Quick read
Checked: 2 September 2026. This reader guide is aligned to MOE’s English Language Syllabus 2020 Primary and current Secondary English expectations. It does not claim a current eduKateSG Toa Payoh branch.
- Command words tell the learner what kind of response the task requires.
- Describe tells what is observed or stated.
- Explain gives a relationship, reason or mechanism.
- Infer moves from evidence to a justified unstated conclusion.
- Compare identifies meaningful similarities and/or differences.
- Evaluate makes a judgement using criteria and evidence.
Many English errors are not language errors at all. A student understands the passage, knows the vocabulary and can write clearly—but answers the wrong intellectual job. They describe when the question asks them to explain, give an opinion when the task asks them to infer, or list similarities without making the comparison explicit. For Toa Payoh families, this legacy 2017 URL now owns one transferable English mechanism: reading command words as instructions for reasoning.
Why command words matter
A question contains two important layers:
- content: what topic or text the question is about;
- operation: what the learner must do with that content.
Command words often identify the operation.
If the learner misses that second layer, even a knowledgeable answer can become irrelevant.
Describe: report what is there
Describe usually asks the learner to state features, events, patterns or characteristics clearly.
Example:
Describe how the character’s behaviour changed after the announcement.
A suitable response identifies the change:
Before the announcement, the character was relaxed and joking with his friends; afterwards, he became quiet and repeatedly checked his phone.
The answer stays close to what the text shows.
Explain: make the relationship explicit
Explain asks for more than what happened. It asks why, how, or what relationship connects the ideas.
Example:
Explain why the character became anxious.
A stronger response gives the causal link:
He became anxious because the announcement suggested that the event might be cancelled after he had spent weeks preparing for it.
The answer contains a reason.
Infer: move beyond the stated words—but not beyond the evidence
Infer asks the learner to construct a justified conclusion from clues.
A useful route:
textual clue → interpretation → justified implication.
Example:
The passage never says the speaker is nervous, but shows repeated glances at the clock and short replies.
The learner can infer nervousness if those details support it.
Inference is not guessing
A plausible idea is not enough.
Ask:
- Which clue supports this?
- Could the clue support another interpretation?
- How strong is the inference?
Good inference respects evidence boundaries.
Compare: build the relationship between two things
Compare should not become two separate descriptions.
Weak response:
Text A says public transport is convenient. Text B says public transport can be crowded.
Stronger comparison:
Both texts present public transport as useful, but Text A emphasises convenience while Text B focuses on the discomfort caused by crowding.
The relationship is visible.
Compare can include similarity, difference or both
Read the exact task.
Possible requirements:
- compare similarities;
- compare differences;
- compare both;
- compare viewpoints;
- compare language choices;
- compare outcomes.
The command word alone is not the entire instruction.
Evaluate: make a judgement using criteria
Evaluate is often misunderstood as “give your opinion”.
A stronger evaluation requires:
- criteria;
- evidence;
- judgement;
- qualification where needed.
Example:
How effective is the writer’s argument?
The learner might judge:
The argument is partly effective because it gives clear examples and explains the impact on commuters, but it is less convincing where it makes broad claims without evidence.
The judgement is tied to reasons.
Identify: locate precisely
Identify often asks for a specific item, feature, phrase or idea.
Do not write a paragraph if a short precise response is enough.
Students need answer economy: match response length to task demand.
State: give the required information directly
State usually asks for a concise answer rather than explanation.
If the question asks students to state a reason, provide the reason. If it asks them to explain the reason, develop the relationship further.
The distinction helps control answer length.
Summarise: preserve essentials, remove lower-value detail
Summarise requires selection and compression.
Students should identify:
- main ideas;
- essential relationships;
- repeated details that can be merged;
- examples that can be omitted unless required.
Summary is not copying shorter sentences from the passage.
Justify: support a claim
Justify asks the learner to show why an answer or judgement is defensible.
Use:
- textual evidence;
- relevant reasoning;
- criteria;
- examples where appropriate.
The answer should make the support visible.
Discuss: develop more than one dimension
At Secondary level, discuss often requires a developed treatment rather than a one-sided claim.
Depending on the task, students may need:
- different perspectives;
- advantages and limitations;
- conditions;
- counterarguments;
- a final judgement.
Do not reduce “discuss” to “list pros and cons” automatically.
Analyse: break the text or issue into relationships
Analyse asks how parts work together.
In English, this can mean:
- how a language choice creates an effect;
- how a paragraph develops an argument;
- how evidence supports a claim;
- how a character’s actions reveal motivation;
- how two sources differ in perspective.
Analysis needs relationships, not labels.
