Reading Comprehension: Meaning, Types, Preparation Tips & Tricks and Practice Exercises with Answers

English Reading Comprehension or Comprehension, is a language skill which refers to the ability to understand the underlying or inner meaning of the given text. While it is easy to gauge the surface level meaning, which is asked at the preliminary level, at the advanced level, the objective is to find out the deeper meaning.

The purpose of Reading Comprehension is to enhance the ability to read and understand the author’s thoughts behind writing the text. It also tests the critical thinking as well as interpretation skills of the users. Hence, Reading Comprehension forms an important part of the competitive entrance exams, as it not only tests the language interpretation skills, but also the critical thinking and the ability to transcend beyond words to the deeper contextual meaning and intention of the author.

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 According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word Comprehension can have two definitions:

1. The ability to understand

• Speech and comprehension
• His behaviour was completely beyond comprehension(= impossible to understand).
• She had no comprehension of what was involved.

2. An exercise that trains students to understand a language

• listening comprehension
• reading comprehension

Reading Comprehension Definition by Collins Dictionary

As per the Collins Dictionary, Reading Comprehension is defined as, “a text that students use to help them improve their reading skills, by reading it and answering questions relating to the text. Sometimes used as a test or examination of reading skills. A reading comprehension can be in the student's own or another language.”

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The Reading Comprehension questions can be divided broadly into three types, which are described below.

Literal Comprehension

In the Literal Comprehension, the passage is easy to read, and the questions are direct in nature. In this type of Reading Comprehension, the questions are asked directly from the passage, and the answers can be derived after reading the passage and finding the information from it directly without any critical thinking. Generally, in this type of Reading Comprehension, there is one exact answer. Hence, students would either answer the question correctly or would get it completely wrong. The questions of the Literal Reading Comprehension start with the five Ws and one H, such as what, when, why, who, which and how.

Examples:

Q: What is the name of the protagonist?

Q: Where were the children going for their summer vacation?

Q: What was in the lunch menu?

Q: When did they return home?

Inferential Comprehension

In this type of Reading Comprehension, the main purpose is to understand and infer the underlying meaning or the main context or message of the passage. To answer the questions of this type of English Reading Comprehension questions, candidates have to read and analyse the given information or data to answer the questions. Unless the reader or the candidate understands the context or deep dives within the Reading Comprehension passage, it will be difficult to answer the questions.

Examples:

Q: What is the mood of the protagonist in the passage?

Q: What led the protagonist to take this decision?

Q: What would be the impact of the decision taken by the protagonist on his family members?

Q: What were the different emotions felt by the protagonist after the implementation of the decision?

Q: What was the difference in the protagonists’ life before and after the incident?

Analytical or Critical Comprehension

The Analytical or Critical Comprehension is considered to be the toughest or trickiest type of Reading Comprehension. While solving this type of Reading Comprehension, students have to analyse the information or data provided within the passage. In general, this type of Reading Comprehension passages are non-fiction type, either based on historical or current event or journals, or articles, or even newspaper editorials. Hence, the question types of Analytical Comprehension or Critical Comprehension are mostly data-oriented or evaluative in nature.

Examples:

Q: What is the purpose of the author to write the poem/article?

Q: Draw a contrast between the socio-economic scenario of the two timelines described here.

Q: What is the figure of speech used in the passage and what does it describe about the character?

Q: Describe the relationship shared between the two characters.

Q: Analyse the ideology of the author from this sentence.

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To solve the Reading Comprehension questions, students have to follow these rules or tips:

• Read the passage to understand the theme: The thumb rule to answer the Reading Comprehension questions is to read the passage thoroughly and understand the theme or the context. Once you have a clear idea of the passage type, it will be easy for you to frame the answers.
• Make notes of important points: While going through the passage, make notes of important points such as data or statistics, quotes, incidents, conversation between two characters, etc. Generally, the questions revolve around these themes.
• Scan the passage: After following the first two steps, scan the Reading Comprehension passage to further note down or underline keywords, phrases, terms, dates and events, etc.
• Read the questions: After the first three steps, read the questions. You will have an idea of the answers, or which part to look for the answers.
• Recollect information and vocabulary: Reading Comprehension questions are often vocabulary-based. If you find questions related to the meaning of a word or a term, you must recollect your vocabulary lessons to start with. Moreover, if you come across a Reading Comprehension passage on an extract from an article or a novel or a short story which you have already read, then you should start recollecting the information to answer the questions easily.

The purpose of both Reading Comprehension and Precis Writing is to note down the crux of the matter. However, there are several differences in these two formats. Let us assess the differences in the table below.

The best possible way to prepare for Reading Comprehension is to read and practice. Here is a breakdown of the preparation tips and strategies for Reading Comprehension.

• Build a reading habit: The basic and simplest preparation tip for Reading Comprehension is to read as much as possible. It can be anything, from novels to poems, to articles or journals. The basic idea is to read and understand the crux of the matter and retain the major information or message.
• Improve vocabulary: A common Reading Comprehension question type is to write the meaning of a particular word. In such a scenario, having strong vocabulary skills helps. Knowing the meaning of a plethora of words, or words related to particular subjects or streams, will help them answer questions related to word meaning or phrases which mean a particular word.
• Write down the gist after reading a passage or a chapter: Once you complete writing a chapter or a paragraph, or an article, write down the major pointers or the gist of the content. Make subheads for the key pointers, dates and events, words and meanings, meanings of idioms, decoding data, etc.
• Annotate: While reading the passage, highlight or underline important points so that you can easily refer to them while attempting the questions. This will also help in making notes and further enhance information retention ability.
• Draw inference or opinions: In the inferential and analytical Reading Comprehensions, questions are generally opinion-based or ask candidates to predict future events, based on their analytical skills. Hence, to tackle such questions, candidates must have developed the practice to draw an opinion of a particular event or a character (if the passage is fiction-based), or predict future events based on his or her ability to think and analyse based on the information and data present in the passage.
• Frame questions based on the Reading Comprehension passage: Based on the passages, chapters, or articles read, frame all possible questions in your mind, or jot them down, along with the answers, even before looking at the original questions. This will help you in finding or framing answers to the Reading Comprehension passages quicker than usual.

Here is the list of some of the best books to refer to for Reading Comprehension.

While preparation for Reading Comprehension should not be limited to referring to the above books only, but should also be expanded to reading newspaper and magazine articles, journals, textbooks, vocabulary and idiom preparation books, to name a few.

Find below the best books for some common topics of English grammar: