1. Understanding Questions
Language Skills
Understanding Questions

2. What is an Understanding Question?
Understanding questions focus on what the writer has said.
This type of question tests your awareness of main ideas and important details included in the text.
Understanding questions will often ask you to:
“Identify” – briefly indicate ideas or details from the text.
“Explain” – describe, in detail, ideas or details from the text.
Understanding questions will never ask you to:
“Comment on the writer’s use of language.”
“Comment on the writer’s use of word choice / imagery / structure / tone.”
“Analyse...”
“Evaluate...”
Unless it is clear that you are being asked to provide a quotation, you should always answer Understanding questions in your own words.

3. How do I Answer an Understanding Question?
Understanding questions typically require you to do three things:
Find a particular piece of information in the text.
Highlighting or underlining this information in the passage can sometimes be helpful, or quoting it as part of your answer.
Translate that information into your own words.
Check that your translation of the information contains none of the key words used in the passage.

4. Understanding – Example Question
Jim scarcely recognised his long grey hair and grey cheeks, the strange face in a strange mirror. He would stare at the ragged figure who appeared before him in all the mirrors of the Columbia Road, an urchin half his previous size and twice his previous age.
Identify four changes in his appearance that Jim notices when he looks at himself in the mirror. 4 marks
“long hair”
His hair had grown.
“grey cheeks”
His face was pale / drained of colour.
“half his previous size”
He had lost a lot of weight.
“twice his previous age”
He looked a lot older than he used to.

5. Understanding – Example Question
Jim scarcely recognised his long grey hair and grey cheeks, the strange face in a strange mirror. He would stare at the ragged figure who appeared before him in all the mirrors of the Columbia Road, an urchin half his previous size and twice his previous age.
Identify four changes in his appearance that Jim notices when he looks at himself in the mirror. 4 marks
“long hair”
His hair had grown.
“grey cheeks”
His face was pale / drained of colour.
“half his previous size”
He had lost a lot of weight.
“twice his previous age”
He looked a lot older than he used to.

6. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
Explain why Winston did not attempt to use the lift in his block of flats
“Even at the best of times it was seldom working,”
It was usually broken.
“at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours.”
Just now, electrical power was only available at night.

7. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
Explain why Winston did not attempt to use the lift in his block of flats
“Even at the best of times it was seldom working,”
It was usually broken.
“at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours.”
Just now, electrical power was only available at night.

8. Linking Questions
Linking Questions are a type of question that asks you to show how one sentence provides a link between two separate pieces of information in the passage.
This type of question tests your awareness of how the writer has linked her or his ideas together.
Linking questions will usually ask you to:
“explain how [...] perform(s) a linking function”
There will never be more than one linking question in an Analysis & Evaluation paper – often there aren’t any.
Linking questions are almost always worth 2 marks.

9. Linking Questions - Process
Link questions typically require you to do the following:
Explain how the sentence links to the previous topic of the passage:
Quote the part of the sentence that refers to the previous topic.
Explain what that previous topic was.
Explain how the sentence links to the new topic of the passage:
Quote the part of the sentence that refers to the new topic.
Explain what the new topic is.

10. Linking Questions – Example 1
Mary Stuart Knox was certainly rated a beauty by the standards of her own time: even John Knox described her as “pleasing”. In her height, her small neat head, and her grace she resembled the contemporary ideal. It was the type of beauty which her contemporaries were already learning to admire in art, and could now appreciate in life, all the more satisfying because it was in the person of a princess.
Not only the appearance, but also the character of Mary Stuart made her admirably suited to be a princess of France in the age in which she lived. Mary was exactly the sort of beautiful woman, not precisely brilliant, but well-educated and charming, who inspired and stimulated poets by her presence to feats of homage.
Comment on the linking function of the underlined sentence above.
“Not only the appearance” refers to the previous paragraph, which focuses on how Mary Stuart’s looks made her ideally suited to royalty. (1)
“but also the character” refers to the new paragraph, which focuses on how Mary’s personality made her ideally suited to this sort of life. (1)

11. Linking Questions – Example 2
At school, Alastair had shown exceptional promise. He had excelled as a scholar, as a musician and on the games field; his popularity and talent had made him an obvious choice for head boy in the last year.
His university career made a sad contrast to the years as a golden boy. A baffling lack of commitment saw him fail his first year exams, and after a nervous breakdown in his second year, he dropped out altogether.
Comment on the linking function of the underlined sentence above.
“years as a golden boy” refers to the previous paragraph, which focuses on Alastair’s many successes at school. (1)
“His university career” refers to the new paragraph, which focuses on how Alastair struggled to cope with the demands of further education. (1)