Studying Tips: How to Read More Effectively and Efficiently
By WR!TERS@WORK
By WR!TERS@WORK
The love for reading is often instilled from a young age, when parents bring their children to public libraries on the weekends to borrow books and attend weekly storytelling sessions. As we progress throughout our academic life, our speed and breath of reading gradually increases, from Geronimo Stilton books to Shakespeare classics like The Merchant of Venice or Romeo and Juliet. However, many of us neglect the art of reading: understanding the author’s intentions, evaluating arguments and posing the right questions.
Effective and efficient reading is an indispensable skill that will carry you throughout your life. Reading books enables us to accumulate knowledge and experience from the lives of others and form concrete ideas and opinions. Reading a wide range of books and news articles offers exposure and insights to construct persuasive essays and enhances one’s ability to craft sophisticated situational and continuous writing. However, something that many struggle with is having the ability to “Read to Understand” as this level of reading compels us to question our assumptions and critically evaluate what is being presented to us.
Understanding passages at a deeper level will allow you to understand the author’s intention and tackle How Language Achieves Impact (HLAI) questions with ease. Some examples of these questions include:
Q1: Explain how the language used in Paragraph 3 emphasises the writer’s fear of speaking in Malay.
Q2: ‘It was a dictionary submerged in water, soaked to the spine, its pages wrinkled and warped’ (lines 21-22). What impression is the writer trying to make about his efforts with the use of this metaphor?
Note: For Secondary English comprehension tips, do check out our website and other blog posts!
The above is not limited to HLAI questions only. Generally, if you understand the passage better and are more sensitive to the choice of words used, you should be able to answer most of the comprehension questions with ease. There are 4 cumulative levels of reading. We will briefly go through them here:
Level 1: Elementary Reading
At this stage, you can understand the words in the passage and follow the storyline, understanding the message of the writing.
Level 2: Inspectional Reading
You might skim through the passage to grasp the general idea and main arguments that the author is trying to present.
Level 3: Analytical Reading
This level of reading requires you to go a little more in-depth and uncover the central theme of the passage. You should be able to evaluate the author’s arguments and find the links between paragraphs, understanding the passage as a whole. This can be achieved via active reading, and what makes this difficult is that we have to question what is being presented to us.
Level 4: Synoptical Reading
Synoptical reading occurs beyond a single article or book, and this might be less relevant in PSLE and O-Level Comprehension passages. However, this is important when you draw knowledge from similar resources on the same topic. Build connections between all the information you have gathered from different sources and identify the common questions and assumptions they address, finding the answers along the way. It is only at this stage where you can build profound insights.
In fact, synoptical reading is one of the key factors in ensuring you are able to achieve top marks for the Application Question (AQ) as part of the A-Level General Paper 2. The AQ is a short essay which requires critical evaluation of the author’s arguments and requires substantiation from your background knowledge.
2021 A-Level AQ: The author makes significant criticisms of today’s fashion industry. How far do you agree or disagree with the author’s observations? Illustrate your arguments with examples drawn from your own experience and that of your society.
2019 A-Level AQ: How far do you agree or disagree with the views expressed in the two passages? Illustrate your answer with examples of how you and your society regard zoos.
Reading more is crucial to increasing your breadth of knowledge, which is vital when formulating arguments and injecting evidence for your argumentative and expository essays. Constant exposure to writings in the form of books or articles can help improve your command of the language over time too!
How we can encourage ourselves to read more (in terms of volume) is by first developing a love for reading. You don’t have to force yourself to read popular novels like Harry Potter or magazines like National Geographic if you don’t like to. Start from titles and articles you are interested in, and keep that momentum going when trying to explore other topics. Utilise the little pockets of time to read informative articles or news on your phone instead of scrolling through social media. Developing healthy reading habits begins with consistency and you can start by setting goals for yourself. Try aiming for 3 news articles a day, and slowly increase this to include scientific journals and bibliographies (anything informative and helpful for your exams).
Reading effectively and efficiently is a valuable skill that you would thank yourself for having at some point in your life. At this stage, you might use this for understanding comprehension passages and literature novels, and developing strong essay arguments. Not only should we learn how to read more to increase our knowledge and open new perspectives, but also read deeply to become critical thinkers. This dual enhancement will give you that additional boost to excel in English.
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1. What are Some Important Skills in English?
Synthesis is one of the most challenging skills in the English language, as it involves using current ideas to create new opinions and perspectives.
2. Which English Language Skills is Most Difficult?
Synthesis is one of the most challenging skills in the English language, as it involves using current ideas to create new opinions and perspectives.
3. What is the Most Difficult Part of English Class?
The most challenging part of English class is to understand how to create your own ideas from an existing body of work, and how all the individual parts of English – grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, clauses, etc. – fit together in an essay as a whole.
4. How Do You Structure an English Essay?
Firstly, you need a good hook as an introductory paragraph. Next, the body of content follows, which will answer the essay question provided. Lastly, a strong conclusion which “comes down on one side” is needed.
5. What is a Good Paragraph Starter?
It depends on the essay. For narrative writing, begin in media res. For argumentative essays or discursive essays, a thesis statement is needed which outlines the central tenet of your argument.
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