CLOSE READING SKILLS

CONTEXT QUESTIONS You do two things here: Give the meaning of the word By reference to the context, explain how you arrived at the meaning

Example 1 It seems the childcare pendulum has swung; the principal threat to children is no longer neglectful parents, but excessively protective ones who are always worrying about germs. Frank Furedi, reader in sociology at the University of Kent, has written a book, “Paranoid Parenting”, in which he explores the consequences of too much cossetting. “It is always important to recall that our obsession with our children’s safety is likely to be more damaging to them than any risks that they are likely to meet with in their daily encounter with the world.”

Example 2 The dedication which is depicted so charmingly in the soft young nurse turns into fanaticism in the middle-aged spinster who insists on having the beds in a straight line and makes the junior nurses cry.”

Example 3 Others are, however, convinced that it is only a matter of time before we face Armageddon. Liberal Democrat MP and sky watcher, Lembit Opik, says “I have said for years that the chance of an asteroid having an impact which could wipe out most of the human race is 100 per cent.” He has raised his worries in the Commons, successfully campaigned for an all party task force to assess the potential risk and helped set up the Spaceguard UK facility to track near-earth objects.

Example 4 If you hail from Glasgow you will have friends or relatives whose roots lie in the Irish Republic. You will have Jewish friends or colleagues whose grandparents, a good number of them Polish or Russian, may have fled persecution in Europe. You will eat in premises run by Italian or French proprietors. It is a diverse cultural heritage enriched no by a large and vibrant Asian population.

Example 5 Within weeks of his passing, the first sightings were reported of the supposedly dead Elvis, waiting in a supermarket queue, driving a truck, serving burgers, or filling up at a gas station – revealingly, usually involved in the mundane, blue – collar situations routinely undertaken by most of his fans. Though in life he had become a rich recluse, a person apart from his public, in death he could now become one of them again.

Example 6 What is presented to the reader of romance novels is a polarisation of gender roles, where the men are tough and the women are vulnerable; the heroes are dominant and the heroines like children in their lack of self determination which reaches it’s extreme form in the ‘bandit story’ where the heroine is literally captured by a man with whom she cannot help falling in love.

IMAGERY QUESTIONS Key strategies: You must show that you understand the literal ‘root’ of the image You must show how the writer is extending this metaphorically to help make a point. Simply picking out the words which contain the image will score no marks. Adding lots of vague comments which are not tied to understanding and analysis of the image will also score no marks.

Example 1 Question: Show how effective you find the writer’s use of imagery to convey the feeligs about what happened to Muhammed Ali’s money. One fight I attended in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, showed a fascinating insight into how the money haemorrhaged. He was accompanied by a posse of 44 people, of whom perhaps only six were professionally involved. The rest were relatives, friends of relatives, old pals of Ali who had fallen on hard times, and outright leeches. Daily they plundered the hotel’s shopping mall amassing clothes, jewellery and tacky souvenirs, all charged to Ali’s account.

Example 2 Question: Discuss how effctive you find the writer’s use of imagery in making her point (disapproval of proposed measures) clear Yet at the heart of this ever more draconian approach to immigration policy lie a number of misconceptions. The UK is not a group of nations swamped by a tidal wave of immigration. Relatively speaking, Europe contends with a trickle of refugees compared to countries who border areas of famine, desperate poverty, or violent political upheaval.

Example 3 Question: How effective do you find the image of ‘battery hens’ in conveying the writer’s view of the way in which children are currently being brought up? I am tired of these prophets of death and injury. I do not need to Royal society for the Prevention of Accidents to tell me that children should wear helmets while sledging, because I am incensed at the thought of hundreds of poor kids whose parents will now ban them from sledging on the five-million-to-one chance that they might hit a tree. I mourn also for the kids who will never know the delight of cycling with the wind in their hair, or climbing up trees, or exploring hidden places. Growing up devoid of freedom, decision- making, and the opportunity to learn from taking their own risks, our children are becoming trapped, neurotic, and as genetically weakened as battery hens.

Example 4 Question: Explain how the image supports the writer’s point regarding the changes in attitude towards childcare. It seems the childcare pendulum has swung: the principal threat to children is no longer neglectful parents, but excessively protective ones who are always worrying about germs.

Example 5 Question: Show how effective you find the writer’s use of imagery in conveying the excitement of the debate. Many details referred to in our story are still controversial. Debate is particularly heated as regards the role of impacts in directing the course of human history. All of this is very exciting. The whole topic is in a state of ferment, a symptom that something significant is brewing.