Answering "...in your own words..." presents a challenge to most students. These slides provide an approach to tackling this type of comprehension question at O' Level

1. How to handle “…in your own words”
questions and Vocabulary Questions

2. Lesson Objectives

 By the end of the lesson…you would be able to:
 Identify the features of “in your own words” and
Vocabulary questions.
 Understand the steps to work out meanings of words
 Craft an answer that expresses the accurate meaning
of the word or phrase.

3. Types of vocabulary
questions

 2 types:
 Type 1: Vocabulary questions that look like
comprehension questions e.g.
 “…What is meant by saying that the lizards „distributed
themselves at random‟
 Type 2: “Choose five (out of 8) of the following words.
For each word give ONE word or a phrase of not more
than seven words

4. Steps (Adapted from Longman‟s Effective Guide to O‟ Level
English by Mervyn Evan Blake)

 Words should be seen in context ( i.e. the words
before and after a word or passage in a piece of
writing that contributes to its meaning – Collins)
 Following steps should be followed:
 Step 1: Look at the meaning of the word in at least the
sentence where it appears
 Step 2: Look at the contextual clues (i.e. words that
appear before and after the word being tested)

5. Let‟s practice together

Extract
Astronomers have had to resort to a form of measurement in
which they take photographs six months apart and then
laboriously measure the slight shift in the star‟s position from
January to July. It is a slow and very precise undertaking which
enables them to calculate the distance of the star. The precision is
extraordinary: the difference in motion between stars 30 and 40
light years away, a mere 8 millionths of a degree
(Blake, Longman‟s Effective Guide to O‟ level English, Pearson, Singapore, 2000., p71)

6. Lets practice together

 Clue 1: All of these four underlined sections show
how difficult it must be to this job… also it takes six
months for any results!!!
 Clue 2: Look what type of word is it – in this case
laboriously (what is the part of speech: adverb?
adjective? etc.)
 Clue 3: Look at the word itself – laboriously comes
from the root word labour…

7. Let‟s practice together

 What would you think the word means? …here is
what we know…
 many tasks that require a lot of attention
 requiring careful observations
 one mistake could be costly
 So…
 painstaking
 industrious
 or in a phrase: “with a lot of hard work”

8. In class Practice

 Refer to the worksheet and try out the steps…

9. Additional tips

 Sometimes the tone of the author may be reflected in
his/her choice of word
 e.g. Overweight and obese
 Overweight is more scientific whereas…obese may
convey negative feelings and disapproval.
 Pick-up on this and put that into your answer.

10. When answering “in your own
words” type questions

 Apply the same steps as you would for vocab type
questions (Step 1 and Step 2).
 Next…write out an answer that captures the
meaning.
 Here is an example:
 What word suggests that Chen was not handsome?
 Answer: The word snout is normally used for pigs rather
than humans.

11. Key Points

 What are the two types of vocab questions?
 What are the steps to answering these questions?
 What would you look for in addition to the clues
found in the passage (starts with the letter “T”)