Social Studies Comparison Skill (Second Skill)

COMPARISON SKILL (Compare and Contrast)

How to answer Compare and Contrast Questions?

Look at the Issue. Establish what it is focusing on.
Look at the Provenance of the Sources. Get clues from the Provenance:
Eg: place, person/people, event/activity
3. Based on Issue and Provenance, establish Similarity keeping in mind:
Matching Content

Eg of Matching Content:

Issue: Do we need people to keep the world going?

Provenance of Source A: Observation of People of varying heights
Provenance of Source B: Factual Account of Tall people

Similarity?

Both sources talk about the personal traits of people of varying heights

Difference: Source A says that short people are cute and friendly
(personal trait) while / however Source B says that tall
people are serious all the time



False Matching? Source A says that short people are cute and friendly
(personal trait) while / however Source B says that
most tall people have blue eyes (physical characteristic)


Structure

Comparison Skill

Both Source A and B are about……………….………… (Hint: Matching Issue must be stated when making the inference) The evidence from Source A is “……” and the evidence from Source B is “…….”

Source A is about (infer content of Source A) ……………… while Source B is about (infer content of Source B)……………… (Hint: The difference must be on the same issue) The evidence from Source A is “……” and the evidence from Source B is “…….”

The tone of Source A is (explain the tone) ……………… while the tone of Source B is (explain the tone)……………… The evidence from Source A is “……” and the evidence from Source B is “…….” [difference in tone]

OR

The tone of both source A and Source B is ……………. as both the sources tone shows (explain the tone). The evidence from Source A is “…..” and the evidence from Source B is “……………….”[similarity in tone]


The purpose of Source A is to ______ (W) the ____ (A) that ……………………………. The evidence is “………..” (S) is to gain the support / to go against (O)……..


The purpose of Source B is to ______ (W) the ____ (A) that ……………………………. The evidence is “………..” (S) is to gain the support / to go against (O)……..


Advice: Given the time constraint, you may want to stop at the Tone level.


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