THE ULTIMATE CAPSTONE GUIDE TO THE SAT READING - SE
Introduction to SAT Reading
Reading Techniques
Read The Passage
Answering the Questions
Question Types
Explicit Questions
Vocab-in-Context Questions
Questions
INTRODUCTION TO READING
INTRODUCTION TO READING
While the Reading Section of the new Digital SAT is combined with the Writing Section the questions are still pretty much the same. In other words, the SAT is taking the same types of questions from the Reading Section and interspersing them with the questions from the Writing Section. This means, you will need to recognize reading questions from writing questions to best utilize strategies for each.
OVERVIEW
We already discussed the format of the test in the Introduction but let's have a quick reminder:
The Reading is combined with the Writing and is broken into two modules.
Each module is timed for 32 minutes with a total of both modules containing 54 questions with a total of 64 minutes to complete.
- The passages and questions will be from one of three content areas: Fiction, History/Social Studies, and Science.
- A portion of the Reading Test will always include primary sources of historical importance, such as an excerpt from a presidential speech or noteworthy political writing.
But don't worry: just like the other passages, you still won't need any prior knowledge of the topic. Each question will have its own individual passage or two questions may refer to the same passage.
TIMING
So, you've got 2 modules that are 32 minutes each with 54 total questions. If you remember your math you can see that's less than 1 minute and 1 second per question. With that in mind, remember: these are guidelines not rules but also remember that this includes reading the passage, the question and answering it. You don't have to spend exactly 1 minute and 1 second per passage. But don't deviate from this plan too much. For every extra second you spend on a question, you will lose seconds on future questions. This means you may need to move along more quickly.
Time yourself.
As you practice-either in full-length proctored practice tests or sections you do at home by yourselfget a stopwatch and time yourself. If you do the digital practice materials associated with this etextbook, those will be timed accordingly for you. Jot down your start and end time for reading the passage and for doing each question.
Discover your strength and weaknesses. Are you faster with the reading or the question? Do you struggle with both? Work on those weak areas. For example, if you are a slow reader, practice on ways to scan and still comprehend what you read. Practice on magazine articles, blogs or newspaper articles and quiz yourself on the materials afterward. If you spend too much time on the passage, you won't have enough time for the questions. Spend too little time on the passage, and you won't
understand it well enough to do the questions effectively. The goal is to cover everything the first time without having to go back over it a second time.
Don't leave blanks.
Just like all the other sections, there's no penalty for wrong answers on the Reading/Writing Test. Don't ever leave anything blank. Guess randomly on the questions you didn't answer. In case you didn’t get this point or don’t take it seriously, let me repeat it. DON’T LEAVE BLANKS! You have a 0% chance of getting the question right if you leave it blank. You have a 25% chance of getting it right if you guess. Work the percentages! You don't even have to read the questions-just fill in bubbles at random. The ones you guess wrong-are scored the same as a blank, so there's no harm done.
I can't do it that fast. What should I do?
If you come to a question, you are not sure about, skip it quickly and go to the next one. You can even bookmark it within the exam and easily come back to it. You don’t want to spend valuable time on a question that is difficult for you and run the risk of running out of time. This could mean that you are potentially guessing on later questions that you might actually know the answer to. If we are working percentages here, then think about it like this. If you run across a question that you are unsure about, there is a very good chance that you have, at best, a 50% chance of getting that question right if you are able to eliminate wrong answers. However, if you have a question that you are 100% sure to get the answer right on, then that is a much better percentage than randomly guessing and only having a 25% chance of getting it right. Even if you have to guess on the difficult question, you are still doubling your chances of getting it right if you bookmark it. If you are weak in certain subjects and areas, you can skip passages. For example, if your strong subject area is History and Social Studies, then go through and do all of the History and Social Science Passages first. If Science is your weak area, immediately skip those Science related questions and come back and guess on those if you run out of time. The key here is finding an equilibrium between speed and accuracy. You want to do as many questions as you can without being so rushed that you work carelessly. When you first start taking practice tests, don't worry about timing; just try to get through as much as you can. This will give you a foundational idea of where you are on timing, then you can start working to improve that.
Running out of time?
Say you've got 5 minutes left and there are a third of the questions you haven’t even looked at yet? That's not enough time to read all the passages and do all the questions. Oh no! What should you do?
