Reading and Understanding

Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four main skills necessary to master a
language. Reading is a process which one acquires as soon as one tries to get literate, but
reading is not an easy task as with reading there is a process of understanding which carries
on at the same time. What you are reading is written by you or someone and therefore, a
communication is taking place in your act of reading. This communication can be successful
and effective only when one reads properly and understands what the writer of the piece you
are reading has tried to mean or hint at.
Those good at reading, become good listeners, speakers and writers. Nonetheless, the fact
remains that no one skill is learned alone. Most of the times it is a combination and integration
of skills.
Why do you read and how to read - these are the two significant aspects to be discussed in
detail to attain a good proficiency in reading. One must know the purpose of reading a piece
(literary or non-literary) before plunging into it and after knowing the purpose, a strategy of
reading should be evolved.
Reading is for pleasure, examination, general information, specific knowledge, problem
solving, drawing logic, etc.
Reading Techniques and Skills
In the age of Internet and information overload, what to read and what not to read is a big
question and some clarity about it is extremely crucial. Reading techniques help in dealing
with such situations. It is important to know WHY one is reading before going into the details
of HOW (Reading Techniques). HOW you read depends on WHY you are reading- what is your
purpose? Is the target common, is it specific? Once this question is answered, only then the
reading strategies can be decided for particular cases.
There are four main reading techniques which are used for specific situations:
1. Scanning is reading with a specific purpose in mind for specific information. When one
reads an entire text/document quickly while looking for specific information, it is called
scanning. For example: Going through an entire newspaper and looking for specific news
related to India-Pakistan cricket match. You scanned articles to get specific information about
Delhi University admissions and cut-offs.
2. Skimming is speed reading for cursory overview for general information. Going through an
entire newspaper quickly through the headlines is an example of skimming. Going through a
data-table quickly to elicit an overall idea of the topic on which data is presented is an example
of skimming technique of reading. Reading only the headings of chapters is skimming. Do not
expect a deep comprehension of the written text after skimming.
3. Intensive reading is of a specific written piece for a specific purpose. It is going into the
minutest details of a particular word/phrase/line/para, etc. For example,
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep”
(Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening-by Robert Frost)
To answer a question like, ‘what is the meaning of woods’ in the poem, one will adopt
intensive reading technique. Intensive reading is very crucial for language learners as they
pick up vocabulary, focus on structure and syntax while doing intensive reading.
4. Extensive reading is a kind of general reading for general information. Generally, this
technique is used for pleasure reading, like reading a novel for pleasure. One does not mind
certain difficult terms or expressions and goes on without stopping for their clarification until
they become a hindrance in overall understanding. For example, if one is asked to read a
chapter before discussing it in class, one goes for extensive reading to get a general idea of
the piece. Unlike intensive reading which is for specific purpose, extensive reading is for a
generalized understanding of a piece of writing.
For example, while doing an unseen passage for comprehension, one does extensive and
intensive reading both. For dealing with specific vocabulary related or other specific
questions, intensive reading is required, but the initial first reading is undertaken for a general
idea of the passage.
Process of Reading
Effective reading involves proper planning of reading so that the objectives of reading are
successfully met. First of all, a reader must know her/his purpose of reading, specific or
general, and then accordingly choose the appropriate strategy for the same.
A. Pre-reading Activities. For example, before reading a story/essay, talking about the title,
sub title, sections, subsections and guessing the main idea and sub-ideas of it; warming up
readers by asking them questions related to the theme, writer, writing technique, genre and
past knowledge of the topic, etc. prepare a reader well for the main reading. Vocabulary and
basic questions related to the topic also work effectually.
B. While-reading: Multiple readings and in between stopping by a reader to check whether
the purpose of reading is being fulfilled: if it is for pleasure, is s/he getting the story line
properly; if for a specific purpose like getting the main idea of the content, has s/he got it; is
s/he able to comprehend what was expected after a reading, etc.
C. Post-reading Activities: After reading, a reader may ask oneself certain questions or some
questions may be posed by a teacher in case of guided reading so that the reader is able to
form an opinion about the content and can rewrite or present it.
An Approach to Deal with Comprehension Passages
One of the main objectives of learning English is to understand the language. What we call
‘comprehension’ exercises are, in fact, a test of this understanding. A comprehension exercise
consists of a passage on which questions are set to test a pupil’s ability to understand the
content of a given text and to infer information and meanings from it.
Here are a few points to be kept in mind while attempting a comprehension exercise:
1. Read the passage quickly once to get a general idea of the theme. When you do this do not
be preoccupied with answering particular questions.
2. After reading the questions read the passage again. Look at the questions and work out
mentally the location in the passage where the information required for each answer lies. Do
not start writing immediately. The most useful work is done while you make yourself familiar
with the passage and the questions.
3. Make sure that you understand the questions. Re-phrase the questions in simple terms.
Very often the students just glance through the questions without trying to understand their
full implication. Consequently, they fail to give complete answers to the questions.
4. Make sure what you write is relevant. Answer to the point and then stop. Refer back to the
question to make sure that your answer contains the information that is asked for and nothing
more.
6. Use your own words as far as possible. However, it may not be always possible to use
completely different words when technical terms are involved or words used in the passage
are simple enough. But, as far as possible, use your own words and structures. The purpose
of setting a comprehension exercise is to find out whether a student understands the passage
or not. If you merely copy the exact set of words from the passage you do not show that you
understand the passage.
7. Keep to the facts given in the passage. You may have a lot of information from various
sources on the theme of the passage set for comprehension. Your answer must be based on
the facts given in the passage, unless you are directed to give information which is not given
in the passage, like giving your opinion, arguments, etc. To emphasise once again, the purpose
of comprehension exercises is to show that you understand the given passage and not to
show how much you know about the theme from other sources.
8. Answer in complete sentences unless you are told not to do so. Sometimes, you could
present the information in a single word; but you are required to express yourself clearly in
good English, that is in a complete sentence.
9. Answer in the same tense as that of the question; e.g.,
What does he see? = He sees .......
What did he see? = He saw .......
10. When you have written your answer you should always refer back to the question and
check whether your answer is relevant and complete in all respects.

