1101226 READING SKILLS II

2023-2024 SPRING TERM MIDTERM EXAM

Name:Hilal Şahin
Duration: 60 mins.
Student Number:231101023

A. Read the text and respond to comprehension check questions.

Comprehension and Knowledge

Most people would say they know what the word comprehension means, at least in a general
sense, although it is not a term that occurs often in everyday speech. In fact, it is almost
exclusively found in the context of reading. In everyday speech we are much more likely to
use the term understanding or even my preferred alternative of making sense. The word
comprehension was rarely used in the research literature on reading before the 1950s, when
systems analysts and behavioral engineers were first recruited to design reading programs
(Smith, 1998). In other words, comprehension is a kind of up-market synonym for
understanding in discussions that are technical and scientific. In such contexts the word
frequently doesn't appear alone, but in such combinations as comprehension skills or the
comprehension process, even by people who would never use expressions like understanding
skills or the understanding process.
Comprehension may be regarded as relating aspects of the world around us—including what
we read—to the knowledge, intentions, and expectations we already have in our head. It is
clearly the purpose of reading and of learning to read. What is the point of any activity that
causes confusion?
We don't have to know something in advance in order to comprehend it. But we must be able
to relate new things to what we already know if we are to comprehend them. And relating
something new to what we already know is of course learning. We learn to read, and we learn
through reading, by elaborating what we know already. This is natural.

Cognitive Structure
Several terms may be used to refer to the knowledge we carry around in our heads all the
time. Prior knowledge and "nonvisual information" are synonyms for the mental resources
that enable us to make sense of "visual information" arriving through the eyes. Long-term
memory is our permanent source of understanding of the world. Cognitive structure and
theory of the world are two other terms that I am about to introduce. But the italicized terms
do not refer to different things; they are synonymous. The knowledge we must already
possess in order to understand written language (like the knowledge we need for
understanding speech) must be part of our long-term memory. And remembrance of the sense
we have made of past experience is the foundation of all new understanding of language and
the world. In more general contexts, this basis of understanding is referred to by psychologists
as cognitive structure. The term is apt because "cognitive" means "knowledge" and
"structure" implies organization, and that indeed is what we possess—an organization of
knowledge.
Certainly, it would be simplistic to suggest that what we carry around in our heads is just
"memories." The brain is not filled with an assortment of snapshots, videos, and recordings of
bits of the past. At the very least we would have to say that all our memories have a meaning;
they are related to everything else that we know. Cognitive structure is more like a summary

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of past experience. I don't want to remember that on 16 July I sat on a chair, on 17 July I sat
on a chair, and on 18 July I sat on a chair. I want to remember that chairs are for sitting on, a
summary of my experience. We remember specific events only when they are exceptions to
our summary rules or when they have some particularly dramatic or emotional significance.
And even then our memories, when we "recall" them, turn out to be highly colored by our
present intentions and perspectives about the world (Bartlett, 1932). Specific memories that
can't be related to our summary, to our present general understanding, will make little sense,
which may be the reason we can recall so little of our childhood.
But it would also be an oversimplification to suggest that our heads are filled with an
accumulation of facts and summaries. The brain is not like a library where useful information
is filed away under appropriate headings for possible future reference. And it is certainly not
like a bank in which we save nuggets of information deposited by teachers and textbooks.
Instead, the knowledge we possess is organized into an intricate and internally consistent
working model of the world, built up through our imagination and our experiences in the
world, and integrated into a coherent whole. We know far more than we were ever taught.

Comprehension Check Questions (Each question is worth 10 points.)

1. What is the topic of the reading?

- Explain the meaning of the comprehension and its places in used

2. What is comprehension? Define it in your own words by taking into

consideration the explanations about comprehension provided in the reading?

- Comprehension is used in place of an alternative of making sense and also a kind of

up-market synonym for understanding in discussion that are technical and scientific.

3. According to the author, what is required for comprehension to take place?

- We must be able to relate new things to what we already know if we are to
comprehend them. And relating something new to what we already know is of course
learning. We learn to read, and we learn through reading, by elaborating what we
know already.
4. What is cognitive structure? Explain it using your own words.
- It is about memory and it consist of a brief summary of our memories. Cognitive
structure is more like a summary of past experience. We remember specific events.

5. Why does the author claim that the brain cannot be likened to a bank or a
library?
- Because The brain is not like a library where useful information is filed away under
appropriate headings for possible future reference. And it is certainly not like a bank in
which we save nuggets of information deposited by teachers and textbooks.
6. What is the purpose of the author?
- To highlight the exact meaning of cognitive structure and explain the main uses.

B. Read the paragraphs below and write a main idea statement for each. ( 10 points for
each correctly stated main idea.)

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Different kinds of text are organized and presented in distinctive and characteristic ways.
Each kind of text has its own conventions of layout, typography, and style—called genre
schemes—which distinguish it from other genres or kinds of text. Novels don't have the same
genre schemes as textbooks, poems, newspapers, letters, or telephone directories. E-mails and
web sites have developed their own genre schemes. Furthermore, various kinds of text may
have quite different genre schemes in different cultures. Newspapers or novels produced in
France for French readers aren't written and presented in the same way as those for readers
elsewhere.

Main idea statement: different texts have different characteristics etc. It distinguished
from each other by kind

Speech doesn't consist of one statement after another, and paragraphs are more than a simple
succession of sentences. Statements and sentences are interlocked; they cohere. I can say "/
looked for John. But he had gone" but not "But he had gone. I looked for John." I would have
to change the sentences to something like "John had gone. I looked for him." The pronoun
and the but are two of a number of cohesive devices that lock sentences together in English.

Main idea statement:There is a cohesion for speech. They are interconnected.

Why should language written in an alphabetic script be particularly difficult? The answer is that it
isn't. Reading print is no more complex than reading faces, and other things in the world. Making
sense of print can't be more complicated than making sense of speech, which begins much earlier.
Written words and spoken words share the same kind of grammar, meanings, and other structures. If
we can make sense of all the words of spoken language that we know, we can do the same for written
words.

Main idea statement: Language written in an alphabetic script is not as difficult as it

seems.

Good readers read authors not just books: they are likely to have favourite writers even though the
notion of authorship is still insecure. Any curious or critical reader will seek out the author: who wrote
this, where is it from? As a reader, who perhaps eccentrically often plunges into the middle of texts
such as magazine or news articles, I usually eventually turn to the beginning of the article to confirm
my sense of its authorship, especially in terms of gender and ethnicity.

Main idea statement : Good readers read authors not just books.