An explicit detail is a fact the passage states outright. Locating it means finding the right spot, checking that it answers the question and writing only what is needed. This skill appears in short retrieval questions and is the base for every harder reading question in close reading and evidence.
How do you find and report a detail?
The skill has four small steps. Each one removes a common source of lost marks.
- Circle the question’s key word. It might be a person, a place, a time or a verb such as “explain” or “describe”.
- Find where the passage deals with that idea. Scan for the matching word or a close synonym, not only the same word.
- Check the detail fits the question exactly. A passage may mention three numbers. Only one answers this question.
- Write the smallest accurate answer. Use a short phrase from the text or your own wording.
Worked example
Read this original passage.
Hanim reached the bus stop at 6.40, ten minutes before the school bus was due. The rain had stopped, but the shelter’s roof still dripped onto the bench, so she stood and held her violin case against her chest. A boy from Form Two was already there, eating curry puffs from a paper bag.
Question: Why did Hanim not sit down?
Step 1, key word: “not sit down” points to the bench.
Step 2, locate: the bench appears in the second sentence: “dripped onto the bench”.
Step 3, check: the question asks for a reason. The sentence gives it: the roof was still dripping onto the bench, so she stood.
Step 4, write the smallest answer:
The roof of the shelter was still dripping onto the bench.
The violin case and the rain stopping are true details, but they do not answer this question, so they stay out.
The mistake to watch for
A common mistake is to copy the whole sentence because the answer is somewhere inside it.
Copied answer: The rain had stopped, but the shelter’s roof still dripped onto the bench, so she stood and held her violin case against her chest.
This may earn no credit, because the examiner cannot see whether you know which part matters. It also opens with “the rain had stopped”, which points away from the reason.
The correction is to cut the sentence down to the stretch that answers “why”: the roof dripped onto the bench. If a question asks for your own words, say it differently, such as “the bench was wet”.
Check yourself
Use the passage above.
1. How many minutes early was Hanim?
Show answer
Ten minutes. The passage says she arrived at 6.40, ten minutes before the bus was due. The question asks for the gap, and the passage states it directly.
2. What was the boy eating?
Show answer
Curry puffs. Those two words are enough. Adding “from a paper bag” is not wrong, but it is extra.
3. What did Hanim do with her violin case?
Show answer
She held it against her chest. The question asks what she did, so the answer must be an action, not only “it was a violin case”.
Where this leads next
Once you can lift out the right detail quickly, move to separating inference from speculation, where the answer is no longer stated but still has to be proved from the text. Use the close reading practice set to test all five skills together, and the summary selection and paraphrase studio to practise choosing only relevant details.
Students who know the answer but keep writing too much, or too little, benefit from a teacher who marks the edges of each answer with them. Our teachers do this in online one-to-one English First Language tuition.