Read with the question in mind, use a few simple marks, and write your answer from those marks instead of re-reading the whole passage.
Why annotation often slows you down
Annotation should save time, but many students do the opposite. Under pressure they underline almost every line and write long notes in the margin. Some also use a colour system that is too hard to follow.
Then the page is so crowded that they re-read the whole passage anyway. The marking only made them feel busy.
Good annotation is quick, light and aimed at the question. Its job is to let you answer from your marks.
Some papers let you see the questions before the text, and some do not. Check your board’s paper structure on our qualification pages.
A routine for fast, useful marking
If the paper allows it, read the questions first. Then you know what to look for in the passage.
Read the passage twice. On the first read, go quickly for the general sense: what is happening, what the tone is, and where it changes. Make almost no marks.
On the second read, mark only what the questions need. Underline key words, put a bracket around a paragraph that answers a question, and write a one-word note where the tone or time changes.
Use the same few marks every time. For example, an underline for a strong word, a bracket for a useful section, and an arrow for a change. You will read them faster than a complicated scheme.
Here is the test. Can you write your answer by looking mostly at your marks? If yes, your annotation worked.
A worked example
This sentence is our own writing, made for teaching.
For years the shop had smelled of cinnamon and dust. Now, under the new sign, it smelled of nothing at all: clean, bright and somehow emptier for it.
The question asks: “How does the writer show a sense of loss?”
On the second read, the student underlines “cinnamon and dust” and “nothing at all”. They draw an arrow at “Now” to show the move from past to present. They put a bracket around “emptier for it”.
When the student writes the answer, everything is already on the page. There is the smell before and after, the arrow showing the change, and the word “emptier” showing loss. The student writes straight from the marks and never re-reads the passage.
If this is where marks are going missing, a trial hour with an experienced teacher can work on it one-to-one.
Common mistakes
- Marking too much. If everything is underlined, nothing stands out.
- Marking on the first read. You do not yet know what matters, so your marks are not useful.
- Writing long notes. A note should be one or two words. A long note takes as much time as the answer.
- Using too many symbols or colours. You cannot use them quickly in an exam.
- Ignoring your own marks. If you re-read the whole passage anyway, the marking was wasted.
How to practise
Practise the two-read method against the clock. Take an unseen passage, read the questions, do a quick read, then a marking read, and time all of it.
Then write your answers using your marks as much as you can. Each time you have to re-read the passage, your marking missed something.
Try a second drill with a limit. Mark a passage using only five marks. This teaches you to choose the few that matter.
Afterwards, ask what your marks gave you. If the answer is “not much”, your marking was decoration.
If you could rebuild your answer from the marks, they did real work. Over a few passages, your marking becomes lighter and more useful.
How our teachers help
Students usually get stuck in one of two ways. They mark everything, or they mark nothing and re-read for every question. In 1-to-1 lessons, our teachers mark a passage with the student and explain why each mark is worth making.
Then the student tries alone, and the teacher checks that the marks are few and useful. This is part of our First Language English tuition.
Build the reading skill behind this with our guide to reading for implicit meaning, then try the timed practice tasks. After that, read about checking your work in the last ten minutes.
If you want a teacher to look at how you annotate, book a paid one-hour trial. Bring a recent attempt, and the teacher who would continue will go through it with you. Lessons start from RM70/hr, and we confirm the exact rate on WhatsApp.