Before we hop into how you can tackle literary questions, we must first understand what narrative comprehension is, particularly for Secondary 3. Narrative comprehension essentially signifies having to understand and interpret the meaning of stories or narratives. For Secondary 3, these are typically fictional stories that often include vivid descriptions.
In terms of literary questions for narrative comprehension, there are various types that you would come across. The most common ones are irony, tone, effective and unusual, simile, and personification. The intent for these questions is to test your ability to understand the interferences in a body of text, going beyond ‘who’ and ‘what’ kinds of questions.
More often than not, these questions involve the sensory part of the idea. For instance, what do you perceive about this character when he says a certain thing? Is he angry or calm? Narrative comprehension texts aim to get you to answer along these lines. Should you be finding these literary questions difficult, we will run through the most common types of these questions with you.
Irony
Irony questions are by far the most common. They attempt to spotlight a rather strange part of any story that is the opposite of what it was in the beginning. Irony questions attempt to find out if you are capable of reading between the lines and figuring out if it was indeed an unexpected situation. For instance, if someone demoted his own son in his company, that would be ironic as one would expect him to treat his son better or impart some favouritism onto him.
Tone
Tone is more about the attitude or mood. The tone establishes the basic ‘feeling’ that body of text conveys. You will need to identify what it is by reading the text back and forth. One of the reasons why examiners ask this type of question is to find out if you are in touch with what is going on within the text on a deeper level. Does the tone or general feel of the story reveal anything? That is how you figure out the tone and answer the question accordingly.
Effective and Unusual Questions
There will always be at least one question about how a given phrase is effective, while at the same time, being unusual. This can also be considered an irony question in disguise. The effective part is when you figure out that it makes sense. It is very important for you to differentiate between the two and answer precisely, paying attention to the way the phrases are used by the author.
Simile
Similes are comparisons and an effective way for authors to show how a character establishes his or her presence. When comparing a person to another, there is greater importance established. You have to deduce why she is being compared this way. What effect does it create? Does this create a whole new meaning? Does the simile create humour? Similes are literary questions that are an important feature of narratives as authors use these domains all the time.
Personification
This type of literary question creates more force in the text. For instance, a non-living thing may be made to seem human. Personification adds variety to the text and your goal is to find the personification. It is a figure of speech and not meant to be taken literally. The poet makes a creative comparison between two things just to prove a point. Analyse the text slowly and you will find that personification is used when something is compared in a strange or non-literal way.
Once you learn to identify these literary questions, it will be a great step forward in improving your grades. All the best!