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What is an unseen passage in English and what significance does it hold? Let us try to get answers to all these questions in this article.
Unseen passages hold great significance in English papers. They are not just comprehensions that ask questions. These passages test the student’s ability to grasp the meaning of the passage and answer the questions correctly in their own words.
The unseen passage in English is basically of two types that students can expect in their question paper. They are:
1. Factual Passage
The factual Unseenpassage consists of descriptive, instructive, and reporting passages with about 300 to 350 words. The questions asked during the exam are basically short-form with one mark each. Students will get eight questions from this passage.
2. Discursive Passage
The discursive passage consists of argumentative, persuasive, or interpretive tests that are opinion-based. The discursive passages carry 12 marks.
Practicing these unseen passages beforehand offers a host of benefits to the students.
- Increase the reading speed of students.
- Give students a clear idea of how the questions are framed and attempt to answer those questions.
- Improve the vocabulary of students.
- Improve their understanding of language.
- It helps them understand the different tones of authors and how each tone works.
Let us now look at the right strategy to complete these unseen passages.
The best way to complete comprehension
- Firstly, even before looking at the questions, read the entire passage once. It will give you a basic idea of comprehension. You may come across some new or unknown words during the reading process.
- Next, try to understand the passage. Make sure you underline the words that you do not understand.
- Always follow the given order in the passage solving. Read the questions in order along with the relevant portions.
- It would be best to read the passage at least two times before you start solving.
- To understand the questions thoroughly, try to re-read them.
- Write the answers to the questions asked in complete sentences.
- Always answer the questions as per the marks allotted. If it is a one-mark question, try to answer one point. If it is a two-mark question, give two points.
Step-by-step Approach For Comprehension Questions
These passages contain different types of questions that require a different approach. Let us look at the steps to deal with these various questions.
1. WHY Questions
In these questions, you should give reasons, explanations, and evidence for the answer. Look out for the cause words, effect words, and purpose words in the passage that will help you to arrive at the answer.
- Cause words are the cause or reason for events or actions. These include because, due to, as, since, resulting from, for that reason, etc.
- Effect words are those words that are a result of an event or an action. These include consequently, as a result, therefore, so, etc.
- Purpose words are those words that indicate reasons for an event or an action. These include so that, so as to, in order to, for, in order to, etc.
2. Inference Questions
The inference questions are not straightforward questions. You need to make or draw a conclusion of these based on the information given in the passage. You need to read the entire passage and understand the hidden meanings and clues to the answer to draw the inference. You must understand specific keywords and phrases for the conclusions.
3. Rephrasing Questions
As the name says, you need to explain a word or phrase in your own words without altering the passage’s meaning. You may even require to substitute a word or phrase for solving these questions. So, make sure you understand the word or phrase as per the context.
4. Vocabulary
When you go through the passage, you might come across unfamiliar words. You need to guess the meaning of the new word. You can do it by reading the passage and understanding its whole meaning. You can also look for the clues within the passage to solve these questions.
Final Thoughts
Unseen passage in English are scoring questions. However, you ought to have enough practice to get a good score. You can follow the steps and methods mentioned in this article to get the desired marks and elevate your overall score.
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