Questions pertaining to the main idea will expect the student to tell what the passage or story is mainly about. The main idea must be talked about throughout the entire passage or story, which usually takes place in the beginning, middle and end. The theme will ask the student to explain what she or the main character learned after reading the whole story. If the story is a fable, the student will be asked to explain the moral, or lesson learned.
Students must look for specific answers to detail-type questions. The answers must be in the text and the student should go back to the text to find the answer. For sequencing questions, the student is expected to put everything in the same order in which it happened in the text. Use of a graphic organizer may be used to ask the student to fill in the empty boxes.
The student will be asked to give the definition of a word that he may not know. The word should be used in the text and the student should be able to use context clues to help determine the definition. This can be done by reading the sentences before and after and then plugging in a word the student thinks may fit.
The answers to inference and prediction questions will not be right there in the text. The student is expected to use information in the text to help help figure out the answer.
Cause and effect questions expect the student to be able to determine how one action leads to another. The student should be able to look for events in the passage that the question talks about and decide which event may have caused the other.
The student should know the difference between a fact and an opinion. A fact-based question will ask something that is known to be true and can be proven. An opinion is an individual's feeling or thoughts and someone else may not agree with an opinion.