- Don't panic Here are several techniques. Choose what works best for you.
Don't read the questions that deal with the passage
If you spend all your remaining time reading you won't have time to answer questions. Then you'll get no points and all that time you spend reading will be for nothing.
INTRODUCTION TO READING
- Two good types of questions to try are Vocab-in-context questions (which just ask about the meaning of a word in a sentence) and Data questions (which ask about a figure or graph that accompanies the passage). Both of these types can usually be done independently of the rest of the passage.
- For all other questions you haven't done, guess randomly. There's no penalty for wrong answers. You may be tired of hearing it but it cannot be overstated – DO NOT LEAVE ANY QUESTIONS BLANK!
Skip "Vortex" questions.
Sometimes you'll encounter a question where you just can't figure out what's going on. Maybe it asks about a detail that you don't understand or don’t see in the passage. And it's driving you crazy and freaking you out. We call these Vortex questionsbecause they suck up all your time and you cannot escape their pull. Don't get trapped. Don't spend too much time on a single question: Skip it. Saying yes to extra time on that question means you are saying no to time on all the remaining questions. You might run out of time before getting to questions you'd otherwise be able to do.
When you skip it, you have a few options. Maybe as you do the other questions in the passage, you'll stumble on a detail you're looking for. If you don't, and you have time at the end of the test, you can bookmark it and come back to it and try again to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. Or you can just give up on it and guess randomly. (Don't ever, ever leave a question blank.) The important thing is to not let one question ruin the whole test.
TECHNIQUES
Here's a preview of our two fundamental Reading techniques:
1.Anticipation
All the information you need for the answer is in the passage that is displayed. The hard part is trying to find the meaning in the small amount of information given to you. Start by not going directly to the answers if you have an initial idea of what the question is asking. If you go directly to the passages. First formulate the main idea of the passage as you read it. Next, read the question and ask yourself, “What do I think the answer will be?” Then look only for the answer that best fits your anticipated answer. It will be very rare that your anticipated answer will be the same as the actual answer choice, but it should have the same meaning. Remember, the wrong answer choices are there to try and confuse you and distract you from the correct answer. They are like a squirrel is to a dog; they can quickly make you forget about the right answer and focus on the other answers instead. If you have an idea of what the answer is, don’t let College Board trick you out of choosing the right answer.
2.Elimination
READING TECHNIQUES
What if you have a question and you don’t have an idea of what the anticipated answer is. What can I do then? This is easy. Go directly to the answer choices and start looking for answers you know are incorrect. Often times, there is at least one answer that is obviously wrong. This leaves you with better percentages, even if you guess. You went from a 25% chance of getting it right to a 33% chance of getting it right. If you eliminate two choices, it increases your chances of getting it right to 50%. In other words, when you guess, you have doubled your chances of getting it right from when you first started. Also remember there are three wrong choices and only one right choice. That means you odds of eliminating a wrong answer is higher than eliminating a right answer.
Look for these clues in wrong choices
Random – This means the passage doesn’t even mention it.
False – This means the answer choice completely contradicts what is written in the passage
Seeing that a wrong choice is wrong is often simpler that understanding the nuances of the correct answer. You can make notes on your computer for the Digital SAT so make sure you make these notes connected with the question so you don’t forget.
Okay, enough introduction. Let's get to some questions already.
GENERAL STRATEGIES
ELIMINATION DRILL
One of the most important things to keep in mind about the Reading section is this: You do not need outside knowledge to do the questions. Other than knowledge of the English language, that is. It may seem like you need more knowledge than you actually do.
You'll see fiction passages from Great Literature. You'll see passages by or about Famous Historical Figures. You'll see charts and graphs about Fancy Science.
But you will not be tested on specific content of literary history, nor of any historical events or scientific principles. You do not need to be a historian or a scientist. While this information may be harder to grasp meanings of, just know that the answer is in there and there are strategies and techniques to uncover those answers. If you are also doing practice through Kahn Academy for the SAT, remember, this is College Board approved help for the test. While they give great information about content (obviously since they wrote the content), they will not give you strategies and techniques to gain an advantage on the test. This means they would have to admit there are loopholes in their test and they don’t believe that to be true. However, our experience shows that there are ways to find answers more quickly, take the test more efficiently and find time saving shortcuts to help you maximize your time and potentially over reach your potential on the test. The natural consequence of this is:
READING TECHNIQUES
Everything you need is on the page. You just need to be able to read and understand what you've read. When we say this is a test of reading, we mean exactly that: can you read? Nothing more. All of our strategies flow from this undeniable point. The goal of this section is to understand something you just read.
