What you'll learn
A non-fiction text is a piece of writing about real things — a report, an article, a letter, a set of instructions, a biography or a news story. Reading comprehension of non-fiction on the SEA English Language Arts paper means reading a short true text carefully and answering questions about what it says, what it means and why the writer wrote it. On the paper, a prose comprehension section — non-fiction or fiction — carries 7 items and 13 marks out of the 36 items and 64 marks on the ELA paper. This guide covers the kinds of non-fiction you will meet, the four types of question the paper asks, how to find the answer in the text instead of guessing it, and how to work out a meaning you have never seen before.
Key terms and definitions
Non-fiction — writing about real people, real places and real events. It is meant to be true.
Fiction — a made-up story. The opposite of non-fiction.
Fact — something that can be checked and proved, such as "Trinidad and Tobago has two main islands".
Opinion — what somebody thinks or feels, such as "Tobago has the finest beaches in the region". Words like best, should, lovely and terrible usually signal an opinion.
Main idea — what the whole text is mostly about, in one sentence.
Supporting detail — a smaller piece of information that backs up the main idea.
Purpose — the writer's reason for writing: to inform, to persuade, to instruct or to entertain.
Audience — the people the writer expects to read the text.
Infer — to work out something the writer did not say directly, using clues in the text.
Context clue — the words around a difficult word that help you guess its meaning.
Skim — to read quickly to get the general idea.
Scan — to run your eye over the text hunting for one particular word or number.
Core concepts
The kinds of non-fiction the paper uses
The passages are short, usually eight to fifteen lines, and always about something real. The most common types are:
- Information reports — about an animal, a place, a festival or a job. These are written in the present tense and packed with facts.
- Recounts — a true account of something that happened, told in order, in the past tense. A school trip, a hurricane, a sports day.
- Instructions — how to make or do something, in numbered steps, using command verbs like pour, fold, wait.
- Persuasive writing — a letter to a newspaper or a notice asking you to act, such as saving water or joining a club.
- Biography — the true story of a real person's life.
Knowing the type early helps you, because each type answers different questions. A report answers what is it like; a recount answers what happened; instructions answer how do I do it.
The four kinds of question
Almost every non-fiction question at SEA level falls into one of four groups.
1. Literal questions. The answer is written in the text in plain words. "How many days did the festival last?" You find it and copy it. These are the marks you must never lose.
2. Vocabulary questions. "In line 4, the word scarce means..." You are not being tested on whether you already knew the word. You are being tested on whether you can use the sentence around it.
3. Inference questions. The answer is not written down, but the clues are. "Why was Anisa worried about the crop?" The text may only say the rain had not come for six weeks. You put that together yourself.
4. Purpose and structure questions. "Why did the writer write this passage?" or "What would be the best title?" These ask about the text as a whole rather than one line of it.
Finding the main idea
The main idea is not the first sentence automatically, though it often is close to it. A safer test: cover the passage and ask yourself, "If I could only say one sentence about this, what would it be?"
Then check your sentence against the whole text. If your sentence only covers the first half, it is a supporting detail, not the main idea. If your sentence mentions something that appears nowhere in the text, it is too broad.
The wrong options in a main-idea question are usually one of three things: a true detail that is too small, something too general that could describe any passage, or something the text never said at all.
Fact and opinion
The paper often asks you to pick out which statement is a fact and which is an opinion. Ask one question of each sentence: could somebody check this?
"The steelpan was invented in Trinidad and Tobago" can be checked. It is a fact. "The steelpan is the most beautiful instrument ever made" cannot be checked, because most beautiful depends on who is listening. It is an opinion.
Careful: an opinion can still be reported as a fact. "Many visitors say the beach is lovely" is a fact about what visitors say, even though lovely is an opinion word.
Using context clues for hard words
You will meet a word you do not know. That is on purpose. There are four kinds of clue:
- Definition clue — the meaning is given right there: "The tide was receding, that is, moving back out to sea."
- Contrast clue — a signal word such as but, although or unlike tells you the meaning is the opposite of something nearby.
- Example clue — "Root crops such as cassava, dasheen and eddoes" tells you a root crop is a vegetable that grows underground.
- General sense clue — the whole sentence points at the meaning even though nothing is spelled out.
Read the sentence with each choice put in place of the hard word. The one that keeps the sentence sensible is the answer.
Worked examples
Read this original passage. It is used for all three examples.
