Justifying an answer with evidence
English · Key Stage 2 · The School
An opinion is not enough alone
Answering a question about a text with just an opinion — "the character was scared" — sounds fine, but it is not backed up. A reader cannot check it. A stronger answer points to the EXACT part of the text that supports it, so the claim can actually be verified.
Quoting or pointing to detail
Instead of just "the character was scared", write: "the character was scared, because the text says her hands were shaking." That is a genuinely different, stronger kind of answer. It shows exactly where your idea came from, not just that you had one.
A useful sentence pattern
Try the pattern: "I think ___, because the text says ___." Fill in your idea first. Then fill in the exact evidence from the text that supports it. This pattern works for almost any question about a text, whether it is about a character, an event, or the writer's choices, and it forces you to look back at the words on the page.
Question: was the old man in the story kind? Answer one: "Yes, the old man was kind." That is an opinion with nothing behind it — a reader has no way to check it. Answer two: "Yes, the old man was kind, because the text says he gave his last coin to the beggar without being asked." Same opinion, but now backed by a specific detail from the text. The second answer is not just longer. It is a genuinely stronger answer, because someone reading it could go back to the text and check the claim for themselves, rather than simply trusting it because it sounded confident.