Part 7, An Approach to Comprehension-Business Communication and English Language-Handout | Exercises Business English | Docsity

Download Part 7, An Approach to Comprehension-Business Communication and English Language-Handout and more Business English Exercises in PDF only on Docsity! i.e. use other words with similar meaning or he may use antonyms – words that are in contrast to the key content words. The successful reader learns to recognize and understand the clues that the writer gives. This can only happen through practiced reading. READING AND UNDERSTANDING An Approach to Comprehension You have probably realized by now that everything you learn in this course is geared towards the end of writing and understanding English and nothing is merely an exercise learnt for examination purposes. What we call ‗comprehension exercises‘ are in fact a test of this understanding. Up till now, you have been dealing with computer related passages, now we will shift gear and make you look at other kinds of reading materials. The pieces of writing we use will be of two varieties: imaginative and practical. The ‗imaginative‘ passage will be a piece of creative writing, an extract from a novel or a short story dealing with a fictional situation; it could alternatively be a poem. (a) In answering the questions you will show that you can understand what the writer is talking about, not just on the surface, but also the subtleties and implications. (b) You will also need to say something about how the writer is getting his points over, the effectiveness or otherwise of the way he uses words, images and sentences to create particular effects. In other words, some insight into matters of style and the appropriateness of style to content will be demanded. The ‗practical‘ passage will deal mainly with facts. It may be a report, an account or someone expressing his opinions on a particular matter, a series of instructions or a set of statistics which you will be asked to interpret. The emphasis here will be on making sure that you can understand the line of argument or the logical step-by-step statement of the facts. You may be asked to summarize the points made in the passage about a particular aspect of the matter being discussed. Keep in mind that the computer texts that we did in the earlier lessons were factual texts. Kinds of Questions: The kinds of questions on reading passages are likely to be as follows: 1. Meaning. You may be asked to explain the meaning of the word or phrase as it is used in the passage, e.g. when you see the word ‗execute‘, you may immediately think of the meaning ‗inflict capital punishment on‘. But this would not be an appropriate meaning in a context like this: ‗To execute the plan for redevelopment of the town we will call for the support of all citizens.‘ Here ‗execute‘ means ‗carry into effect‘. 2. Facts. You may be asked to answer questions about what the passage is actually saying to make sure that you understand it, e.g. if the piece of writing is about a character digging his allotment, you may be asked ‗what is the character doing?‘ 3. Reading between the lines. Writers do not always state facts directly. They imply emotions and attitudes and suggest points of view, and they depend on the reader being perspective enough to be able to form a total impression greater than the bare words on the page. For instance, an author may not state directly that he dislikes a particular character he docsity.com is writing about, but the words he uses to describe that character and the situations he presents him in may convey the author‘s attitude towards the character, and that attitude is passed on to the perceptive reader. The words are not chosen accidentally but with a purpose, and you must be able to get beyond the surface meaning of the words and see what the implications of such words are. For example: (a) The same soldiers could be called ‗terrorists‘ or ‗freedom-fighters‘, according to the writer‘s attitude towards them. (b) In describing someone eating, a writer may use the words ‗wolfed down‘, ‗slobbered‘, ‗guzzled‘. If he is describing a baby eating, these words may be merely a statement of fact, but if they are about an adult, there may well be a suggestion of distaste towards the character. 4. Metaphorical language. You may be asked to explain what it is exactly that a writer has in mind when he makes a comparison or uses a metaphorical expression, e.g. in The Story by Dylan Thomas, the author says ‗my uncle blew and bugled whenever he won‘ (at cards). The word ‗blew‘ suggests a literal and factual way of expelling; the breath from his mouth in a burst, but the word ‗bugled‘ is being used in a metaphorical way. Thomas is making a comparison between the noise his uncle made and the sound of a bugle. He is trying to make more vivid, to our imaginations, the kind of noise his uncle made. The word ‗bugled‘ suggests things like ‗high-pitched‘, ‗strident‘, ‗sudden and loud‘, perhaps even ‗triumphant‘. These are ideas which this metaphorical use of the word conveys which otherwise, a literal word could not produce. 5. Style. Just as people are individual and different, so the way they write varies. In addition, a particular writer may write in different ways depending on what effects he is trying to achieve, e.g. he may use very flowery language if he is trying to create an atmosphere; he may write very simple if he is concerned with getting important facts over; he may have his tongue in his cheek. You may be asked to comment on the style of the passage you are studying and you may have to justify the appropriateness and effectiveness or otherwise of the style to the content – what the writer is saying. The kinds of points you would have to be aware of are the variety of sentences used, the kinds of words chosen, particular literary devices he uses, etc. These are very important aspects of understanding writing, and they will be discussed in greater detail in later units. 