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20 20 Comprehension

A comprehension enhances the ability to read a text and understand its meaning.
Points to remember

First, read the passage carefully. Understand and underline the main points.
Read the questions based on the passage.
After you have read the passage, answer the questions you know. Skip the ones that you find
difficult and revisit them later.

Once finished, go back and ensure that your answers are the best possible answer to each question.
Generally, four kinds of comprehension skills are tested.

Factual questions: The learner is expected to remember, recall, and reproduce facts based on
specially designed fact-based wh questions.

Inferential questions: These are questions which test whether the learner can infer meanings
from the lines of the given passage and draw a vivid picture of the core message of the passage.
Extrapolative questions: These are the questions which test whether the learner can imagine

new situations based on the text. These are generally open-ended questions.
Dictionary meaning and contextual meaning: These are questions of certain words of the
passage where the learner is tested not just for his/her understanding of the dictionary meaning
of the words but for his/her comprehension of the meaning embedded in the text.

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

Florence Nightingale was born at Florence in Italy on 15th May 1820. Her parents named her after
the name of the city where she was born. Her ambition in life was to be a nurse and so she gave up
all thoughts of being married and personal happiness. She spent many years serving in hospital
after hospital.

Day and night she visited every bed in the hospital to see that no patient was left and that all were
as comfortable as possible. However hard she might have worked all day, every night she would
take her lamp and go from bed to bed. So the soldiers called her ‘the lady with the lamp’.

Q.1. What was Florence Nightingale’s ambition?
Ans. Florence Nightingale’s ambition was to become a nurse.

Q.2. Why did she give up all thoughts being of married?
Ans. She gave up all thoughts of being married and personal happiness because she wanted
to be a nurse.

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