Sometimes this is really easy and really dumb. It's literally a question of whether you read the passage. Not whether you understand it, not whether you know where to find a thesis, not whether you know what a thesis is, not whether you caught the nuances of the author's biting satire on the bourgeoisie-no: can you read English? That is all you need.
Let’s start simple.
Cars are red.
1. Which of the following statements would the author most likely agree with?
a. Drivers with red cars are 73% more likely to get pulled over than cars of other colors.
b. Some red hues have been found to cause anger and aggression resulting in road rage
c. some cars are red
d. the average median of drivers of red cars are 27 years old. Were you able to answer that question in under 1 minute and 1 seconds or do you need more time?
Obviously, this is a joke, but it's not that much of a joke. You'd be astounded by how much of this section can be done with little more than knowing what the passage says: Not any fancy interpretations, just focus literally on what it says
Before we get into specifics, here are three tips for the Reading Questions:
1. Don't enjoy yourself
None of the passages will be fun. You will not like them. They will be on subjects you don't care about. They will not be things you will want to read in your leisure time. Get over it and push through.
2. Don't know anything
Just because the passage is about particle physics doesn't mean you have to know anything about particle physics. This is a reading test. You're being tested on what you just read. Everything you need to answer the questions is in the provided passage for the question. In fact, it's actually counterproductive to know anything about the topic, because you may be tempted to use your existing knowledge or beliefs to help you answer the question. Don't do that. No one cares what you think about the topic. We only care what the author thinks about the topic.
3.Don't remember everything
READING TECHNIQUES
You don't have to memorize the passage. It's just above the passage and it's going to stay on there. Don't waste a lot of time trying to memorize all the details of the passage; just get a sense of what it's about and move on to the questions. This brings us to our first strategy: Main Ideas.
READING THE PASSAGE: MAIN IDEAS
One of the biggest problems with the passages is that they have confusing words or are sometimes lengthy and have too much information. As a result, you try to memorize every point and understand every subtle detail and convoluted sentence in the passage. But remember a simple piece of advice: K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid. Just like it is bad to look up your health symptoms on the internet, it is equally as bad to read too much into the confusing words and fluff added to the reading passages. It's a waste of time, it takes forever and it doesn't actually help you.
Instead, read the passage quickly and just get the MAIN IDEA. Every passage is nothing more than a collection of words or sentences that have some common theme. That common theme is the main idea.
WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
That's it. For each paragraph, just get a sense of the topic of that paragraph as you quickly read through it. Paraphrase the idea into a short phrase. It doesn't have to be a quote from the passage or even a complete sentence. It's a note to yourself about what the paragraph is about and you can even write it in the notes section.
Here are a few tips on finding main ideas:
Skim the details
Don't worry about all the piddly little details. We don't care about every idea, just the main idea. All those details are confusing and unnecessary. The goal here is to spend less time reading the passage so you can spend more time on the questions, since the questions are the things that actually matter. Therefore, when you read the passage, you just want to get a sense of what it's about. We'll worry about the details later.
You may be asking yourself, "But wait, don't I need those details?" Surprisingly, no. For two reasons:
1. The questions might never ask you about those details. Why would you spend five minutes trying to understand a sentence that they never ask you about! That's five minutes you wasted and won't get back. Yes, you'll need some of the details to answer the questions. But every passage has chunks of information that never show up in the questions.
2.If a question does ask you about details, you can go back and check. If they do ask you about a specific word or meaning of a specific line, then go directly to that word or line and find out what they want. So even if a detail is important to a question, you don't have to worry about it while you're reading the passage. Worry about it when they ask you about it, not before. Not all questions are about specific words or lines; some are about the entire passage as a whole. But if that's the case, you can use your main idea to answer the question.
Skip hard sentences
Passages will often contain difficult writing. Sentences can be long, intricate, or convoluted. They may use subtle or confusing metaphors. The vocabulary can be difficult. With main ideas, if you encounter a sentence, you don't immediately understand, toss it. You don't need to understand every single sentence to understand a paragraph. If the details of that sentence are important, you can deal with them if and when the question asks you about them.