The command-word pause
Before answering:
- circle or mentally identify the command word;
- paraphrase it in simple language;
- identify the content target;
- decide what evidence or structure the answer needs.
This takes seconds and can prevent a full irrelevant response.
One content, five different questions
Imagine a passage in which a student leaves a competition after receiving disappointing news.
Different command words create different jobs:
- Describe: What did the student do?
- Explain: Why did the student leave?
- Infer: What can we infer about the student’s feelings?
- Compare: How did the student behave before and after the news?
- Evaluate: Was leaving the competition a reasonable decision? Use evidence.
The text is the same. The reasoning changes.
Command words in Primary English
Primary students can learn the distinction through simple language:
- tell me what;
- tell me why;
- work out what is not directly said;
- show how two things are alike/different;
- choose and support a judgement.
The academic labels can become more explicit as the learner matures.
Command words in Secondary English
Secondary students need finer distinctions between:
- identify;
- describe;
- explain;
- analyse;
- infer;
- compare;
- evaluate;
- discuss;
- justify.
These verbs appear across comprehension, source work and writing prompts.
Command words affect paragraph structure
An explain paragraph may need cause → mechanism → effect.
A compare paragraph may need A + B inside the same analytical unit.
An evaluate paragraph needs criterion + evidence + judgement.
The command word therefore shapes the answer architecture.
Command words affect evidence use
Describe may stay close to the text.
Infer needs evidence plus interpretation.
Evaluate needs evidence weighed against criteria.
Students should not copy the same evidence sentence into every question type.
Common failure: describing instead of explaining
Repair:
Ask the learner to add the missing relationship:
Why did this happen?
or:
How does this lead to that?
Common failure: opinion instead of inference
Repair:
Require one textual clue before the conclusion.
If no clue supports it, the answer is speculation.
Common failure: two mini-descriptions instead of comparison
Repair:
Use comparative language:
- both;
- whereas;
- while;
- in contrast;
- similarly;
- unlike.
The relationship should appear in the sentence.
Common failure: evaluation with no criteria
Repair:
Ask:
Effective according to what?
Possible criteria include relevance, evidence, clarity, practicality, fairness or impact depending on the task.
Three students, one text, different command words
In a 3-pax class, all three students can read the same passage but answer different question types.
They compare:
- how the answer structure changes;
- how much evidence is needed;
- what level of inference is justified;
- why one response cannot simply be reused.
This makes task demand visible.
Catch Up, Keep Up, Move Ahead
Catch Up: stabilise describe/explain and simple inference distinctions.
Keep Up: apply command-word reading to current school comprehension and writing.
Move Ahead: handle evaluate, analyse, discuss and multi-part task demands with greater independence.
The learner should need fewer tutor reminders.
A 90-minute command-word lesson
A useful session can:
- sort question verbs by task;
- read one shared text;
- answer five differently commanded questions;
- compare response structures;
- rewrite one irrelevant answer;
- apply the process to an unseen question;
- finish with a self-check: “Did I do what the verb asked?”
Task reading becomes a habit.
How parents can help
- Ask the child to paraphrase the command word.
- Ask whether the answer describes, explains or judges.
- Do not give the content answer before checking the task type.
- Use school papers to identify recurring command-word errors.
- Encourage concise answers when the task only asks to state or identify.
Current official source
MOE’s English Language Syllabus 2020 Primary emphasises comprehension at literal, inferential and evaluative levels, effective communication and increasingly independent task performance. Secondary English extends these reasoning demands further.
What we removed from the old 2017 page
The historical Toa Payoh article was a generic locality clone with stale service claims, broad “first language” language and unrelated image galleries.
This rebuild removes the false locality implication and assigns the URL one concrete English job: interpreting command words accurately.
Boundary and locality
This guide is written for Toa Payoh families and other Singapore English learners. It does not claim a current eduKateSG Toa Payoh branch. Current physical locations and class availability are on the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
Do command words always mean exactly the same thing?
The general reasoning job is stable, but read the full question because context and assessment level affect the expected depth.
What is the difference between explain and infer?
Explain makes a relationship or reason explicit; infer constructs an unstated conclusion from evidence.
What is the difference between compare and describe?
Compare places two things into an explicit similarity/difference relationship; describe may treat one item on its own.
Why is evaluate difficult?
Because it requires criteria, evidence and judgement rather than a personal opinion alone.
What is the long-term goal?
A learner who reads the verb first, understands the intellectual operation it requests and builds an answer shaped for that job.
The larger point
A good answer begins before the first sentence. It begins when the learner understands what kind of thinking the question has asked them to perform.