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Reading Comprehension: The Text Types

Every genre the ELA section can hand you, from myths to economic accounts, and what each one rewards and punishes before you reach question one.

20 topics · 73 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

Literary Texts and Informational Texts

  1. How it worksHow do the opening two sentences tell you whether you are reading a story or an explanation?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the different questions a test asks about a story versus the ones it asks about a science article.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a text informational just because it is full of dates, facts and real places?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about your reading when a true account is told with scenes and dialogue like a novel?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. The winter Tomas turned 15, the river froze so hard that the ferry stopped running. He crossed on foot every morning to reach the bakery where he worked, counting his steps so he would know how far out he was if the fog came down. On the fourteenth morning the ice groaned under him, one long note like a door opening, and he stood still in the middle of the river and listened until it stopped. What kind of text is this, and what should you look for first?

Literary: Poetry

  1. How it worksHow does a poem pack meaning into images and line endings instead of into topic sentences?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't a poem's meaning whatever it happens to make you feel, on a test where one answer is correct?
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a poetry question when the poem tells a small story instead of painting a scene?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the poem. My grandmother kept 16 jars on the sill, each one a different winter's fruit. She never labeled them. She said the color was the label, and she was the only one who needed to read it. After she died we opened all of them, guessing, and were wrong about half. What does the last line most suggest?

Literary: Adventure Stories

  1. How it worksHow does an adventure story raise the stakes so one decision carries the meaning of the whole text?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what a climber dropping her pack to reach a hurt partner shows, using only the stated action.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the most exciting moment of an adventure story the one a central idea question is about?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. The rope had 23 feet of slack and Nell knew exactly what that meant. Below her, Ravi had stopped moving. She could reach the ledge in four pulls if she carried nothing, and in none at all if she carried the pack. She thought about the stove inside it, and the radio, and the two days of food. Then she unclipped the strap and let the pack go, and she did not watch it fall. What does the stated action show about Nell?

Literary: Historical Fiction

  1. How it worksHow does historical fiction lay invented people on top of real events, and which layer gets questioned?
  2. Going furtherWhat changes when a story from 1863 is told by someone living it instead of someone looking back at it?
  3. Common mistakeWhy doesn't the actual history help you when the story says something different about it?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. In the spring of 1851 the mill on the Ashuelot ran 3 shifts a day, and Cora worked the second. She had come down from the farm at fourteen with a trunk and a letter of introduction that the overseer did not read. Her first week she broke three threads and was docked for each. By August she could tie a weaver's knot in the dark, and she was sending half her pay home in an envelope she sealed with candle wax. Which statement about this passage is accurate?

Literary: Mysteries

  1. How it worksHow does a mystery plant clues that mean nothing the first time through and everything the second?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what a detective noticing dry shoes on a rainy night proves, and what it does not prove.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the suspicious-sounding character the answer when the text never says anything against him?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to a clue question when the person telling the story is the one hiding something?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. It had rained for 11 hours without stopping. Inspector Vale stood in the hallway and looked at the row of shoes by the door: four pairs soaked through and dark, and one pair of brown boots that were dry to the sole. The owner of the brown boots had told her, twice, that he had walked back from the station. She wrote nothing down. She asked him instead whether the station café had been open. What do the dry boots establish?

Literary: Myths

  1. How it worksHow does a myth turn a chain of events into a lesson the words never state outright?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't the lesson of a myth the same as the moral somebody taught you about that story as a kid?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through finding the lesson in a myth where a farmer who hoards his harvest loses it to a storm.
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the myth. The farmer Odo harvested 221 baskets of grain, more than the village had seen in a generation. His neighbors asked for a share against the winter and he refused them, saying the harvest was the work of his own hands. He built a stone shed and sealed the grain inside. In the eighth week of winter a storm took the roof of the shed and the rain took the grain, and Odo stood in the doorway and watched it go dark and soft. What lesson does the myth deliver?

Literary: Science Fiction

  1. How it worksHow does a single changed rule about an imagined world drive every consequence a question can ask about?
  2. Common mistakeWhy doesn't real science settle the answer when an invented technology breaks a law of physics?
  3. Going furtherWhat changes in a science fiction question when the invented world is clearly a warning about our own?
  4. Ties togetherHow does tracking an invented world's rules connect to tracking the assumptions inside an argument?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. On Tashen a person may hold only 291 memories at a time. To take a new one you must sell an old one at the exchange, and the price is posted every morning. Wen had been saving for a year to afford the memory of her mother's voice, which had risen steadily since the war. She had already sold her first bicycle, the smell of the harbor, and the name of the street she grew up on. What does the invented rule let the passage examine?

