Question 1 Skills: Explicit and Implicit Meanings (CIE IGCSE English Language)

Question 1: Comprehension on Paper 1 of your IGCSE tests you on your ability to understand the more obvious meanings in a text, as well as your ability to use clues and hints in a text to explore the more hidden meanings. You also need to be able to select and use information from the text for specific purposes.

The sections below will explain the difference between explicit and implicit meanings and how to recognise them:

• Explicit versus implicit meanings
• Analysing explicit and implicit meanings

Explicit information is clear and directly expressed. Implicit refers to something that is understood, but not described or stated clearly or directly. Something stated implicitly uses implication, assumption and inference to generate meaning.

For example:

Something that is implicit is inferred; this means you need to make a logical inference based on the evidence you are presented with. In the above example, the fact that the corridor seems to be a frightening place is a logical inference to make, based on the fact that even the shadows “quake and shudder”.

When identifying and analysing the explicit and implicit meanings in a text, it is important that you explain your ideas clearly, based on the context of the text.

This means that you should:

• Develop your ideas and analysis based on the information you have been given in the text (rather than jumping to illogical conclusions):
• For example, in the sentence “The man stumbled into the house, tripping and cursing his way up the stairs,” a logical inference would be that the man is drunk
• This is because of the writer’s use of the the words “stumbled”, “tripping” and “cursing”
• Jumping too far would be to suggest that the man is an alcoholic; there is no evidence in this sentence to support this
• Zoom in on particular words that support the inference you are making
• Explain why the writer may have chosen those particular words to use

For example, consider the following text:

The explicit information in this text is:

• Lyuba is a one-month old baby mammoth who lived about 40,000 years ago
• Scientists do not know how she died
• She was discovered on a riverbank in Siberia
• She is the most perfectly preserved woolly mammoth ever discovered

What is implied in the text is:

• This is an amazing, unusual and rare scientific discovery (“Only a handful have ever been found before”/”none like her”/”most perfectly preserved woolly mammoth ever discovered”)
• Scientists around the world are astounded and excited by her discovery (“Lyuba has mesmerised the scientific world”)
• Her discovery is big news (“creating headlines across the globe”)

What’s most important is that you have evidence for all of your implied meanings (as in each of the examples above).

Think of critical reading as a bit like an autopsy: you have a piece of text laid out in front of you and you need to dissect it. To do that, you need to learn what tools there are, how to use them, and when to select the right one. These reading tools are going to help you to better interrogate the texts you’re given in the exam.The 4 tools are:

Question

Clarify

Evidence

Infer