f or Paper s 1 & 2 Reading and Writing

1. for Papers 1 & 2Reading and Writing

2. Unit 1Getting along with others

3. Reading skills • Predicting • Skimming and scanning • Question types • Tackling thematic questions • Question formats • Multiple-choice • Short-response

4. Writing skills • Analysing the question • Planning your writing and developing an outline • Text types • Picture writing • Blog / Diary entry

5. Reading skills

6. Predicting • To prepare ourselves for the reading passage, we often predict, or guess, the content by looking at the title (and headings and subheadings if any). • Predicting helps you read faster and understand the passage better.

7. Predicting • To predict, you can: Step 1. Read the title / heading and subheadings and identify the key words, such as adjectives and nouns. Step 2. Ask yourself what the text might be about. Ask yourself what you know about the topic, such as facts and vocabulary. Step 3.

8. Predicting

9. Predicting • Step 1 • Key words: _______________________________ • Step 2 • What the text might be about: __________________________________________________________________________________ • Step 3 • What I know: _________________________________________ Unplugging games, café, board games, learning A café that provides board games, and benefits of playing board games Board games: Monopoly, chess; Learning: concentration

10. Predicting • The title gives you an overview of the content. From the title, think about how the topic is related to your life and what you know about the topic. This helps you understand more quickly what the passage is about.

11. Skimming and scanning • Skimming • Reading quickly to get a general idea of what the passage is about. • Read the heading and photo captions (if any). • Read the topic sentences in each paragraph. The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of a paragraph (gives an overview of the paragraph) or the last sentence (gives a summary of the paragraph). • Steps of skimming

12. Skimming and scanning • Scanning • Read quickly for key words or specific information. • Read the question to find out what type of information you need. • e.g. year • Read the text quickly to locate the information needed. • e.g. numbers (if you are looking for the year) • Steps of scanning

13. Skimming and scanning

14. Skimming and scanning • What is the topic sentence of the paragraph? • What do children learn in the programme? ________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Many parents in Hong Kong encourage their children to enrol in overseas exchange programmes. How to live with people they do not know, be tolerant of cultural differences and make new friends

15. Skimming and scanning • Skim the headings and subheadings to get a general idea of the passage first. Then scan to get more specific information.

16. Skimming and scanning • Words related to personal relationships

17. Exam skills

18. Tackling thematic questions • In the HKDSE Exam, you may need to answer thematic questions which test your ability to understand the theme, or main idea, of the passage.

19. Tackling thematic questions • Thematic questions may ask you to: • identify the main theme of the text or paragraph, • identify a text type, • indicate where the text could be found, and / or • find an alternative title for the text.

20. Tackling thematic questions • Steps of tackling thematic questions • Read the title and / or the subheadings (if any). • Skim the text and read the topic sentences, key words, first and last paragraphs to get a rough idea of the text. • Decide which option best describes the theme. If no options are given, briefly describe it in your own words.

21. Tackling thematic questions • Thematic questions can appear in many forms. Examples include: • multiple-choice questions • short-response questions • You may also be asked to match subheadings to paragraphs.

22. Tackling thematic questions

23. Answer Tackling thematic questions • Which of the following is the best title for the text? • Friends: best prevention for depression • Importance of laughing with friends • Friendship and mental health • Benefits of having friends A B C D

24. Tackling thematic questions • Option A and B are wrong because they do not capture the main idea of the text. • Option A only describes the relationship between friends and one mental illness. • Option B only states one thing we do with friends. • Option D is wrong because the text also mentions negative effects of friendship. • Option C is the best option, as indicated by the topic sentence of paragraph 1.

25. Tackling thematic questions • What is the theme of the text? ____________________________________ • The theme of the text can be found in the topic sentence of paragraph 1 : But are friends always beneficial to mental health? • Avoid copying directly from the passage. The text talks about the effects of friendship on mental health.

26. Answer Tackling thematic questions • Match the main ideas with the paragraphs by writing the letters (A-D) in the table below.

27. Answer Tackling thematic questions • The text is… • a diary entry. • a story. • a speech. • an article. A B C D

28. Tackling thematic questions • A diary entry is written to record personal experiences. • A story usually has a story line, and there are characters in a story. • A speech usually starts with greetings to the audience and stating the purpose of speech. • An article often examines issues and trends.

29. Writing skills

30. Analysing the question • In HKDSE Exam Paper 2, you will answer questions in Part A and Part B. • For Part A: you are given only one topic which you must write on. • For Part B: you are given eight topics but you only need to write one. • You must analyse the questions carefully before deciding on the topic to write.

31. Analysing the question • Identifying the text type • It is usually stated in the question. Make sure that you are familiar with it. • E.g. Business letter, argumentative essay, film review

32. Analysing the question • Identifying the genre • What type of text do you have to write? • Is it a descriptive, narrative or argumentative piece of writing? • Is it objective and formal, or subjective and casual? • E.g. of genre: expository, narrative

33. Analysing the question • Identifying the purpose of writing • Why do you write the text? • Are you describing, narrating, making enquiries or giving advice? • How many of these purposes should you include? • Purpose is usually stated in the question.

34. Analysing the question • Identifying the writer and reader of the text • Who are you writing as? • Who is the reader? • The relationship between the writer and the reader tells you which register to use when you write • E.g. formal, informal, friendly, serious

35. Analysing the question

36. Planning your writing and developing an outline • In the HKDSE Exam, your answer will also be marked based on its organization and structure. Before you start writing, draft an outline so that you have a better idea of what to include and how to structure your essay.

37. Planning your writing and developing an outline • Steps of planning your writing: • Use wh- questions to generate ideas. • Arrange your ideas in different paragraphs so that the whole text makes sense. • Put your paragraphs in order, such as ‘introduction’, ‘body paragraph’ and ‘conclusion’.

38. Planning your writing and developing an outline • As you are writing your answer, keep referring back to the outline and make your text follows the general structure laid out in the outline.

39. Planning your writing and developing an outline

40. Text types

41. Picture writing • Picture writing refers to writing a text based on a picture or photo you are given. • In the HKDSE Exam, you may need to write about a given picture.

42. Picture writing • Language features • Time markers and different tenses are used to describe the order of events. e.g. last week, when I arrived, after I had left • People, places and actions are described. e.g. they were playing happily, the children were very sweet

43. Picture writing • Structure

44. Picture writing • Describing people, actions and things

45. Blog / Diary entry • Blog and diary entries are common types of narrative text. In the HKDSE Exam, you may be asked to narrate a past experience.

46. Blog / Diary entry • Language features • Informal language, such as contractions and exclamation marks e.g. It’s been a really important day! • Past tense to describe the events of the day e.g. We arrived at the orphanage early in the morning and waited in the activity room. • Adjectives and adverbs to describe events and feelings e.g. At first, we were shy and felt nervous but soon felt more relaxed when we saw their smiling faces.

47. Blog / Diary entry • Structure

48. Blog / Diary entry • Referring to people, places and things • To refer to people, places and things that have been mentioned before, we can use pronouns and determiners. • Pronouns and possessives • e.g. he, she, it, they, him, her, them • Determiners • e.g. a / an, the, this, that, these, those, every, none