Reading Comprehension: Explicit Meaning
The marks nobody should lose: finding what the passage actually says, and saying it back in your own words without copying.
What "in your own words" is really testing
The first questions on the Reading paper ask for explicit meaning, information the passage states outright. There is no hidden trick. The difficulty is entirely in the instruction that follows: use your own words.
Copying a phrase straight from the text proves you can find it. It does not prove you understood it, so it scores nothing. The examiner is checking one thing: can you replace the key words and keep the meaning intact?
Take a sentence from an original passage: "The old ferry groaned across the estuary twice a day, indifferent to the weather." Asked what the ferry did, "groaned across the estuary twice a day" earns nothing. "It made the crossing two times daily, in any conditions" earns the mark, every content word swapped, meaning untouched.
The three-step method, every time
1. Read the question and count the marks. Two marks means two separate points. Not one point explained twice.
2. Find the line, underline it. Do not answer from memory of the passage, students misremember constantly and lose marks for things the text never said.
3. Rewrite the key words. Go word by word through what you underlined: for each important word, what is another word for this? Only technical names and proper nouns stay as they are. You cannot paraphrase "the Indus" or "photosynthesis".
A short check before you move on: cover the passage and read your answer. If it still makes sense on its own, it is an answer. If it only makes sense next to the original sentence, it is a copy.
Worked: from passage to answer
Passage (original): "Nasreen had taught in the same two rooms for nineteen years. The school had no library, no laboratory and, for four months of the year, no working fan; what it had was her, arriving before the gate was unlocked and leaving after the last child had been collected."
Q: Give two things the school lacked. [2]
Weak: "no library, no laboratory", lifted.
Strong: "It had nowhere for pupils to borrow books, and no room equipped for practical science." Two points, both reworded.
Q: What does the passage tell you about Nasreen's working hours? [1]
Strong: "She was there earlier than the school officially opened and stayed later than the pupils."
Notice what is not in either answer: any comment on whether she was dedicated. That is inference, and it belongs to a different question.
Selecting when the question narrows the field
Harder explicit questions do not ask "what happened". They ask for a category: give two physical difficulties, two financial reasons, two things that happened before the storm.
The passage will contain more candidates than you need, and some will be the wrong type. A physical difficulty is heat, distance, a broken road. Worry about money is not physical, however difficult it feels. Read the adjective in the question as strictly as a rule.
When a question says "using your own words, explain what the writer means by..." and quotes a phrase, you must unpack the whole phrase, not the easy half. "A brittle silence" needs both words: a silence that was tense and ready to break, not merely quiet.
Marks per line: how long an answer should be
One mark, one line. Two marks, two lines. Students write paragraphs for one-mark questions and run out of time for the summary, which is worth twenty.
Never give alternatives. "It was either the heat or the noise" invites the examiner to mark the wrong one. Choose. A confident wrong answer and a hedged right answer score the same: nothing.
Answer in the tense of the question. If asked what the writer felt, answer "she felt…", not "she feels…". It costs nothing to get right and reads as control.
Where marks go
- Copying the sentence. The single largest loss on this paper.
- Paraphrasing only half the phrase. Both words carry a mark.
- Adding an opinion. Explicit questions want the text, not you.
- Two points that are the same point. "It was hot" and "the heat was severe" is one idea, one mark.
- Answering from memory. Go back and underline.
- Ignoring the mark allocation. It is an instruction about quantity.
What to remember
- Explicit = stated. Find it, then rewrite it.
- Swap every content word you can; keep proper nouns and technical terms.
- Marks tell you how many separate points to make.
- Cover the passage: does your answer stand alone?
- Short, decided, no alternatives.
Watch one worked through
Here is one done slowly, with the reason for every move. Then one for you.
A 2-mark question asks: "Give two reasons the author gives for the decline of the fishing village." How do you answer it for full marks?
- Read the mark allocation first.2 marks → 2 separate reasonsThe marks tell you how many points are wanted. One long reason cannot earn two marks however well written.
- Find the reasons in the passage and underline them.reason 1: fish stocks fell reason 2: young people left for the cityExplicit meaning means it is stated in the text. You are locating, not inferring, so do not add your own ideas.
- Put each in your own words, briefly.• catches dropped sharply • the young moved away to workOwn words show understanding. Lifting whole sentences unchanged is penalised in most mark schemes.
- Keep each point separate and short.two bullet points ≠ one paragraphAn examiner has to find two distinct points. Burying them in prose risks only one being credited.
Answer: Give two separate, briefly worded points in your own words, one per mark
A question is worth 3 marks. How many separate points should you give?
Show the answer
3
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