6. Summary. You may be asked to pick out certain facts in a passage relevant to a particular point, e.g. you may be asked ‗what do we learn about X‘s physical appearance?‘ and you will have to search through the piece of writing to find all the details that the writer gives you about this. 7. Opinions. You may be asked to comment on the views expressed in the passage, to say whether you think they are convincing, or to give your own views on the topic, e.g. if the passage is about homeopathy, you may be asked, ‗Do you think Homeopathy is harmful?‘ Or you may be asked to develop or expand on an area of experience described in the passage, but this time treating it from a personal point of view. For example, the passage may be about working conditions, and you may be asked, ‗Comment on the conditions docsity.com ideas are often important for a full understanding of what the writer means. To discover the implied or underlying ideas in the writing is called ‗making inferences‘ or drawing conclusion. Our aim is to help you not only become a better reader but a strong thinker – a person able not only to understand what is read but to analyze and evaluate it as well. In fact, reading and thinking are closely related skills, and practice in thoughtful reading will also strengthen your ability to think clearly and logically. It is a higher level skill. In everyday life, we keep on making inferences. For example, you go out in the street and you notice a large crowd gathered outside a shop, and you also notice a lot of broken glass on the road. As you get closer, you hear loud talking. Before you even reach the shop, you have inferred what all the fuss is about – there has been an accident. How did you arrive at these inferences? First, you used your experience of life and general knowledge of people. Second, you made informed guesses which were based on the facts you observed. Remember not all your inferences will necessarily prove true. For example, it is possible that the crowd gathered outside is not because of an accident between cars etc. but because of a quarrel among some people and while fighting among themselves they hit the glass windows of the shop and it turned into a nasty brawl. In any case, the more evidence you have, the more solid your inferences are. 1. Consider two incidents. Write down on a piece of paper what you might infer if you saw the following two occurrences. i) A high school has policemen walking up and down its main hall. What would you infer? _______________ ii) A dog shrinks or cringes when you try to pat him. What would you infer? _______________ The inferences you probably made are that, in the first situation, there is a public examination going on/or there is an important function taking place and some high-ranking person is present. And in the second situation you probably inferred that the dog has previously been maltreated and is afraid of people. Look at the following two pictures on your screen and put a tick mark against the inference(s) most logically supported by the information given in the picture. Picture 1: docsity.com The old woman is asking for something. The old woman couldn‘t see because of the smoke. The old woman was pointing to a no-smoking sign. Picture 2 : The man has a problem with his vision. The boy is doing his home work. The man watches a lot of TV. The father cannot read. Inferences in Reading: In reading also we make logical jumps from the information given or stated directly to ideas that are not stated directly i.e. we make statements or draw conclusions about what is not known on the basis of what is known or given. So, to draw inferences the reader uses all the clues provided by the writer, his own experience i.e. the reader‘s own experience and logic. docsity.com 2. Read the sentences given below and mark the inference most logically based on the information in the sentence. Sohail always sits in the last row of the classroom. a. Sohail dislikes his college courses. b. Sohail is unprepared for his class. c. Sohail feels uncomfortable sitting in the front row. d. Sohail is farsighted The given sentence tells us nothing about how Sohail feels about his college courses, how prepared he is, or how well he sees. So answers a, b or d are possibilities, but none is directly suggested by the sentence. The correct answer is therefore c. Based on the information we are given, we can conclude only that Sohail – for some reason – does not like sitting in the front. We are not given enough information to know why he feels this way. Remember your inferences will be stronger if you don‘t jump to conclusions that are unsupported or that are only very weakly supported by the available information. 3. Now you will have some more practice in drawing inferences. Read the given sentences and put a tick mark by the inference, most logically supported by the information given in the sentence. 1. The Arabic language contains numerous words describing different types of camels. a. There is really only one kind of camel. b. The Arabic language clearly has many times more words than the English language. c. The Arabic language probably also has numerous words for different types of dates. d. The exact nature of camels is important to the desert way of life. 2. A man enters his office building, marches past a group of fellow employees without returning their greetings and goes into his office, slamming the door. a. The man has just lost his job b. The man has quarreled with his boss. c. The man is in a bad mood. d. The man is angry with his wife. 4. Read the passage & then check the four statements which are most logically supported by the information given. 1. The elimination of jobs because of super-automation is not limited to industrial factories – offices are increasingly electronic. Engineers and architects now draw three dimensional docsity.com