Comprehension Passage Analysis

The suggestions given at the end of the following comprehension exercise should serve as
guidelines while answering such questions.
Read the following passage carefully and then answer, as far as possible, in your own words,
questions that follow. Before reading the suggested answers given at the end of the exercise,
you should answer the questions yourself. Then compare your own response with the
suggested answers.
My life was fulfilled on my fourth birthday. By which I mean everything that has happened
since has been an anticlimax and has failed to match the joy and satisfaction I experienced on
that day. My mother had taken me for a holiday to Bishop’s Hull, a small village outside
Taunton. A farm labourer, who lived in an adjoining cottage and who had lost an arm in the
war offered to take me fishing. I had been fishing before but only for sharks from the upturned
kitchen-table. I had never held a real rod or had my hook dangling in genuine water. Now, the
prospect alone of this expedition made me so excited that I ran a temperature and did not
sleep at all the night before. I even forget the grey hunter which I had discovered stabled in a
pub opposite. The shutter of my mind must have been full open that day, for every detail of
the river still remains in sharp focus. My cousin and I followed the man along the river-bank.
It was my first river, then he stopped at a deep pool by a weir; it was my first pool; deep,
bottomless. Branches of ash reached out so that half was in the shade; the sunlight shone on
the other half, and on the whole it was so still that flies could walk upon the invisible skin of
the water.
I watched the fisherman take from his pocket a small tobacco-tin full of worms. Then
breathlessly I saw him hold his rod against his body with his iron arm and watched him
dexterously fix a worm on the hook with the other. Then he cast his line, and for the next half-
hour I sat too excited to speak, my eyes riveted on the scarlet float almost unmoving on the
still water. But we caught nothing.
That evening, I could not even eat my supper; I was too possessed. My mind was completely
filled with the images of fish swimming beneath the water. I felt resentment against them for
avoiding being caught. I lay in bed imagining I was a fish to find out how long it would be
before hunger made me take the temptation of the hook. That problem was promptly
resolved the next morning by my mother who took me into Taunton to buy me a fishing line
and one or two other pieces of necessary equipment. As soon as she got off the bus, I raced
her towards the pool, found a worm and cast the float on to the water. Then I closed my eyes
and prayed
‘Dear God, please make the trout hungry. Dear God, please make them like worms, not any
worms, but my worm which I’ve put on that hook, for Thine is the Kingdom forever and ever,
Amen.’
I have never prayed so fervently or succinctly. It was not a particularly odd prayer. As a child,
I always imagined God as a grocer, order-book and pencil in hand, giving me the courtesy due
to a customer. I sat willing the fish towards the worm. My whole soul was screwed up into my
eyes riveted on the float. I did this for half an hour or so, till my mother asked me to go and
pick her some cowslips from the meadow behind her. Grudgingly I complied, running back
with the flowers.
‘Why don’t you see now if you’ve caught a fish,’ my mother suggested casually. ‘It seems tome
your float’s quite low in the water.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I cried, hauling in, nearly falling into the water.
I can state, but I cannot express the pleasure I felt as a great fish broke the water.
‘You’ve never seen a trout as big as that, have you?’ I asked my mother confidently.
‘Never,’ she said truthfully.
‘I shall eat it for supper,’ I said, ‘and perhaps I’ll give you a bit for buying me the line. But
tomorrow you can have all the fish. There’s bound to be another tomorrow.’
That evening I broke my fast and ate the whole of the fish. There was another fish on my hook
the next day. And for everyday that week. I never suspected that there was any coincidence
in the fact that the fishes took my bait only while I was off picking flowers.
No doubt my mother’s subterfuge was justifiable. I never suspected it and was seventeen
before she punctured my boast about the trout I used to catch, by telling me they were
herrings. But it was too late then. Consequently, I have gone through life always sublimely
confident that wherever I flung my hook an obliging fish would swallow it. And the incident
has had other psychic repercussions. (RONALD DUNCAN, All Men are Islands)
(a) How old was the author when he first fished in genuine water?
(b) The fisherman with whom the author had gone for fishing is said to have an iron arm.
