3.3. Paraphrase: Same Meaning, Different Words
Stop being caught by matching words, and start matching meaning.
The short version
The question rarely repeats the words of the text.
Ask what the sentence means, then compare meanings.
Shared words are the most common trap in Reading.
The right answer often shares no words with the question.
The test is built on paraphrase
If questions repeated the text word for word, the paper would test your eyesight rather than your English. So the question says one thing and the passage says the same thing in different words.
Side by side
Swimmers have to wash before they get in.
Visitors must shower before entering.
Not one word in common
Swimmers became visitors, wash became shower, and get in became entering. The fact is identical. Only the words moved.
Words that match are a warning sign
A sentence that repeats the question's words is often the trap, not the answer. Test writers put those in deliberately. Read the meaning of both, then decide.
The same passage again
Still the Hollin Green text. You have skimmed it and scanned it, so nothing here should be new except the skill.
The swimming pond at Hollin Green opened in July 2016 on the site of a paddling pool that the council had filled in after closing it in 1998. Unlike a lido, it uses no chlorine. A local trust raised £240,000 for the works, most of it from a single grant, and the council agreed to a 25-year lease on condition that the trust pays every running cost. The pond stays clean because its water is pumped through a planted margin. Reeds, rushes and a bed of gravel around the edge take up the nutrients that would otherwise feed algae. Swimmers use a deep central area that is kept free of plants. One pump moves the whole volume of the pond through the margin about once every two days. In a hot week the trust closes the pond for a morning so that the margin can catch up, and a lifeguard tests the water before opening each day. The pond does not suit every swimmer. Because there is no chlorine, visitors must shower before entering, and anyone with an open cut is turned away. Numbers are capped at 120 people in the water at one time, so on a warm weekend a queue forms by 10.00. The trust's manager, Ruth Ashby, says that a second pond would double the maintenance bill without doubling the income, since entry is free for residents. For now the answer to a queue is a wait, not a bigger pond.
Quiz time2 questions
Two questions on matching meaning rather than words.
Find the paraphrase
A question says: The water is cleaned by plants. Find the phrase that means the same.
Which phrase carries the meaning of cleaned by plants?
Different words, same fact
A question says: Local people swim free of charge. Find the phrase that means the same.
Which phrase means local people swim free of charge?
Tips
- Say the sentence back in your own words
If you can say what it means without using its words, you have understood it rather than matched it.
- Treat repeated words with suspicion
When an option repeats the question almost exactly, check it harder than the others.
Recap
Questions use different words from the text on purpose.
Compare meanings, not words.
An option that repeats the question's words is often a trap.
Next: the rules your answer has to follow, whatever the question type.