The leatherback turtle is the largest sea turtle in the world. Every year, between March and August, leatherbacks come ashore on the north-east beaches of Trinidad to lay their eggs. A single female may lay more than eighty eggs in one nest, then cover them with sand and return to the water before dawn. Sixty days later the hatchlings dig their way out. Very few of them survive, because dogs, birds and litter on the beach put the young turtles at risk. Village groups now keep watch through the night, and the numbers of nesting turtles have slowly begun to climb again.
Example 1: A literal question
In which months do leatherbacks come ashore to nest?
This is a literal question, so the answer is in the text. Scan for month names. The second sentence says "between March and August".
The answer is March to August.
Do not add anything the text did not say. Writing "in the dry season" would lose the mark even if it sounded sensible.
Example 2: A vocabulary question
In the last sentence, the word climb means: (a) go up a tree (b) increase (c) fall (d) walk uphill
Turtles do not climb trees, and the sentence is not about walking, so (a) and (d) are out. The sentence says the village groups keep watch, which is a good thing, so the numbers going down would not fit — (c) is out.
The answer is (b) increase. Here climb is being used about a number, not about a person, and a number that climbs is a number that goes up.
Example 3: An inference question
Why do the village groups keep watch through the night?
The text never says "the villagers keep watch in order to..." — you have to put it together. Two facts sit side by side: very few hatchlings survive because of dogs, birds and litter, and the villagers now keep watch at night. The turtles come and go before dawn.
The answer is to protect the turtles and their eggs from harm during the night, so that more hatchlings survive.
Notice that the last sentence gives you the check: the numbers have begun to climb, which is exactly what you would expect if the watching is working.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Answering from your own knowledge instead of the text. You may already know a lot about turtles. The examiner is marking what the passage says. Fix: point to the line that gave you the answer before you write it down.
Reading the questions first and then hunting. This feels quick but it loses inference marks, because you never build a picture of the whole passage. Fix: read the passage once straight through, then read the questions.
Choosing an option because it uses a word from the text. Wrong options are built out of real words from the passage. Fix: check the whole option is true, not just the words in it.
Giving a detail when the question asks for the main idea. Fix: ask whether your answer covers the whole passage or only one line.
Copying a whole sentence when a short answer was wanted. Fix: answer the question that was asked, in as few words as do the job.
Confusing fact with opinion because the sentence sounds confident. Fix: apply the checking test, not the sounding test.
How parents can help at home
Non-fiction reading improves fastest when it is normal at home, not just at homework time.
Read real things together. A newspaper article, a leaflet from the health centre, a page about an animal. Ask two questions afterwards: "What was that mostly about?" and "How do you know?" That second question is the whole skill.
Play fact or opinion in the car. Say a sentence about something you both can see and let your child call it. "That building is tall" is an opinion; "that building has four floors" is a fact. It takes two minutes and it sticks.
When your child does not know a word, do not supply it straight away. Ask, "What do you think it means from the rest of the sentence?" Then confirm. Guessing from context is a marked skill on the paper; being told the word is not.
Ask for the evidence, gently. If your child gives an answer, follow with "which part told you that?" If they cannot find a part, the answer probably came from imagination, and that is exactly the habit the paper punishes.
Keep the sessions short. One passage and five questions, three or four times a week, beats an hour once a week.
Exam technique for reading comprehension: non-fiction texts
Read the passage once, all the way through, without stopping at hard words. You are building the picture first.
Read each question slowly and underline the key word — why, how many, which, best title, mainly. Most lost marks come from answering a different question from the one asked.
Go back to the text for every single answer. Even for a question you feel sure about, find the line. This is a short passage; it costs seconds.
For vocabulary questions, put each option into the sentence and read it back in your head.
For inference questions, ask "what does the writer expect me to work out?" and then check that the text supports it.
Answer every item. There is no penalty for a wrong choice, so a sensible guess after eliminating two options is worth making.
Watch the clock. The prose comprehension is 7 items and 13 marks, and poetry carries the same 13 marks, so do not spend so long on the passage that the poem gets rushed.
Quick revision summary
- Non-fiction is writing about real things: reports, recounts, instructions, persuasion, biography.
- A fact can be checked; an opinion cannot.
- The main idea covers the whole passage, not one line of it.
- Four question types: literal, vocabulary, inference, purpose.
- Literal answers are copied from the text — never lose these marks.
- Use context clues: definition, contrast, example and general sense.
- Inference means using the clues the writer gave, not your own imagination.
- Always find the line in the text that proves your answer.
- Underline the key word in each question before answering.
- Prose comprehension is 7 items and 13 marks; poetry is worth the same, so share your time.