National 5 English: a full RUAE passage – 'The lost art of getting lost'

The passages set for the National 5 Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation paper are not always serious arguments. The course specification's support notes point out that they come from non-fiction sources, often newspapers, and can be personal, reflective, serious or humorous. A light, reflective column brings its own difficulties: tone has to be read carefully, jokes carry arguments, and the writer's real point can hide behind an anecdote.

This material gives you a complete passage of that kind to practise on. 'The lost art of getting lost' is an original column of just over 700 words, in ten numbered paragraphs, about relying on phone navigation and no longer knowing our way around. It opens with a comic family memory and a surprising final sentence, praises the phone before turning against it with a question, uses personification and metaphor for humour, defines a key term after a dash, illustrates its ideas with a teenager and a talkative stranger, builds a list to a climax, concedes the other side fairly, proposes a moderate solution and closes with an anecdote that returns to the opening.

The quiz takes you through the column in order, one question per feature, with the paragraph reprinted in each question so it can be answered on its own. It covers tone, the turning point, own-words explanation, meaning in context, key point against example, analysis of language, the anecdote, the counter-argument and the conclusion. Explanations show why the right option would earn marks and why the others would not.

The flashcards gather the terms and question types this kind of passage calls for: turning point, tone, personification, irony, what dashes and colons introduce, climax in a list, anecdote, rhetorical question, summary and conclusion.

The written work sets eight open questions with mark allocations, like those on the paper, from 1-mark meaning questions to 4-mark analysis questions, and ends with the whole column: identify five disadvantages the writer sees, in your own words, and evaluate the final paragraph. Each comes with a reference answer and the points a marker would look for.

In the oral exam an examiner works through the passage with you, one question at a time, reprinting the paragraph each time, giving the mark you would earn and one target after every answer, and a short summary at the end.

Pair it with 'Out of our depth', the argumentative passage in the same category, to practise both ends of the range of writing the paper uses.

• Identify and explain the tone of a reflective, humorous passage
• Recognise a turning point in a writer's line of thought
• Explain ideas in your own words and work out meaning from context
• Analyse personification, metaphor, lists, dashes and sentence structure with a reference and a comment
• Explain what an anecdote contributes to an argument
• Follow a writer's concession and counter-proposal
• Summarise key ideas and evaluate a conclusion against the opening

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the National 5 English course specification (Qualifications Scotland, formerly SQA, version 6.0, September 2025): Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation question paper. The passage 'The lost art of getting lost' is an original text written for this material.