Understand Poetry and Apply Comprehension Skills to a Poetry Text

You have already made the smart choice to invest your time in preparation for the SATs reading test.

In the SATs reading test, there will be three different texts to answer questions on.

One of the texts may be a poem. It will really help you to feel more prepared if you spend some time reading a range of poetry.

The poetry questions in the test will be similar to those used about a fictional text. Let's recap those types of questions.

Text marking to answer 'right there' questions

Text marking is the skill you should first use when you read the poem. This refers to you highlighting or circling keywords and phrases. 

This strategy will then help you to answer some of the more simple, literal questions that have the answer 'right there'. 

For example: 'find the phrase that...' or 'copy the group of words that...'

Word questions

This type of question will ask you to give or explain the meaning of a word in a text. 

You may find you have already text marked the word!

Retrieval questions

Retrieval questions often begin with: ‘who, what, where, when, why, how…?’

Sometimes you may very easily spot the answer, other times, it may be more difficult, and you may have to carefully search the text.

Although it can be tempting, do not guess. Always carefully check the answer, by referring to the text.

Inference questions

To answer an inference question, you will need to look for clues.

You will need to prove your answer. Think, what evidence is there to support your claim? How do you know a statement to be true?

Use ‘because’ to show the detail you have found in the text.

Look carefully at the number of marks available for the question, two marks mean two pieces of evidence needed, three marks means three pieces of evidence required and so on.

Right, it's over to you now to answer a range of questions on 'The Jabberwocky' by Lewis Caroll, published in 1872.

You should always refer to your own text when working through these examples. These quotations are for reference only.