie to his teammates? Answer in your own words.

Inferential question (pri/sec): Students need to read “between the lines”. Answers cannot be found explicitly from the passage. Instead, students have to find clues, infer the clues, and derive at the answer.

E.g. Why was Jane avoiding John?

Evaluative question (pri/sec): Students are supposed to decide whether he or she agrees with the decision made by the character in the passage, and students are required to substantiate their opinion with evidence from the passage.

E.g. Would you make the same decision as Jane? Support your answer with an evidence from the passage.

Language Use for impact / effect (sec): This type of question requires students to question why the writer use that word. They are required to understand fully the definition of the word and what effect the writer is trying to achieve.

E.g. “Jane hid behind the wall, waiting for the John to leave. It was one agonising hour.” What does the word “agonising” suggests about the waiting time?

As you can see, primary comprehension questions mainly test students’ on their logical thinking, whether they have understood the passage, while secondary comprehension has an additional component for testing students’ understanding on the use of English language. That being said, some schools have different definition for each terminology, but the difference should not be stark.