Standard Garde Close Reading Help

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Questions about Linking sentences.

A linking

sentence is one which links two paragraphs

together.

Usually

this sentence will appear at the start of the second of the two paragraphs

which are being linked.

Look

carefully at the sentence which is the link. There will be two parts to this

sentence. One part will refer to the content of the paragraph before.

The other

part of the sentence will introduce the subject of the new paragraph.

You have

to say what refers to the previous paragraph.

And then,

what refers to the topic of the new paragraph.

Example 2006 Credit paper question 10

Question: How does the first sentence of paragraph 11

act as a link between paragraphs 10 and 11. “But

the proclivities of such contestants and their parents in no way represent the

general participant.

Answer :

”Proclivities” refers to the way the specific contestants in paragraph 10 behaved and “general participant” introduces the main idea of paragraph 11

which is typical(general) contestants.

Contrast question

A contrast is a comparison which shows up the differences

between subjects. The writer is deliberately pairing two ideas together to show

up the difference which will be important in some way.

For example, in “Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare continually

compares Juliet to the sun or to a star. The idea he is conveying is that she

is above everyone around her. Everyone else is dark by comparison and she

brings light into Romeo’s life.

Questions often ask you to state what the contrast actually

is. Contrast is the pairing of opposing

ideas, for example large & small or dark & light.

Example: 2005 Credit

paper question 9

Question: In your own words give two contrasts the

writer noticed on his journey from Cairo

to the countryside.

“To leave the enormous

sprawling dust-blown city of gridlock and gritty buildings was bliss… we were

in open country, little settlements of square mud-block houses… a solitary car

or truck ,and on one remote road twenty men going home after prayers.”

Answer : lots of traffic in Cairo / but none here (1) and enormous size

of city / small settlement.

Sentence structure questions.

How the sentence is put together is often significant.

Structure is used to reflect meaning. If you wish to suggest a balance of ideas

then the sentence you make up can show this.

Eg. “He is good at Maths; but his English is

weak.” The semi – colon marks the point of balance here.

In the same way any imbalance can be

reflected in the structure.

Eg. “He is good at Maths: but in

English, French, Biology, Chemistry, History, Geography, Art and P.E. he is

hopeless.”

In answering these questions you need

to look for the feature which makes the structure significant. Thjs could be a

minor sentence (no verb), repetition, unusual order of words in sentence, very

long or short sentence, a punctuation feature (like lots of questions,

commands,etc.) or a rhetorical question. There is a separate page on types of

sentence you may read.

There are two

things for you to do here.

i.

you

must note what it is that has been done, what is unusual about the

sentence

and

ii.

you

must explain what effect this has on a reader, what it makes the reader

think.

Questions About Linking Sentences

Contrast question

Sentence structure questions.