1. English Language Arts Strategies/Overview

2. Big Picture Questions Reading Section Rules: 1. Look for the main idea! This is a simple and effective way to increase comprehension of reading passages. 2. First eliminate answers that you know are wrong! Never look for the “right” answer.

3. Big Picture Questions “What it’s About” VS. “What Happens” Think about the movie “The Notebook.” What is the movie generally about? _______________ What Happens?_________________

4. Big Picture Questions When reading passages, you should be looking for the “what’s it about,” which is the brief statement of the overall theme. Look for the defining sentence Keep an eye out for examples: Writers use examples to support their main point, so reading them can help you understand the main idea. Don’t worry about specific facts.

5. Big Picture Questions BIG PICTURE questions based on the MAIN IDEA of the passage make up about 1/3 of the CAHSEE English test. In other words, simply figuring out a passage’s main idea and knowing which questions to use it on gets you 15 points!

6. DETAIL QUESTIONS Detail Questions ask you to focus on specific words or parts of the passage, and they fall into two basic groupings: DETAIL QUESTION TYPE #1: CONNOTATION Connotation is the meanings of words and phrases within the passage. The key is to first identify the main idea which will help you understand the word in its context. Even if you don’t know the word, eliminate obvious wrong answers!

7. DETAIL QUESTIONS “What’s it Say?” Questions These questions ask you to use information and SPECIFIC FACTS in the passage to answer direct questions about what it literally said in a particular part of a passage.

8. POEMS and PLAYS Poems and Plays function almost exactly the same as “normal” reading passages. Only difference is there are more detail questions. Process for poems and plays: 1. Look for main idea or theme. 2. Identify the type of question (big picture vs. detail) 3. Eliminate wrong answers.

9. Two-Passage Strategy Two-passage selections are always a student fear. You should treat them as two separate passages. Read the first passage and answer the questions that only relate to the first passage BEFORE moving on to to the second passage and the remaining questions.