Skip the figures and graphs
Some of the passages will come with some sort of figure, a graph/table, or other. These figures are supplementary: you will not need them to understand the main idea of the passage. Don't get me wrong, you will be asked about those figures. But don't worry about them unless a question asks about them.
Identify each question by type (referring or reasoning)
With experience you can learn to spot question types quickly. Without getting bogged down in making small distinctions, label each question by its type.
With a little practice you can easily learn to identify referring and reasoning questions. Once you know how to distinguish between them, you can vary your approach to find the right answers. For example, when a question asks you to identify what the author of the passage says, you'll know instantly that you are dealing with a referring question and that you should search the passage for explicit material. In contrast, a question that asks about the main thought of a passage calls for a different approach, perhaps rereading the passage's opening and closing paragraphs and inferring the author's purpose.
READ THE PASSAGE
Identifying your strengths and weaknesses will enable you to practice the skills needed to boost your score. If, for instance, you repeatedly stumble on questions that ask you to reason out the main idea of a passage, you may be reading the passages too slowly, paying too much attention to details to recognize the main flow of ideas. The problem can be remedied by consciously pressing yourself to read faster. On the actual test, answer first the types of questions you rarely get wrong on SAT practice exercises, perhaps the main idea questions or those that ask about specific details. Then devote the bulk of your time to the types that have given you more trouble. The order in which you answer the questions is completely up to you. You alone know which question types you customarily handle with ease and which types give you trouble.
Check the first and/or last sentence
The difficulty of finding the main idea for a paragraph can vary depending on the particular passage. Sometimes it's really obvious, sometimes not so much. If you're having trouble, check the first and/or last sentence of the paragraph. That's often the introduction to the topic and the conclusion to the topic, so that will help you find the theme of the paragraph.
Look for transitional language
By "transitional language" we mean all the words that connect clauses and sentences to each other, words like but, however, furthermore, etc. Words like this can signal a shift in the topic, which often affects the overall point of the sentence or paragraph.
PROSE FICTION DRILL
HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES DRILL
SCIENCE DRILL
Write your main Ideas down
READ THE PASSAGE
Once you find a main idea, write it down in the notes. This way, when the answer choices start confusing you and questioning your original idea, you can remember where you started. This keeps you from getting too far away from home on your original thought. Writing out all your main ideas does take up time, but it's especially important when you first start trying the strategy. You might struggle with it. It takes some practice before you get good at it, and writing everything down helps. The more practice you do, the easier it will become. Don't spend too much time on this though. Remember that the point of this is to spend less time reading the passage. Don't spend a lot of time trying to get your main idea absolutely perfect. Don't struggle with the precise wording or try to capture all the nuances of the paragraph. Quick and concise is the key and the more you do it, the better you become at it.
- Your main ideas should be short-don't even use complete sentences. Something like "Shane’s hurt" or "poor Shane" or " Shane: From good to bad':
- If a passage is so dense and confusing that you can't figure out the main idea at all, just skip it. Move on. Maybe make your main idea some sort of vague placeholder ("something about Shane").
- If single passage has several different ideas in it, you can split up the paragraph and give two main ideas. Maybe the first half of the passage is about one thing and the second half is about something else. That's fine. The SAT may very well repeat the same passage in the next question asking a different question and you already have the main idea(s) written down.
- If you're having trouble finding ma�� ideas, move on to the question. You can actually learn a lot about the passage as you do the question. And you can always go back to the passage to fill in the gaps as necessary.
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
There's often more than one way to do a Reading question. Sometimes it's easier to get the answer directly from the passage, sometimes it's easier to eliminate from the answer choices, and sometimes you'll want to do both. Here we'll outline a number of different strategies for tackling all types of Reading questions.
I. GO BACK TO THE PASSAGE!!
We told you not to worry about the details when reading the passage. Now that you're actually asked about the details, you can worry about them. Luckily, you don't have to rely on what you remember about the passage. This is an ·open-book test. You can look it up. Many questions will give specific line references in the question itself. Once you read the question, before you do anything else, go back to the passage and check the line reference. Don't just read the literal line mentioned in the question: read the whole sentence that includes that line. Often times, the line may be a small part of a much larger sentence or passage, and you'll need that information to understand the context. The effectiveness of this technique is a testament to how little they're asking of you on this test. Most questions will give you specific line references. Not only are all the answers literally written on the page, but they even tell you where the answers are! Okay, we've gone back to the passage and read the sentence. Now what?
