2) Read and Interpret the Passage

Most of the time, the passage given would be a story or narrative (recall of things that
happened) written by an author.
a) Interpreting the passage
To interpret means to explain or tell the meaning of: present in understandable terms
(Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition).
Looking at how something is communicated, the author is the communicator, and we are
the receivers (listeners or readers). Our task is to interpret what the author has written for
us, then answer the questions accordingly. Figure 1 shows what we do:
Figure 1: Communication to a reader
Whether or not we give the correct answer to each question depends on our interpretation
of the passage. If we interpret the passage correctly, we will successfully exegete (draw out)
the meaning of the author’s words and will give the correct answer to a question. Likewise,
if we misinterpret the passage, we will eisegete (give our meaning to) the author’s words
and get a wrong understanding of what the author actually meant; this would lead to giving
the wrong answer to a question.
Therefore, Correct InterpretationCorrect Answer; while
Wrong InterpretationWrong Answer
b) One Meaning Principle
It is the lexicographer’s task to give meanings to words. In order to find out what a word or
phrase means, we would of course look for its meaning in a dictionary. A word in a
dictionary almost always has many meanings given. However, only one of the meanings to
a word or phrase in the dictionary would fit the CONTEXT (one of the 3Cs to guide
interpretation discussed below), and that is the meaning which we want to find to interpret
the word correctly. In order to find the one meaning of a word or phrase, we must start with
using the correct methods to interpret.
c) Methods to use in Interpreting
We should use only the following 2 methods, and combine them to interpret a passage.
i) Literal method
The literal meaning of a word or expression is its basic or original meaning (Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English, 4th edition). Using the Literal method of interpretation
means that we take the author at his/her word; the author means what he/she says and
Communicator
Writes something to Receiver
(reader)
Interprets and answers
questions