Reading exam skills

The most repeated Reading failure, named every sitting: copying the verb or possessive straight from the first-person text. Needed → written: pude → pudo; mis → sus; empezamos → empezaron; tengo → tiene. Ask: is this my voice, or me reporting the writer? If reporting, every verb and possessive must be third person.

Transforming the verb but leaving the pronoun in the first person is separately penalised — the object/reflexive pronoun must change too: me hace → le hace; me → le encanta (not se encanta); me levanto → se levanta, keeping the reflexive; me → se preocupó. Change the pronoun in step with the verb.

Often the ONLY difference between a correct and wrong answer is a written accent — it IS the grammar, not decoration: gustó (3rd-pers preterite) vs gusto (1st-pers present); llevó/llevo; creó/creo; publicó/publico. A Q4/Q6 answer needs the third-person past, so a dropped accent reads as a different, first-person-present word. Always write it.

Two over-lifting failures recur: (1) copying the whole sentence drags in irrelevant material or the wrong person; (2) quoting the words scores zero — the mark scheme needs reported speech with the verb transformed. Give only the detail asked, transformed to the right person — never the full sentence, never in quotes.

For a ¿Por qué? question, give the reason, and note that por qué (why, two words, accented) is not porque (because, one word). Writing porque by itself — instead of the reason it introduces — can invalidate the mark. Correct: ¿Por qué estudia? → Porque tiene un examen (the reason), not the bare word porque on its own.

Reading is comprehension-and-transformation, not word-spotting. Two false beliefs recur: that finding the keyword lets you copy the sentence (still read the whole sentence, take only the detail asked, and transform to third person); and that a missing accent still reads clearly (the accent alone separates gustó, 3rd-pers past, from gusto, 1st-pers present).