Tips for Comprehension Open-Ended Inferential Questions
Interactions between key characters in a passage are often the focus in creating inferential questions for comprehension open-ended in PSLE English. Learn a simple way to never omit key details in answering these questions.
Character Interaction Chart
Use a Character Interaction Chart (shown below) to organize interactions between the key characters in the passage in the form of actions and reactions.
Let’s try it out on the text provided below.
“This is Class 95 FM’s weather forecast. We will definitely experience thunderstorms in the late morning today. I urge everyone to remain at home and avoid outdoor activities. Stay tuned for the latest updates,” the announcer said.
“There goes our canoeing plan!” Tony screamed as he vented his anger on his best friend, Joe. “It doesn’t matter. Tony. We can always do something else,” said Joe, trying to calm his frustrated friend down.
You do not have to be that elaborate in drawing the boxes as shown in the example.
A simple table with two columns will suffice.
Let’s try a simple inferential question based on the same paragraph.
In the second paragraph, why did Tony scream at Joe?
What should I do?
The question is asking for something that is not obvious.
Look for clues from phrases which might help you.
“There goes our canoeing plan!”, “vented his anger on”
From the clues, we can infer that Tony and Joe had planned to go on a canoeing trip together. Tony was upset that they could not carry out their plans due to the weather. As a result, Tony screamed at Joe in frustration.
In the second paragraph, why did Tony scream at Joe?
Which answer would you choose?
- Tony screamed at Joe because their canoeing plan had to be cancelled as a result of the poor weather.
- Tony screamed at Joe because he could not carry out his canoeing plan with Joe as a result of the poor weather.
- Tony was angry because he could not carry out his canoeing plan with Joe as a result of the poor weather.
If you have chosen C, good job! B was a popular answer too.
Answer C includes the key idea of Tony venting his anger on Joe that is lacking in the other two answers.
The Character Interaction Chart would have helped the student identify the key emotion, anger.
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