English Second Language·Reading skills · NSSCO 4.5
Task 4 — multiple-choice comprehension
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Task 4 gives you one text of about 550 to 600 words and a set of multiple-choice questions, each with four options — worth 8 marks. Multiple-choice is not a guessing game: the answer is always hiding in the text. We'll learn to read for the gist, take each question in turn, find the answer in the passage, read all four options, and dodge the clever distractors. Then we'll model three questions — literal, inference and vocabulary — on a real little Namibian passage, so you can walk into the exam and pick with confidence.
What you'll learn in this lesson
By the end you should be able to (NSSCO English Second Language 4.5):
- Learners should be able to state what Task 4 involves: a 550–600 word text with four-option multiple-choice questions worth 8 marks.
- Learners should be able to read the whole text first for the gist, then take each question in turn and locate the relevant part of the text.
- Learners should be able to answer from the text itself, not from personal opinion or general knowledge.
- Learners should be able to read all four options and eliminate the ones they know are wrong before choosing.
- Learners should be able to recognise common distractors: same-words-different-meaning, true-in-life-but-not-in-the-text, half-right, and opposite options.
- Learners should be able to answer inference questions ('the writer suggests that…') by finding the evidence rather than a word-for-word statement.
- Learners should be able to work out the meaning of a word in context, and to always make a best choice rather than leaving a question blank.
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Miss Veronica and Mike talk through the whole topic — with the figure and working drawn live.