What do you understand by an iron arm?
(c) How did the fisherman come to have an iron arm?
(d) What were the feelings of the author towards God?
(e) Carefully explain in your own words the exact meaning of the following phrases or
words as they are used in the passage:
(i) an anticlimax
(ii) dexterously
(iii) too possessed
(iv) fervently
(v) complied
(vi) repercussions
(f) What were the feelings of the author when he had caught the fish for the first time?
(g) Write a paragraph of not more than 70 words to make clear what the mother’s plan was,
why she considered it to be justifiable, and what effect, the author feels, it has had upon him.
Suggested Answers
Question (a) This question requires from you a fact that is mentioned in the passage. It is a
simple question to begin with so that it puts you at ease to go ahead with self-confidence.
(i) The author was four years old when he first fished in genuine water.
Question (b)
(i) “By iron-arm I understand that the fisherman did not have a real arm.” This answer is
negative and vague. What type of an arm did he have?
(ii) Therefore the correct answer is: “By an iron arm, I understand that the farm-labourer
had a false arm made of some metal. Furthermore, I understand that his false arm was
very strong as it is compared to iron.”
Question (c) Here you are required to find the fact from the passage.
(i) A candidate may just answer this question in the following way:
“The fisherman lost his arm during the war.” Many lose arms during the war. Though
this candidate has the correct clue to the answer, he does not answer the question.
(ii) A second candidate may answer:
“Since during the war, the fisherman lost his arm, it was replaced by an iron arm in the
hospital.” This answer brings in the “army” and the “hospital” which are not in the
passage.
(iii) The correct answer is:
“The fisherman came to have an iron arm because he had lost his real arm in the war.”
Question (d) Here are three possible answers.
(i) He thought that God was like a grocery man with an order book and pencil ready to note
down anything he wanted and get it from him.
(ii) He believed in God as anything or anyone who could help him.
(iii) He considered God as a convenience who should serve him (the boy). He thinks of God
as a shopkeeper who should always keep him (the customer) happy by doing what he
wants.
The two important ideas to be contained in the answer are the prayer and the image of
God as a grocer. Answer (i) above has too many of the original words from the passage;
and thus it does not prove to be the candidate’s own answer. Answer (ii) is very much
confused. Answer (iii) is the correct one expressing both the key ideas involved.
Question (e)
(i) an anticlimax is something that does not match up to previous expectation.
(ii) dexterously means with great skill in the use of the hands. In the context, it means that he
fixed the worm with great expertise.
(iii) too possessed means involved to an excessive extent.
(iv) fervently means marked by a great warmth of feeling.
(v) complied means acted in accordance with someone’s wishes.
(vi) repercussions means indirect effects of an act.
Question (f) Answer to this question is not directly found in the passage; therefore you have
to read between the lines to deduce feelings and attitudes from actions and comments. Some
of the possible answers are given below:
(i) The boy considered the trout as a reward for his work and fulfilment of his ambition.
When he catches the fish he feels he got the reward for the day and therefore he can stop
fishing for the day.
(ii) He regards that the purpose of trout’s existence is to be caught by fishermen. He also
thought that since he had prayed to God the trout should take the bait.
(iii) The boy’s attitude towards the trout is selfish. He thinks that the purpose of the trout’s
existence is to be caught by him; and he tries hard by prayer and will-power to lure the
trout on to his hook.
The main ideas of the answer are the boy’s prayer to God and his wish that the fish
should be caught in his hook. (“I sat willing the fish towards the worm.”) Against this
background, answer (i) is vague and (ii) is more or less satisfactory; but it is not related
to the boy himself. Answer (iii) is the best answer, because it refers to the clues in the
passage.
Question (g) This question again demands looking for facts and interpreting them.
The trick played by the mother was that she put a herring on the fishing line when her son
was picking flowers. She did this to save her son from being disappointed if he did not catch
a fish. The author considers that these events made him to expect to be lucky and always to
get what he wanted. This incident has also caused other differences in his outlook towards
life.
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow. (12 marks)

