Watch video: https://youtu.be/gc5CGzCiUhA It teaches how to write a title, answer questions and to write precis.

1. Reading
Comprehension
Lecture No. 21
Zafar Ullah, lecturer in English zafarullah76@gmail.com

2. Reading Comprehension
• To read clearly
• To understand surface meaning
• To understand deep meaning
• Comprehend inference
• To restate the understood meaning
• To present briefly
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3. Why should I Learn Reading Comprehension?
To read for education
To learn new things
To appear in competitive exams/ job exams
To get some job
To seek pleasure from literature
To read newspaper
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4. The Dawn Editorial 7th December, 2020
THE opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement is working
hard to make its final Lahore jalsa a success on Dec 13.
The PML-N is the host for the event and is utilising all its
resources to gather a significant crowd. It is also an
opportunity for the party to flex its electoral muscles in its
home base. However, the bigger question is: what after
Lahore? This is where the PDM is struggling to come up
with a unified strategy. As per the original plan announced
at the multiparty conference earlier, the PDM is scheduled
to give a call for a long march to Islamabad. However, there
are numerous complications that might not make this a
natural extension of the jalsa campaign.
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5. Cont…
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is the strongest
proponent for the march to Islamabad and subsequent
resignations from the assemblies. Since he has already
experienced a solo march last year, and sensed the impact
of the event, he seems better placed to make it happen.
The other PDM parties also recognise that JUI-F cadres —
disciplined and hardy as they are — will be crucial for the
success of the march. This gives the maulana significant
leverage in terms of decision-making from this stage
onwards. The PML-N leadership is also leaning towards a
harder line ever since Nawaz Sharif has taken a strong
position against the role of the establishment.
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6. Challenges in Reading Comprehension
• Difficult vocabulary
• Long sentence structure
• Unfamiliarity with the topic
• No habit of reading
• Very poor speed
• No desire or motivation to read
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7. Methodology
• Read the paragraph once.
• Read the question 1, 2 etc and find the
answers from the paragraph.
• Put required parts in parentheses with
answer No.
• Paraphrase (write in your words; take
synonyms from thesaurus; keep the same
idea but change words)the selected part
and write as answer below the question. 7

8. Cont…
• Follow tense of the question while
answering.
• Suggest a suitable title. (detail in next
slides)
• Write precis (1/3rd of the original text)
(detail in next slides)
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9. Title
• Short, pithy, aphoristic, less than 9 words
• Crispy
• Think about titles of books, films, dramas,
stories
• Allusions
• Poetic titles, metaphoric, song part
• Modification of famous titles
• Comprehensive
• Covers the key idea
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10. Cont…
• No full stop in the title
• Capitalize first letter of each word except
prepositions, articles
• Mostly, key idea is present in the topic
sentence which is the 1st sentence of the
article.
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11. Sample Titles
• Comparison between Democracy and
Dictatorship
• Introspection of Iqbal’s “Self”
• Description of Beauty of Swat
• Winter’s Tale
• Analysis of Pandemic
• Frailty! Thy Name is Woman
• Beauty! Thy Name is Woman
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12. Precis
• Brief summary, executive summary
• Bacon: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
• Count lines, 15
• Count average words in 1 line 10
• Count total words by multiplying words
with lines 150 words
• Write 1/3 of the total lines. 50 words
• You write 7 words in 1 line, so you will
write 7 copy lines. 12

13. Cont…
• Write in your own words
• Keep main ideas
• Delete repetitions
• Delete examples
• Delete other details
• Learn one word substitutions
A government place where national and
cultural antiques are displayed: museum
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14. Cont…
• Maintain continuity while they are different
chunks or points, so use transitional
words.
• Reread to decrease word count to 1/3 rd
• Do not add ideas on the basis of your
thinking
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15. Practice makes a man perfect.
• Top 20 reading comprehension exercises
for easy and difficult levels
• https://www.mbarendezvous.com/easy-
reading-comprehension-passages/
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16. Thanks
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17. Question Answers
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