Literary: Realistic Fiction

  1. How it worksHow does a small change in what a character notices carry the meaning of an entire realistic story?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what a boy finally calling his neighbor by name at the end shows has changed in him.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a character question when the story stops before the character decides anything?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. For 30 weeks Daniel had called the man next door 'the guy with the truck.' He said it to his mother, to his friends, and once, by accident, to the man's daughter. Then a storm took the fence and they spent a Saturday setting posts together, and at dinner that night Daniel said the fence was finished and that Mr. Okafor had let him run the level. His mother did not look up, but she stopped chewing for a second. What does Daniel using the name show?

Informational: Expository and Explanatory Texts

  1. How it worksHow does an explanation move from a question to a mechanism to an answer, one paragraph per step?
  2. How it worksWalk me through turning a four paragraph science text into a shape you can point at when asked about structure.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't an explanatory text making an argument just because it states things confidently?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about the structure when an explanation is organized by time rather than by cause?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. Why does a cut apple turn brown? The flesh contains an enzyme that sits harmlessly inside the cells until the knife breaks them open. Once exposed to air, the enzyme drives a reaction between oxygen and compounds in the fruit, and the products of that reaction are brown. This is why a slice left out for 66 minutes darkens while an unbroken apple does not, and why lemon juice, which slows the enzyme, keeps a fruit salad pale. Which shape best describes this text?

Informational: Argumentative Texts

  1. How it worksHow do a claim, its evidence, a counterclaim and a rebuttal stack into a shape you can draw?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through locating the claim in a text that opens with two paragraphs of numbers about school start times.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the opening sentence of an argument usually the claim the rest of the text defends?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes when a writer admits the other side is partly right instead of knocking it down?
  5. Ties togetherHow does a counterclaim connect to a question asking what the overall organization lets the author do?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. Across 29 districts that moved the first bell later, average attendance rose and tardies fell. In one district the tardy count dropped by a third in a single year. Sleep researchers have measured what these numbers imply: adolescents fall asleep later for biological reasons and cannot simply be sent to bed earlier. Our district should move its first bell to 8:30. The cost of rerouting buses is real, and it is smaller than the cost of a class that cannot stay awake. Where is the claim?

Informational: Creative Nonfiction

  1. How it worksHow does creative nonfiction use story technique to deliver information a plain report would state flatly?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't vivid description in a true account permission to treat the writer as a made-up character?
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a true account that uses dialogue nobody wrote down word for word at the time?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. The tide came in at 40 minutes past four, and I know that because the harbormaster's book says so and because I was standing in it. The water reached the third step, then the fourth. Mrs. Alarcon, who had lived on that quay for sixty years, carried her radio upstairs and came back down for the cat. Nobody shouted. The whole street moved the way a household moves on a morning it has done a thousand times. What kind of text is this?

Functional Text: Personal Essays

  1. How it worksHow does a personal essay widen one writer's experience into a claim meant for everybody?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through finding the general point of an essay about a writer's first week delivering papers in the cold.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the writer's feeling the central idea when that feeling is being used to make a point?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes when a personal essay never states its point in any single sentence?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. My first week delivering papers it was 15 degrees before dawn and I could not feel the rubber bands. I quit in my head every morning for six days. On the seventh a woman on Linden Street left a thermos on her porch with my name taped to it. I have thought about that thermos for twenty years, mostly when I am deciding whether to do something small for somebody who will never mention it to me. What is the essay's general point?

Functional Text: Speeches

  1. How it worksHow does a speech stack credibility, reasoning and feeling into three layers you can point at separately?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't the loudest line of a speech the one a purpose question usually asks about?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through what a speaker does by opening with 'I have stood exactly where you are standing tonight.'
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about reading a speech once you remember it was made to be heard once, never reread?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the opening of a speech. I have stood exactly where you are standing tonight. 34 years ago I sat in that third row and I could not have told you what I was going to do on Monday. I am not here to tell you it worked out because I was clever. I am here to tell you what the people in this room did for me, and what it will cost you to do the same for somebody else. What does the opening line accomplish?