II. ANTICIPATE
The key to anticipation is that all the information you need to answer the question is in the passage. That's why we look in the passage, not in the choices, for our answers. Read the question, follow the reference back into the passage, and see what it says about the question. That's your anticipation. Then look at the choices and see which one matches your anticipation. When you go back to the passage, think about what the lines say and what they mean. Try to paraphrase the lines in your own
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
words. The right answer will rarely be an exact match for your anticipation. Your anticipation gives you the meaning you're looking for. The right answer will have the same meaning as your anticipation, but will be worded differently. Keep in mind that the reference might not tell you exactly where the answer is; it might just point you to the ballpark. If you don't find the answer in the line you're given, check one sentence before or after the reference to get a fuller context.
Let's look at a sample question:
Later astronomers such as Hubble and Hertzsprung acknowledged how indebted their work was to her discovery, and she was even nominated for a Nobel Prize five years after her death.
9. The author mentions Hubble and Hertzsprung in order to emphasize
A)the recognition she got from the general public.
B)the extent to which astronomy was dominated by men.
C)her dependence on the work of earlier scientists.
D)the esteem other scientists had for her work. What does this sentence say about Hubble and Hertzsprung? You don't have to use the exact words in the sentence-just paraphrase. It says that they thought her work was important. Great. Now let's go to the choices and see which one sounds closest to our anticipation. Remember: the choice won't exactly match our anticipation. We just want a choice that has the same meaning as our anticipation.
A) x the recognition she got from the general public, Hubble and Hertzsprung are astronomers, not "the general public".
B) x the extent to which astronomy was dominated by men, This has nothing to do with our sentence. We don't even know whether Hubble and Hertzsprung were men. (They were, but the passage doesn't say that.)
C) x her dependence on the work of earlier scientists. Hubble and Hertzsprung were later scientists, not earlier.
D) ✓ the esteem other scientists had for her work.
Perfect! Hubble and Hertzsprung were "astronomers", so they were "other scientists". And they thought her work was important, so they had "esteem for her work:' Notice that we can pinpoint very specific reasons why each of the wrong answers is wrong. When you find something in an answer choice that makes the choice obviously wrong, you should cross those words out. This may seem silly, but is an important step to mastering the art of elimination.
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
With the invention of photography, observatories could now produce records of the images their telescopes captured. This meant the astronomers could leave the tedious work of data collection to low-paid workers without wasting valuable telescope time.
Let's try another one:
A) x allowed them to see farther into the night sky. There's nothing about how far they can see.
B) ✓ made data collection easier. · Okay, it did mention data collection.
C) ✓ gave them more leisure time. Okay, it did mention freeing up time.
D) x provided opportunities for women. Women are not mentioned here.
So having records meant they could hire other people to do data collection. That's our anticipation. Now we see which choice best matches it. Again, the right answer won't be exactly what we anticipated. Let's see which ones come close:
3. The "invention of photography" was important to astronomers because it
A) allowed them to see farther into the night sky.
B) made data collection easier.
C) gave them more leisure time.
D) provided opportunities for women.
Use your Main Ideas
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
The questions we've seen so far have all been about single lines or sentences. But sometimes a question will ask you about a whole paragraph, or a large chunk of text that includes several sentences. In that case, we can use the main ideas to answer the question.
For example:
4.The paragraph chiefly serves to
A)discuss opportunities available to women in astronomy.
B)describe the daily activities of a typical computer.
C)provide biographical background on the subject.
D)examine the role of technology in the observatory.
Here, the question is asking about the entire paragraph. That's 5 sentences.
Henrietta Leavitt was one such computer Having graduated from Radcliffe College in 1892, she developed an interest in astronomy. The opportunities open to women in the scientific world being few and far between, she joined the photographic photometry department at the Harvard College Observatory as a computer. Her particular task was to search for "variables", stars whose brightness would vary over regular intervals, like a flashing street light. This sort of work resonated with her meticulous disposition, and she catalogued thousands of variables at an incredible rate.
Ugh. We still want to anticipate, but that's a lot of text to go back, read, and paraphrase. If only we had a summary of this paragraph ...
