THINK BEFORE YOU

SPEAK, READ BEFORE

YOU THINK
Lesson 11 - Week 12 - Day 3

Teacher Jeymi Castillo

Collaborative reading:
Reading is often a solidarity activity. However,
collaborative 'reading in pairs' can be really
productive - especially when you are reading
intensively for specific information from a complex
text.
Pre-reading activities:
Pre-reading activities can help you to understand
what you are about to read. Approaches you can
use include:
guessing the content of the text from its title.
skimming the first paragraph of the text and
predicting the rest of the text.
While-reading activities:
Answer the questions in pairs or small groups.
Find and interpret the relevant information you
need.
Discuss any different responses to ensure you
have the correct answer to each questions.
This process can also help you to understand the
requirements of each assessment type.
Reading practice:
Write your answers on paper
Compare your answers with the examiner's
answers and comments.
write the lessons you learned about tackling
each assessment type.
Multiple-choice questions
Answering multiple-choice questions correctly is
not as easy as it seems. The four answers are
always close in meaning. Always re-read the
precise section of the text and then mentally cross
out the statements that are wrong or only half-true.
Handwriting:
Clear handwriting is essential when you need to
write a single letter in an answer box. You have to
write the appropiate letters and make sure that your
examiner can read the letters you write. If the
examiner can not tell whether your answer is crossed
out, your answer will be marked as incorrect.
Identifying true statements:
Only choose statements that are totally true.
Never pick sentences that are half-correct, they
are wrong.
Never use your general knowledge to answer a
question - context is vital. Always base your
choice on the information as you find it in the text.
When identifying true statements, remember:
Work out the pairs of sentences in the assessment.
The exercises requires one true sentence to be paired
with a related sentence that is only nearly or partially
identical.
Before you start to answer, work out which two sentences
are paired together.
Read the passage from the text carefully for the precise
information to decide which of the two prompts is correct.
Pay particularly close attention to any words that
can alter the meaning of a sentence. Qualifying
words like "sometimes", "often", "frequently",
"ordinarily", "generally" can make statements
vague or inaccurate.
True or False questions
with justifications:
Read each statement very carefully first to check
if the sentence is true or false. Then check the
exact information needed for the justification.
When writing the justification, be precise and
concise :
If the justification requires a specific phrase, do not
copy entire sentences, only the relevant part - your
quote from the text must be only the exact words
needed to justify the statement.
If you write too much, your examiner can not know
which exact words you are using to prove whether you
think the statement is true or false.
The justifications must be quotations taken directly from
the text; paraphrasing will be marked as incorrect.
Matching exercises:
For each item there is a line reference. You need
to skim the whole text to locate the item, then
focus on the potential meaning from its context in
the paragraph and the specific sentence.
Clear handwriting is essential. You have to write
the appropiate letters in boxes.
When matching words, remember:
The exercises requires one correct word to be paired
with an incorrect one.
Before you start to answer, work out which two
words could be paired together.
Read the passage from the text carefully for the
precise information to decide which of the two
words is incorrect.
Finding words in a text:
All the questions relate to one section or paragraph of the
text. Scan this section carefully to find your answer. For this
exercise, look at the words and ask yourself what kind of
words they are: adjectives, adverbs, nouns or verbs?
Not only do vocabulary questions test your understanding of
words and their synonyms, but they also require you to show
understanding of those words and phrases in context.
Like the previous matching words exercise, this
finding words exercise can also test your knowledge
of collocations and idiomatic English. For instance, if
a writer says "driver seem chained to their cars", this
suggests that the drivers have a lack of choice. This
is because chains are a symbol of oppresion and a
lack of freedom.
Assessment tip:
Tackling unknown vocabulary
When reading the texts in paper 2, you may find
words you have never seen before. Some of these
words may be essential when answering a question.
Assessment tip:
Understanding the type of word
First decide the function of the word. Is the word or
phrase an adjective, an adverb, a noun, a verb or
something else? Once you know the function of the
word(s), it will make it much easier to understand its
meaning.
Assessment tip:
Prefixes and suffixes
A prefix is a letter or a group of letters that appears at
the beginning of a word and changes the word's original
meaniing. Unfamiliar words with prefixes are sometimes
versions of words you might know.
For example, prefixes suach as "un-" or "in-" create a
negative meaning. Here is a short list of some of the most
common prefixes you may find in paper 2.
Prefixes - Suffixes:
Prefixes - Suffixes:
Complete the sentence:
Taken together with the first part of the sentence, the
second half of the sentence that you choose from the text
must make complete grammatical sense.
However, when you match the stem with an ending,
remeber that the phrase you have chosen must make
contextual sense too. You must copy the extract phrase as
it appears in the text. If you do not, you will lose the mark!
Connecting two halves of a
sentence:
The diffculty level of the exercise is proportional to the
number of sentences you have match.
In order to succeed in this activity, you need to match the
sentences which has an (almost) identical meaning to the
ppropiate phrase in the text.
In all exercises that ask you to choose from various options,
there will be as many distractors as there are right answers.
So before you answer the questions, find the pairs of
sentences that go together. If one of these two options is only
vaguely connected to the stem of the sentece, it is certainly a
distractor.
However, always double-check that you have made the right
pairings. If you are unable to pair the senteces together, look
at the stem and go through the options one by one to see if it
makes sense in the context of the passage you are reading.
Gap filling exercises:
Before looking for the missing words, you need to
understand both the gist of the text and the specific
content. So always ask yourself: What message is the writer
trying to communicate to the audience? This will help you
to focus on the missing words. Then, you need to determine
what part of speech best fits the gap, for example verb,
noun, or adjective.
Each of the options listed will fit gramatically into the
same gap as the correct answer, which is why this
exercise is harder than most exercises that use
distractors.
As always, context is everything.
Read each sentence and try each option.
Only one option will make complete sentences.
Systematically eliminate the worng answers for that
gap.