Passage – General Questions

[pacer]

I am using this as an example for a problem with reading and understanding that I am having. Can you give me some pointers to overcome such a situation?

When I read this passage, I understood that the author is arguing against the critics who think of Jacob's novel as a domestic novel. The author believes that it is not merely a domestic novel because it does not follow the typical happy endings of a domestic novel and highlights the sufferring of a slave woman.

When I got to questions 10 and 14, I was totally confused - I had no idea on what the author had to say about literary genres - I completely missed those points when I was reading the passage.

I have had this problem with some other passages too where I read the passages and get the main point, purpose, tone but then some question would mention a topic that I had completely no idea was even mentioned to any detailed extent in the passage.

Any tips or pointers on how I can better handle this type of situation?

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi pacer,

Thanks for the question. I think there are two keys here. The first is to make sure you're diagramming the passage as you go through. In this passage and in reading comp generally, marking it up as you go along can really help you notice not only the main ideas, but also the details of the passage. In this passage, we learn about two genres: the slave narrative, and the domestic novel, and you'd want to be marking references to those two as you read.

The other key is making use of the information the question itself provides. In 10, for example, you know you need to go back to line 23 to see about which critics the question is asking. We know that one critic said that one of the genres "overshadowed" the other - meaning one of the genre's goals was met, but the other wasn't. That matches answer E.

I hope that helps!