Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School

2E English Language
Name: _______________________ ( ) Class: ______ Date: __________

Comprehension
Learning targets – by the end of the
Language use for Impact Question Types lesson, I will be able to:
 Analyse the Language
1. Identifying & Explaining Figurative Use (Evidence +
language Explanation) question
type
2. Unusual & Effective
 Pick out relevant details
3. Language use to answer the question
(Evidence + Explanation)  Explain the details using
the OMI technique
Watch Video 1
Purpose of question type
This question is testing your understanding of how writers use language (imagery /
figurative language / diction) for an intended effect (character / mood / atmosphere).
This is very similar to how analyse your literature texts.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question
2. Find synonyms
3. Use these words in the explanation part of the answer

Structuring response
1. Identify details
2. OMI
 Observe: specific word/s in the detail
 Meaning: significance of word/s
 Inference: explanation

Watch Video 2
Guided example 1:

Then Lord Asriel stood up and turned away from the fire. She saw him fully, and
marvelled at the contrast he made with the plump Butler, the stooped and languid
Scholars. Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face,
and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be
dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize or pity. All his movements were
large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in
a room like this, he seemed a wild animal held in a cage too small for it.
Taken from Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

This text describes Lord Asriel. Explain how the language used in this text
makes Lord Asriel appear intimidating. Support your ideas with three details
from the text.

Question analysis

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________

Structuring response: Identify detail + OMI

Identify detail Observe Meaning Inference

from the text Specific word/s in Significance of word/s Explanation
the detail * Use these words
in the explanation
part of the answer
‘tall man with   Shows overwhelming suggests that Lord
powerful Tall, powerful strength Asriel looks imposing,
shoulders’ towering over people
and strong
‘fierce dark face’   Shows unfriendliness , suggests that he
Fierce, dark, hostility, something hidden inspires fear   due to
dominated and the ability to control  his hostility and
overbearing aura /
presence. 
‘savage   Means  a lack of humane suggests that he is
laughter’ Savage qualities / shows barbaric frightening as his eyes
qualities gleamed of
something sinister. 
‘a wild animal   Shows a repressed wild Highlights how  he is
held in a cage Wild animal creature, trapped or kept threatening as he
too small’ under control possibly has the
ability to attack
In a cage too small others if he loses his
restraint

Final Response:
  Details from the text
1 ‘a wild animal held in a
cage too small’
Explanation
This shows a repressed wild creature, trapped or kept
under control, highlighting how  he is threatening as he
possibly has the ability to attack others if he loses his
restraint

2 ‘tall man with powerful This highlights his overwhelming strength, revealing how
shoulders’ Lord Asriel towers over people and is an  imposing
presence.

3 ‘eyes that seemed to The word ‘savage’ means barbaric or a lack of humane
flash and glitter with qualities, suggesting that he is frightening as his eyes
savage laughter’ gleamed of something sinister. 

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language

Guided example 2:

As I tried vainly to close my ears to this incessant questioning, the driver

interrupted with a sudden yell as he pointed out of the window: ‘Lao lu! Lao lu!’
‘What is he saying?’ asked the engineer.
‘He is showing the old road,’ said the student. ‘The old way. We call it here to
Yunnan-Burma highway.’

Running parallel to the highway, at the foot of a slope, was a small black road,
which at first glance could be taken for a stream. Along its banks were uniform
rows of tall pointed trees – cypresses, I guessed. Or cedars. I could never
remember the names of trees; the engineer would no doubt have enlightened me,
if I had been foolish enough to ask him. Now he was asking the student whether
he thought the explorer Marco Polo had ever come to China. Some people
seemed to suggest he hadn’t.

‘Oh, Marco?’ said the student, as though speaking about an old classmate. ‘Marco
came here for here. There are many proofs. You can check in the history books.’
The young man was starting to sound irritated; perhaps he wished, as I did, that
the engineer would shut up and poke his long nose elsewhere.

In paragraphs 1, 2 and 3, the writer suggests that the engineer is a very

irritating person. Pick out one detail per paragraph and explain in each case
the characteristic that makes him irritating.     

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________
Identify detail Observe Meaning Inference
from the text Specific word/s in Significance of Explanation
the detail word/s * Use these words in
the explanation part
of the answer
‘incessant   This means that he This emphasises how
questioning’ Incessant, was asking bothersome he was.
questioning questions non-stop
/ the engineer
never stopped
asking questions
‘would no doubt   This means it was This suggests how
have enlightened No doubt, certain that  he annoying he is that he
me’ enlightened would attempt to is showing off his
educate the others. knowledge

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language
‘shut up and poke   This means that he He was being 
his long nose Shut up  takes an interest or intrusive /
somewhere else’ gets involved in the meddlesome,
Poke his long nose  others’ private emphasising how he
affairs. got on people’s
nerves. 

Meaning & Inference

Final Response:
  Details from the Explanation
  text
1 ‘incessant This suggests that the engineer never stopped asking
questioning’  questions, which emphasises how bothersome he
was. 

2 ‘would no doubt This reveals how readily the engineer liked to educate
have enlightened the others, which reflects how annoying  he was,
me’ showing off his knowledge

3 ‘shut up and poke This suggests that the engineer took an interest and
his long nose tried to find out about the others’ private affairs. to the
somewhere else’ point of being intrusive / meddlesome, emphasising how
he got on people’s nerves. 

