1. Context Questions
12th March

3. Context Questions You will know what we mean by context questions.
You will know and remember the formula for context questions.
You will be able to use the formula to tackle context questions.

4. Meaning of Words
A context question is testing your knowledge of vocabulary.
Do you know the meaning of the word and, if not, can you work it out from the words around it.

5. Formula Write down the meaning of the word.
Quote the words or phrases that helped you to arrive at this meaning.
Explain how each word or phrase helped you.

6. Example
I’m nocturnal. I love the moonlight, the shadows, the dark places, the dappled murk. I’m not being poetic. I’m simply being true to my nature, my nocturnal nature. Like all tarantulas.

7. Show how the context helps you to understand the meaning of nocturnal (2 marks)
“Nocturnal” means being active by night. The writer refers to his preference for “moonlight” and “dark” which both suggest night-time.

8. Your turn!
Page 13 Intermediate Two Language Skills book.

9. 1968 was, I suppose, the most traumatic­ year of my life
1968 was, I suppose, the most traumatic­ year of my life. After my parents’ separation we moved into a smaller house, but for a time, because of some sort of chain, we were homeless and had to stay with our neighbours; I became seriously ill with jaundice; and I started at the local grammar school.

10. Saturday afternoon is a festive day with the natives
Saturday afternoon is a festive day with the natives. The girls put on all the finery they can on Saturday afternoon – silk robes, hats trimmed with fresh flowers and home-made necklaces of vermilion tinted blossoms.

11. There are many ordinary happenings which have frightened or startled people into believing they were caused by ghostly means. Subterranean movements of earth and rock in old mine-workings, for instance, can cause very odd noises, and miners hearing tappings and rumblings in the underground darkness used to be sure they were made either by earth spirits or by the spirits of other miners long dead.

12. Presently we came to a place where no grass grew - a wide expanse of deep sand. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. Nothing whatever is known about this place – its story is a secret that will never be revealed. The oldest natives make no pretence of knowing its history. They say the bones were here when their grandfathers were children – but how they came here they can only conjecture. Many people believe this spot to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so.

13. I was born at Blunderstone in Suffolk. I was a posthumous child
I was born at Blunderstone in Suffolk. I was a posthumous child. My father’s eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months when mine opened on it. There is something strange to me even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white gravestone in the churchyard.

14. About this time my brother’s behaviour grew ever more unpredictable
About this time my brother’s behaviour grew ever more unpredictable. On a good day he would be cheerful and behave almost like the Matthew of old. A bad day might see him do anything from sinking into a silent depression to throwing the furniture in his room.

15. For me, a detention was in fact a thoroughly congenial hour
For me, a detention was in fact a thoroughly congenial hour. I could lose myself in the drama of my history books and surrender to my imagination in the production of an English composition. But most of all, I was for the duration safe and secure from the taunts of Ranzio and his gang.

16. If it had not been for a benevolent old lady
If it had not been for a benevolent old lady. Oliver would most certainly have fallen dead on the highway. But the old lady, who had a grandson wandering in some distant part of the world, took pity on Oliver, and gave him what little she could afford and more, and with kind and gentle words.