An Interactive Quiz
about comprehension

BLACK BOX

START

Read the following passage. For each question, choose the option that fits best.

¶1 You are in a closed, lit room. The door has two slots: one green, one red. A green index card comes in the green slot. You use a chart on the wall to match the symbol on the card to a symbol for one of the tabs of red index cards you have in a large file-box. You pick any one of the red cards behind that tab and drop the card picked out the red slot.

¶2 The cards have Chinese characters, but you don’t know Chinese. Unknown to you, the green cards are questions and the red cards are relevant responses. Any card under the red tab will be relevant. By picking different cards in the matching tab, you seem fluent in Chinese — without knowing a word of Chinese.

¶3 One card asks: ‘do you understand Chinese?’ and you select a red card that indicates ‘yes, of course, as you can tell my responses.’ None of this is known to you. You are following rules of replacement from a table printed on a chart. Replace a green card showing this symbol with a red card showing that symbol.

¶4 This is a variation on the Chinese Room thought experiment by philosopher John Searle. To an outside observer, it seems that the person inside understands Chinese. But does the person in Searle’s Chinese Room experiment comprehend Chinese? That is, does processing symbols by means of a look-up table amount to comprehension?

¶5 We need a description of comprehension, such as the following. To comprehend is to have the ability to (a) infer from supporting evidence, (b) transfer content to another context, and (c) predict what comes next. For instance, to suppose what a word means from the way it is used or find the moral of a fable from events as a whole.

Ready? Let's begin.

What does picking different cards imply about fluency [¶2]?

Fluency means having a large vocabulary

Fluent speakers use index cards

A fluent speaker can read charts

A fluent speaker can vary responses

Best choice: a fluent speaker can vary responses. A fluent speaker draws upon vocabulary with ease and accuracy. By offering various, relevant responses, the person in the room seems fluent in the language to those outside the room.

What is a thought experiment [¶4]?

A diary of thoughts and feelings

A type of psychology test

An imaginary situation

Plans for a science experiment

Best choice: a thought experiment is an imaginary situation used to reason a conclusion when testing is too complex or hazardous or otherwise not possible. For example, how much would you weigh at the centre of the Earth? The Chinese Room thought experiment simplifies circumstances in order to focus on comprehension.

The description of comprehension suggested [¶5] is a …

Demonstration of skill

Rubric for assessment

Suggested guideline

Test of knowledge

Best choice: so described, comprehension is a measure of ability, a demonstration of skill. The means of that ability is within a black-box (or closed, lit room), unknowable from the outside and not needing to be known for comprehension to function.

To comprehend is to have a __ of the concept. Which of the following metaphors would not describe what goes on inside the black-box?

Construct or schema

Mental microprocessor

Mental picture

Physical grasp

Best choice: physical grasp. The other choices are metaphors for what goes on internally. Physical grasp would not apply since it is an external process. Comprehension is physically holding a concept.

How is what goes on inside the black-box (closed, lit room) like a microprocessor?

Both are non-physical processes

Both require energy to operate

Both turn input into output

The way they work is not known

Best choice: both turn input into output. Inside, you process symbols: input green card, look up the corresponding red tab, output red card.

In whichever way the black-box is described, comprehension is measured in how robustly one can make inferences, transferences, and predictions from the content of the subject-matter. It is assessed by deliverables, by what one is able to demonstrate. Which of the following does not infer, transfer, or predict?

A beginner is someone who has just started

An electrical circuit works much like household plumbing

As a cook, it was not my understanding that I’d also be cashier

Headed to the desert, the protagonist will need water

Best choice: a beginner is someone who has just started. This statement is a tautology; a repetition that adds no new information and makes no inference.

By the description provided, the person in the closed, lit room does not infer, transfer, or predict and so does not comprehend what he or she is reading. What is the person in the closed, lit room doing?

Making guesses

Trading forms

Translating Chinese

Understanding content

Best choice: trading forms, this symbol for that; not understanding content.

Which of the following is not a reading strategy based on the functional description of comprehension?

Anticipate what’s next from what’s past

Ask someone who already read the material

Infer meaning from the way it is used in context

Put ideas in other terms, such as an analogy

Best choice: ask someone who has already read the material. While this may be a strategy of last resort, it is not implied by the description of comprehension given.

If the strategies based on the functional description do not provide meaning, some of the following might. Some, but not all. Which one would not?

Best Guess: make a question or hypothesis about what you believe the word, sentence, or passage to mean and test whether it is correct as you continue to read.

Skim and Re-read: skimming gives an overview of what to anticipate, while re-reading fills in the details and may change the initial impression of what is said, and sets clues on which passages need slower, more attentive reading and which passages can be skipped

Stop and Be Sure: look up the unknown word or ask someone about a sentence that doesn’t make sense. Each part is critical to grasping the larger picture.

Wait to See: the meaning may be clarified later by more clues or being restated in other words or applied in a more meaningful context.

Best choice: Stop and Be Sure interrupts the flow of reading and there is no assurance that each part is critical to making sense of the material. A better strategy would be Ignore and Continue: ignore the unknown word or sentence that doesn’t make sense. It might not be critical to grasping the larger picture.

Literal comprehension is making sense of the text, understanding what it says. Inferential comprehension connects what is read with what the reader knows about the world. Which the following is not correct?

Predicting what may happen if you arrive late is more than literal comprehension

Recalling a time you were late like the protagonist is inferential comprehension

Understanding that the protagonist slept in late and missed the bus is inferential comprehension

Understanding that the protagonist slept in late and missed the bus is literal comprehension

Best choice: it is not true that understanding … inferential comprehension. This is an example of making sense of what the text says, not drawing an inference.

This concludes the comprehension quiz on comprehension.

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