Watch Video 3
Guided example 3:

A dark-coloured mass was creeping over the sky towards the sun. Red
zigzags of lightning gleamed here and there across it. There was a sound of
far-away rumbling. Violent winds gusted over the grass and stirred up the dust.
In a minute, there would be a spurt of May rain and a real storm would begin.
Fika, a little girl of six, was running through the village, looking for Trent, the
cobbler.

Explain how the language used in Paragraph 1 makes the weather seem
threatening. Support your ideas with 3 details from the paragraph.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________

Identify detail Observe Meaning Inference

from the text Specific word/s in Significance of Explanation

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language
the detail word/s * Use these words
in the explanation
part of the answer
‘dark-coloured mass
was creeping over the
sky towards the sun’

‘Red zigzags of
lightning gleamed
here and there across
it’
‘Violent winds gusted
over the grass and
stirred up the dust’

Final Response:
Details from the text Explanation

1  
‘A dark-coloured mass
was creeping over the sky
towards the sun’

2 ‘Red zigzags of lightning

gleamed here and there
across it’

3 ‘Violent winds gusted over

the grass and stirred up
the dust’

Ready to try on your own? There are 5 independent practices that follow.
Remember to analyse the question, and then use the OMI technique to phrase
your answers!

Independent practice 1:

The jet engines of the Iberia Airlines DC-8 thundered in ear-splitting crescendo as the big
plane taxied toward where we huddled in the tall grass, just off the end of the runway at
Havana’s Jose Marti Airport. For months, a friend and I had been planning to stow away in
a wheel well on this flight. I was seventeen, my friend Jorge Perez Blanco was sixteen but
we were both determined to escape from Cuba. We knew that departing airliners taxied to
the end of the 11,500-foot runway, stopped momentarily after turning around, then roared
at full throttle down the runway to take off. We wore rubber-soled shoes to aid us in
crawling up the wheels and carried ropes to secure ourselves inside the wheel as well. We
had also stuffed cotton in our ears as protection against the shriek of the four jet engines.

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language

Explain how the language used in paragraph 1 emphasises the loud noise caused
by the jet engines. Support with 3 details.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________

Structuring Response
Identify detail Observe Meaning Inference
from the text Specific word/s in Significance of Explanation
the detail word/s * Use these words
in the explanation
part of the answer

Final Response:
Identify detail Explanation
from the text

Independent practice 2:

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language
Our party consisted of eleven Europeans, Kuraluk, the Eskimo, his wife and
two children, fifteen dogs and a cat. We were tired of the winter, tired of white,
tired of the cold, restless, anxious and rebellious. For weeks, the icy
wilderness beyond our camp had been an infinity of rolling land mantled by
snow, broken here and there by rocky ridges, solemn and silent. Spring would
not rouse this land with a sudden clamour, instead it would arrive on tiptoe.
Most of our days in the camp were intensely cold and vicious storms raged
across the snowy waste, filling the air with stinging snow. We could not wait for
Spring to come, and with it, the promise of warmth, food and life.

The party of people have been stranded at their camp for some time now. Explain
how the language used in paragraph 1 emphasises their frustration and their desire
for some relief. Support with 2 details.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________
Structuring Response
Identify detail Observe Meaning Inference
from the text Specific word/s in Significance of Explanation
the detail word/s * Use these words
in the explanation
part of the answer

Final Response:
Identify detail Explanation
from the text

Independent practice 3:

Now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown
waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. Then she did

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language
it up again nervously and quickly. Once, she faltered for a minute and stood still while a
tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet. On went her old brown jacket; on went her
old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she
fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped, the sign read: “Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and
collected herself, panting. “Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

In this text, Della expresses concern about losing her hair. Explain how the
language used makes her seem emotional. Support with 3 details.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________

Structuring Response
Identify detail Observe Meaning Inference
from the text Specific word/s in Significance of Explanation
the detail word/s * Use these words
in the explanation
part of the answer

Final Response:
Identify detail Explanation
from the text

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language

Independent practice 4:

Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well but when she saw me lean
over the mouth and look downward, she seemed strangely disconcerted. “Goodbye, little
Weena,” I said, kissing her; and then putting her down, I began to feel over the parapet for
the climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my courage might
leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave a most piteous cry, and
running to me, she began to pull at me with her little hands. I think her opposition nerved
me rather to proceed. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I
was in the throat of the well. I saw her agonised face over the parapet and smiled to
reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I clung.

Explain how the language used in the paragraph demonstrates little Weena’s fear.
Support with 3 details.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________
Response:
Identify detail Explanation
from the text

Independent practice 5:

The rhino hunt began in the uncertain light of the Masai Mara dawn. The rising sun was
still masked by the Loita Hills as our Land-Rover bumped down the rough road across
Africa’s greatest reserve. Our quarry, the black rhinoceros, is a shy solitary creature, wary
of people. So it should be for these three-ton giants have been slaughtered to the edge of
extinction by poachers. A neighbouring patrol in the Loita Hills recently came across a tell-
tale campfire of a potential poaching gang: the surveillance work was enough to avert the
threat. Unlike the private rhino sanctuaries, the Mara is not fenced; the animals are free-
ranging. The rhino patrols study the animals, monitor their movements and keep a close
eye out for intruders.

2E comprehension package
 Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School
2E English Language

Explain how the language used in paragraph 1 evokes sympathy for the black
rhinoceros. Support with 2 details.

Question analysis
1. Understand key word in question: ________________________________
2. Find synonyms: ______________________________________________
Response:
Identify detail Explanation
from the text

2E comprehension package