Wait, we do! We already got the main idea of each paragraph. We can just use our main idea as our anticipation.
Your main idea for paragraph 3 may have differed from ours, but it should be something like "How Leavitt became a computer" or "background about Leavitt". Let's look at bur choices:
A) x discuss opportunities available to women in astronomy Too broad. The paragraph is about Leavitt, not women in general.
B) x describe the daily activities of a typical computer It's about Leavitt specifically, not the "typical" computer.
C) ✓ provide biographical background on the subject Perfect! She went to Radcliffe, she got a job at Harvard, and she became a computer.
D) x examine the role of technology in the observatory No technology is mentioned in this paragraph.
III. Eliminate Nonsense
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
When you anticipate successfully, you can often jump right to the correct answer. But it's not always that easy. Sometimes when you go back to the passage, you can't get an anticipation. Maybe you don't understand what the line says. Maybe you understand the line, but you don't understand what it has to do with the question. That's okay. There's still a lot we can do even if we don't understand what the passage says. All reading passages are loaded with nonsense choices-choices that are obviously wrong. If we can eliminate the nonsense and guess from what's left, we can greatly increase our odds of getting the question. If we can get each tough question down to two choices, we'll get 50% of them right.
There are three main ways that a choice can be wrong:
1. Random The choice talks about things that the passage doesn't even mention. You'd be astounded to learn how often this happens. (See the question about cars for example. All three wrong choices were random.)
2.False The choice is explicitly contradicted by the passage.
3.Irrelevant The choice is something the author says, but it doesn't actually answer the question.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- As before, you should literally cross out the words that make a choice wrong. This will greatly help you keep track of what you're doing.
- We're not looking for the right choice, we're looking for wrong choices. If you're not sure whether a choice fits, just leave it in. Just ask whether the choice is Random, False, or Irrelevant. If you can't find a specific reason to eliminate it, leave it in for now. On every question, three out of four choices are wrong. So if we think a choice is wrong, there's a 75% chance we're right.
- Again, the key here is to work quickly. Don't spend too much time agonizing over every choice. Go through the choices, get rid of the ones that are obviously wrong, and see what you have left.
- Once you get down to two choices, you can go back to the passage again to see which is better. If you really can't decide which is better, guess one.
Let's look at an example:
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
The opportunities open to women in the scientific world being few and far between, she joined the photographic photometry department at the Harvard College Observatory as a computer. Her particular task was to search for "variables", stars whose brightness would vary over regular intervals, like a flashing street light. This sort of work resonated with her meticulous disposition, and she catalogued thousands of variables at an incredible rate.
5. The first sentence suggests that
A)women had fewer opportunities in astronomy than in other sciences.
B)only men were allowed to work at Harvard College Observatory.
C)being a computer was one of the only positions available to Leavitt.
D)Leavitt was particularly skilled at searching for variables. That's a bit of a complicated sentence, and it may be tough to come up with an anticipation here. Let's do this one by Eliminating Nonsense instead.
A) x women had fewer opportunities in astronomy than in other sciences. Random! Nowhere does the passage compare astronomy to other sciences. If anything, the first part of this line implies that the situation was the same across "the scientific world”: A lot people pick this choice because it looks pretty good at first, until you get to the last four words. Please: don't be one of those people too lazy to be bothered to read the last four words of a choice.
B) x only men were allowed to work at Harvard College Observatory. False! Henrietta Leavitt did get a job at the Observatory! In the photographic photometry department! So, women could work there. A demonstrative pronoun like this or these can be a big clue. If you see one, check the previous sentence to find what it refers to.
C) ✓ being a computer was one of the only positions available to Leavitt. Bingo. "Opportunities" were "few” so she became a computer. That means that being a computer was an opportunity that was available to her.
D) x Leavitt was particularly skilled at searching for variables, Irrelevant. This choice is true-the passage says so explicitly. But it doesn't say that until the second sentence! This question specifically asks what the first sentence suggest, and this sentence says nothing about Leavitt's skill at finding variables. Note here that you don't have to understand why C) is right because it's easy to see why all the other three choices are wrong.
Let's look at a harder example:
One of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy was made by a computer in 1908. This may sound like an anachronism; computing machines of the early twentieth century, predecessors of our modem PC's, were nowhere near advanced enough to be making discoveries.
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
2. It can be inferred that the "anachronism” mentioned results from the fact that
A) a common word is being used in a different sense.