Functional Text: Opinion Pieces

  1. How it worksHow do you separate a fact a writer reports from the judgment the writer wants you to draw from it?
  2. Common mistakeWhy doesn't a number inside a sentence make the whole sentence a fact?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through splitting fact from opinion in 'Ridership fell 12 percent, proof the new schedule was a mistake.'
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the sentence from an opinion column. Ridership fell 23 percent after the schedule changed, proof that the new timetable was a mistake. Which split is correct?

Functional Text: Essays About Art or Literature

  1. How it worksHow does a critic travel from a detail anyone can see to a judgment nobody can see, one step at a time?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't a critic's opinion of a novel something you are being asked to agree or disagree with?
  3. Going furtherWhat changes when an essay sets two artworks side by side instead of describing only one?
  4. Worked exampleWalk me through the reasoning in 'The cracked frame is the point: he wanted the picture to look rescued.'
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. The frame has been cracked since at least 1871, and three separate owners chose not to repair it. The cracked frame is the point: he wanted the picture to look rescued. Notice that the varnish is thinner at the lower left, where a hand would grip a panel carried out of a burning room. Everything in the painting is arranged so that the viewer meets it as a survivor rather than as a purchase. What is the writer's reasoning?

Functional Text: Biographies

  1. How it worksHow do the events a biographer chooses to keep reveal the point the biography is making?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what including a subject's failed first shop, right before her success, says about the writer's point.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a biography simply a list of dates arranged from birth to death?
  4. Ties togetherHow does a biographer's choice of which events to keep connect to author's purpose in any text?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. She opened her first shop at 27 and closed it within the year, owing money to a supplier who never sued her for it. Biographies of her usually begin with the second shop. This one does not, because the ledger she kept during that first year is the only place she ever wrote down what she thought a business was for, and every decision she made afterward reads like an answer to it. Why does the biographer include the failed shop?

Functional Text: Memoirs

  1. How it worksHow does the gap between what the younger self knew and what the older writer knows create the meaning?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through the two viewpoints in 'I thought the move was a punishment; I know now it was the only door open.'
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a tone question when a writer is gently laughing at their own younger self?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. I was 12 when we moved, and I thought the move was a punishment. I know now it was the only door open to my mother that year. At the time I counted the things I had lost: a room with a window, a bus route I could ride alone, two friends who wrote to me twice and then stopped. I had no way of counting what the move cost her, and she did not tell me until I was thirty. How many viewpoints does the passage hold?

Functional Text: Journalism

  1. How it worksHow does the inverted pyramid put the biggest fact first and the background last?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't a quotation inside a news article the reporter saying that thing?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through what 'officials said the bridge may close' claims and what it carefully avoids claiming.
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about structure when a news story opens on one family rather than on the main fact?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. The Ninth Street bridge will close for 66 days beginning Monday, the transportation department announced Friday. Officials said inspectors found corrosion on two support beams during a routine review. The detour will add about fifteen minutes for the 9,000 drivers who use the crossing daily. The bridge was last resurfaced in 2014. A department spokesman said the repair schedule will be reviewed once the beams are exposed. Why does the closing come first?

Functional Text: Scientific and Technical Accounts

  1. How it worksHow does a research account travel from an open question to a method to a finding you can point at?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through why tags that record only movement cannot settle whether a flying bird is asleep.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a researcher's conclusion the same thing as the evidence that led there?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes when one text reports two studies whose findings only partly agree?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. To ask whether frigatebirds sleep in flight, researchers fitted 30 birds with devices recording head movement and body position. The tags showed long stretches of level gliding with the head steady. But a steady head is not a sleeping brain: a resting bird and an alert bird holding formation can move identically. Only after the team added recorders that measured brain activity directly could they say that the birds slept, and for how long. Why could the movement tags not settle the question?

Functional Text: Historical and Economic Accounts

  1. How it worksHow does a historical account chain a cause to an effect to a consequence across whole paragraphs?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through the cause chain in 'Drought cut the harvest, grain prices tripled, and by spring there were riots.'
  3. Common mistakeWhy doesn't the order events are described in always match the order they actually happened?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about an economic account when it explains a number instead of only reporting it?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the passage. The drought of 1645 cut the harvest by roughly a third across the northern provinces. Grain prices in the capital tripled within four months, and because bread was the largest single item in a laborer's budget, a wage that had covered a family in the spring did not cover one by autumn. By the following spring there were riots in three cities, and the government's first response was to fix the price of bread rather than to move grain. What is the cause chain?