1. You never saw such a commotion in all your life as when my Uncle Podger undertook to
do a job. A picture would be waiting to be put up and Uncle Podger would say: ‘Oh, you
leave that to me. Don’t you worry about that? I’ll do all that. Now you go and get me my
hammer. You bring me the rule Tom, and I shall want the step – ladder and I had better
have a kitchen chair too and Jim, you run round to Mr. Goggles and tell him Pa’s kind
regards and hopes his leg’s better and will he lend him his spirit level? And don’t you go,
Martha, because I shall want somebody to hold me the light, and when the girl comes back,
she must go out again for a bit of picture – cord and Tom you come here I shall want you to
hand me up the picture.’

2. And then he would lift up the picture and drop it and it would come out of the frame, and
he would try to save the glass and cut himself and then he would spring round the room,
looking for his handkerchief. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the
pocket of the coat he had taken off, and he did not know where he had put the coat. The
entire house had to leave off looking for his tools and start looking for his coat, while he
would dance round and hinder them. ‘Doesn’t anybody in the whole house knows where my
coat is? Six of you! You can’t find a coat!’ Then he’d get up and find that he had been sitting
on it, and would call out. ‘Oh, you can give it up! I’ve found it myself now.’

3. When half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new glass had been got,
and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle had been brought, he would
have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in
a semi-circle, ready to help.

4. Two people would have to hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth
would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and drop it. “There!’ he
would say, in an injured tone, ‘now the nail’s gone’.

5. We would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while he would stand on the
chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening. The nail would
be found at last, but by that time he would have lost the hammer. “Where’s the hammer?
Seven of you gaping round there and you don’t know what I did with the hammer?’

6. We would find the hammer and then he would have lost sight of the mark he had made
on the wall. Each of us had to get up on the chair beside him and see if we could find it, and
we would each discover it in a different place and he would call us all fools. And he would
take the rule, and re-measure and find that he wanted half thirty – one and three-eighths
inches from the corner, and would try to do it in his head, and go mad. And we would all try
to do it in our heads and all arrive at different results, and the original number would be
forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have to measure it again.

7. He would use a bit of string this time and at the critical moment, when he was leaning
over the chair at an angle of forty – five, and trying to reach a point on the wall, the string
would slip, and down he would slide on the piano, a really fine musical effect being
produced by the suddenness with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same
time.

8. At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again and put the point of the nail on it
with his left hand and take the hammer in his right hand. And, with the first blow, he would
smash his thumb, and drop the hammer with a yell, on somebody’s toes.

9. Aunt Maria would observe that the next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail
into the wall;. she would go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done.
‘You women you make such a fuss over everything,’ Uncle Podger would reply. “I like doing
a little job of this sort.’

Adapted from Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome

1.1 Choose the correct option.

(a) A charwoman is a woman ……………………………..

i. who cleans houses
ii. who is the head of a committee
iii. none of the above

(b) When the hammer had finally been found, Uncle Podger would ……………………………..
i. have lost sight of the mark he had made on the wall
ii. have lost the nail
iii. fix the nail on the wall

1.2 On the basis of your reading of the passage, answer the following questions.

(a) How did Uncle Podger prepare for the task that he was going to undertake?
(b) Why was looking for the handkerchief a tedious task?
(c) Uncle Podger’s family was not good at mental maths. Give evidence.
(d) What was Aunt Maria’s reaction to Uncle Podger’s hanging the picture?
(e) Give two words to describe Uncle Podger.

1.3 Pick out the words from the passage which mean the same as the following.
(a) tumult (para 1)
(b) abruptness (para 7)