B) predecessors of modern PC's were unavailable in 1908.
C) Harvard had access to more advanced technology than other institutions.
D) computer science advanced at a greater rate than astronomy. As always, let's start by going back to the passage. The sentence says This may sound like an anachronism
We can already see we'll have to go one sentence earlier to see what "this" refers to. Let's start with line 1:
One of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy was made by a computer in 1908. This may sound like an anachronism; computing machines of the early twentieth century, predecessors of our modern PC's, were nowhere near advanced enough to be making discoveries. However, this "computer" was not a machine at all, but a woman named Henrietta Swan Leavitt.
Hmm. I still don't know what that means. Let's do it by Eliminating Nonsense. We'll look through the choices and eliminate anything that's Random, False, or Irrelevant A) a common word is being used in a different sense. Not sure what this means. We'll leave it in. B) predecessors of modern PC's were unavailable in 1908. Not sure what this means either. We'll leave this in, too.
C) x Harvard had access to more advanced technology than other institutions, Random! The passage doesn't mention Harvard until line 24, and it doesn't compare it to any other institutions. D) x computer science advanced at a greater rate than astronomy. False! The passage doesn't actually say anything about the rate of advancement for either computer science or astronomy. But it strongly implies that this is backwards: in 1908 astronomy was pretty advanced and computing machines "were nowhere near advanced': Great! We're down to two choices now, A) and B). If we can't figure anything else out, we can guess. Let's take a closer look at our two remaining choices. Choice A) is totally confusing, so let's pick apart choice B). It says "predecessors of modern PC's were unavailable:' "Predecessor" means "precursor" or "ancestor". So "predecessors of modern PC's" are the devices that came before our modern PC's. But the computing machines available in 1908 were the predecessors of modern PC's. It says so right in the passage. Modern PC's were unavailable, not their predecessors. So, choice B) is false. Choice A) is our answer.
Even though we still don't understand what choice A), the correct answer, means, we can still get the question right. Let's go back to what we know. The question asks how to explain the anachronism in sentence 2. The passage says a computer made a discovery in 1908, but computers as we know them weren't around in 1908. That is the anachronism, but it doesn't explain the anachronism. If computers weren't around, how is it possible that one made a discovery? Let's keep reading one more line: However, this "computer" was not a machine at all,
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
but a woman named Henrietta Swan Leavitt. Aha! It seemed like an anachronism because we thought the word "computer" meant a machine like a laptop. But it really means a person. So, in this sentence the word "computer" doesn't mean what it usually means. That's choice A) a common word is being used in a different sense. This was a tough question, and you may have some trouble understanding why A) is right. But that's not the point
Working together
Almost every question on the Reading section can be done with some combination of anticipation and elimination, but the exact ratio is flexible. You'll often do both. You'll anticipate easily, no choices perfectly match your anticipation, so you'll eliminate the ones that are obviously wrong. The point is that both these strategies are working together for you. On any given question, the more you use one, the less you'll
use the other. If one fails, look to the other. They complement each other into a harmonious unity of test-taking peace and perfection.
READING QUESTION TYPES
Let's take a closer look at the different types of questions you'll see with the passages. In the following sections, we're going to provide some short passages to give examples of different kinds of questions.
PLEASE NOTE: these categories may overlap, and there may be situations in which you're not sure which category a question belongs to. Don't worry about it. These are just suggestions to help you make sense of these questions. It doesn't really matter whether a particular question is "inferential" or "strategy" or whatever. Don't ever spend any time trying to 'categorize' a question.
I. Explicit Questions
These are the questions that ask you what the passage literally says. We've already established that many Reading questions give you specific references, so all you have to do is go back, anticipate the answer, then match your anticipation to the· choices. It's important to see that every answer you put to explicit questions must be grounded in the passage. Most explicit questions can be done by anticipating, and we've already seen several examples already. These questions may vary in difficulty. "Explicit" doesn't necessarily mean easy; it just means that the answer is written in the text of the passage.
READING DRILL
II. Vocab-in-context Questions
QUESTIONS TYPES
Sometimes a question will ask you the meaning of a specific use of a specific word in the passage. Just like explicit questions, these questions can be done by going back to the passage to see how the word is used. On these questions, it's doubly important to go back and anticipate. Usually, the word they're asking you about has more than one possible meaning-any of the choices could be the word's meaning, depending on the context of the sentence. So, look up the context! Don't just go by what you think the word means; go back and look at what it means in the sentence.
