Close Reading Round Up
In the close
reading section of the higher exam paper, you will be given a piece of writing
you will not have seen before and asked to answer a set of questions.
Understanding Questions
Typical U questions
ask you to find out a piece of information from a particular paragraph or line.
It may ask you to interpret what the author has said; suggest why they had said
it or put it into your own words.
Context
Decide on the
meaning of in terrorem by the words before it:
Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police
station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an
elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about
it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and
I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful
in terrorem.
The narrator is going to kill the elephant but his gun is
too small. If the noise might be useful �in terrorem� means �to scare�.
Link
Show how the underlined sentence acts as a link between
paragraph 1 and paragraph 2.
George Orwell said
that sport was 'war minus the shooting' - presumably before shooting became an
Olympic event. Orwell's famous phrase captures well the passion and hatred that
animates the great football rivalries - Rangers and Celtic, Barcelona and Real
Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United. Remove the hostility between these
rivals and the sporting contest is diminished.
For this reason, Spurs fans were not only justified
but duty-bound to give Sol Campbell a torrid reception on his return to White Hart Lane in enemy colours.
Supporters held up balloons and posters bearing the word 'Judas', booed Campbell's every touch, and pelted Arsenal's team bus with beer cans and bottles.
�Enemy colours�
refers to paragraph one, which is about people treating sports like a �war�.
�torrid reception� refers to paragraph two, which is about Sol Campbell
returning to White Hart Lane.� The phrase �For this reason� shows that the
second paragraph will continue the subject of the first, about fanatical
football supporters.
Analysis Questions
A questions ask you about the author�s style
or techniques, including:
- Word choice
- Figures of speech – imagery or sound
- Sentence Structure
Word Choice
Quote words from the text and explain their
connotations; show how they might affect the reader.
The tone of a passage comes from the emotion created by the words. If a paragraph contains
the words �sunny�, �beach� and �laughter� it will probably have a happy tone.
Try entering these words on a Google search and you may get:
From Sunny Beach, it is a forty-minute cruise by boat to the deserted bay beach of Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday. The two castaways can be found there,
welcoming. Games are held on land and in the water throughout the day, with a
free show for children and adults. Expect plenty of laughter and
ice-cream.
Explain how the word choice creates the tone of this passage:
Sunny Beach was a place where fun and laughter felt out of place. We felt as if we had turned up
too early for the party – or too late. For half a year the intended function of Sunny Beach is temporarily out of use.
The expressions �out of place�, �too late� and �out of
use� are associated with failure and age, and create a tone of bitterness or
sadness.
Other possible tones:
ironic – when the writer means the opposite of what they say
tongue-in-cheek – when irony is used for humour
satirical – when a writer uses irony and sometimes humour to attack or ridicule something
argumentative – when the writer is making a serious point
flippant – when the writer is dismissive or disrespectful of a subject or thing
effusive – enthusiastic or excited
Sentence structure
Show how the
author�s use of punctuation; parenthesis; long and short sentences; and list /
repetition / climax enable them to get a point across.
To answer a sentence structure question,
explain what the author�s choice of structure emphasises, suggests or
implies.
Comment on the following sentence structure:
�He doesn�t know what to do. He looks around. He�s been seen!�
The writer uses repetition of the word �He� at the start of each sentence.
Each sentence is short as it describes the person�s thoughts and actions. This suggests
the person is worried and thinking quickly.
Sentences
A sentence can be simple: �The boy kicks a ball.�
Or complex: �The boy kicks the ball, runs across the pitch, passes, trips, gets back up, charges forward, intercepts, dummies� scores!�
�this example contains a list�
A complex sentence often contains a list, repetition or a climax: �I came, I saw, I conquered�.
A sentence may be incomplete: �That damn boy!�
Or contain a parenthesis: �The boy (Sid, I think) kicks the ball� – this adds extra information.
Or use inversion: �The ball was kicked by the boy�.
You can gain marks by describing how the punctuation works: this sentence has been split up into two halves using a colon.
Imagery
An image can be a
simile, a metaphor or personification. In each case, something is being
compared to something else.
�He was a tiger in battle�
�It was as cold as a polar bear�s nose�
When answering questions about imagery:
a) See / feel: what picture does the image create in your mind?
b) Good / bad: Show the associations of the image:
- Is it kind or unkind to compare someone to a tiger? Or both?
- Is the writer trying to make you admire something, feel pity towards it, hate it, fear it, laugh at it?
Explain how the following image is effective:
�The dwarf with his hands on backwards
Sat slumped like a half-filler sack�
The writer uses a metaphor to describe the dwarf�s hands: �hands on backwards�. This suggests the
dwarf is deformed and makes me feel pity towards him.
Or�
A simile is used to
describe how the dwarf is sitting: �like a half-filled sack�. This shows he
could not sit properly.
And�
It also suggests he
felt sad. The associations of a �half-filled sack� are of something missing,
because a sack which is not full might have had something taken from it.
Sound
The two common sound effects used by writers are:
Onomatopoeia: pop, bang, crash etc
Alliteration: the best buy in beer.
Revision
Think you understand? Try:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/bitesize/higher/english/index.shtml
for some useful interactive quizzes that will test your understanding.