III. Evidence Questions
Evidence questions are the only ones that will specifically refer to other questions on the test. They usually take the same form, asking you where in the passage you can find evidence for your answer to the previous question. This shouldn't really be a problem for us, since our main strategy so far has already been to find actual text in the passage supporting our answers. So in a lot of cases, these questions simply allow us to get two questions at the same time.
Here are a few more thoughts about Evidence questions:
- Evidence questions do not have to refer to any particular question type. The previous question may be Explicit, Inferential, Strategy, basically anything.
-Evidence questions do not even have to refer to another question at all. Some Evidence questions will ask for evidence of a statement given in the question itself.
-The sentence in the correct answer of an Evidence question might not be the only evidence that supports the previous answer. It's very possible that more than one sentence can help you answer the previous question.
IV. Main Idea Questions
Often, questions will literally just be looking for the main ideas. We've already seen some examples of that in the last chapter. You of course should be figuring out the main ideas of the paragraphs and the passages anyway, so if a question asks about an entire paragraph or the whole passage, you can often use your main ideas as your anticipation.
V. Inferential Questions
Sometimes, the answer isn't literally said in the passage, but the answer is a conclusion that we can reasonably draw from what is stated in the passage.
VI. Strategy Questions
Strategy questions ask you about the author's intentions or techniques. These questions could ask about the literal structure of the passage, its organization, the authors motivation for presenting information in a certain way, or why the author uses a particular rhetorical strategy.
VII. Tone Questions
We saw with Strategy questions that you may be asked about the form of the passage instead of the content. Similarly, Tone questions ask you about the emotional character of the text. How does the author or narrator feel about a particular subject, and what feeling is conveyed in the language? It's the difference between saying "Cats are popular" and "I adore cats!" Tone questions are somewhat infrequent, but they can often throw you for a loop.
The tone of the passage as a whole is
To help you determine the tone of a passage think of them as emojis.
����☹
Let's take a minute to explain this complicated terminology:
��means the author likes the subject. This could mean he's arguing in favor of something, that he's saying someone is a good person, or just telling a happy anecdote.
☹means the author does not like the subject. This could mean he's arguing against something, that he's giving a warning about something, or that he's telling a sad or angry anecdote.
��means the author does not have an opinion about the subject. This means the author is just presenting the facts without saying if they're good or bad. Think of this author as a historian or a scientist. Of course, tone questions can also be more complicated than this. A passage certainly may have a nuanced tone that doesn't fit well into this scale. Or there may be more than one choice that matches the smiley faces you want. But at the very least this is a good place to start. Use it to eliminate some choices and see what's left.
VIII. Data Questions
QUESTIONS TYPES
There's more to passages than just the passage. Every test will have two passages-one science passage and one history/ social studies passage-that contain some kind of figure or graph at the end. These figures will show data that is somehow relevant to or strengthens the author's argument. Graphs can be scary, especially if you're not particularly strong in math or science. But being able to read a chart or graph is not just a skill for scientists. Read any newspaper and you're bound to see some articles that have accompanying graphics. These graphics often color a reader's perception of a story, so being able to understand them is an important element of being a good reader. The relationship between the figure and the passage can vary:
-The figure may or may not be explicitly mentioned in the passage itself.
-Sometimes the information in the figure is also explicitly stated in the passage, so you don't need to read the figure to answer the question about it.
- Sometimes the figure may be read and interpreted separately from the passage. That means that if you're running out of time you can often jump to figure questions before reading the passage.
But because the focus here is on reading, you won't need to do actual math on these questions. You won't have to do any computation, the kind of stuff you might need a calculator for. There will be numbers, but you'll just be asked to read the numbers and see how they relate to each other. Most of the questions you'll see boil down to two things:
-Understanding what the parts of the graph mean. What are the units, what is being measured, etc.
-Reading the literal or relative values shown. Literal values are just a question of "this bar stops at the number 25.” Relative values are a question of "The first bar is bigger than the second bar:”
DIGITAL SAT - CRAFT AND STRUCTURE - RANDOM DRAW
DIGITAL SAT - READING INFORMATION AND IDEAS DRILLRANDOM DRAW
