Just because an answer is confusing doesn’t mean it’s wrong

One of things I’ve noticed recently is that when doing SAT Reading, a lot of students are very quick to cross out answers that sound excessively abstract or complicated without trying to understand them fully. I do understand the impulse: if you think you pretty much understand what a passage is saying and an answer does not, at first glance, seem obviously related to anything directly stated by the author, it would stand to reason that it’s probably not the answer. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t always work that way.

One of the things I try make as explicit as possible when I start working with someone is the fact that SAT Reading questions often require you to first determine information very, very literally, then take a step back and re-cast that same information in much more general or abstract terms. That’s why the answers are often worded in ways that are 1) completely unexpected, and that 2) often seem to bear little relationship to what’s actually being stated in the passage.

In general, a good rule of thumb is that you should never eliminate an answer simply because you find it confusing or don’t really understand what it means. Likewise, you should never pick an answer just because you do understand what it’s saying. I cannot emphasize this enough: your ability to understand an answer has exactly zero impact on its likelihood of being either correct or incorrect. Zero.

Practically speaking, that means that if you are stuck between an answer you do understand and an answer you don’t, the latter must be correct — regardless of how little sense it makes to you — if the former doesn’t work.

So when you come across an answer that seems to be worded in a highly abstract manner, the first thing you need to do is try to figure out what it’s actually saying. Ideally, you should have already gone back to the passage and formulated an answer in your own words, in which case you need to think hard about whether the answer on the page might simply be a more general version of what you came up with. If you haven’t gone back to the passage…well, you might have to do it by process of elimination. But if you’re willing to entertain all the possibilities and resist jumping to conclusions, that can be very effective as well.

A summary of my reading method

1) Read the passage slowly until you figure out the point

Usually the point will be stated somewhere close to the end of the introduction or at the beginning of the second paragraph (first body paragraph). Once you figure out the point, focus on the first and last sentence of each body paragraph, then read the conclusion carefully. Underline the last sentence. For short passages (GRE), focus on the first and last sentences of the passage.

 

2) If something confuses you, skip it and focus on what you do understand

When a lot of people encounter a confusing section of a passage, they stop and read it repeatedly, often without obtaining a clearer understanding and wasting huge amounts of time in the process. You should avoid falling into a this type of rereading loop at all costs. If you don’t understanding something fully the first time you read, force yourself to keep moving and focus on the parts that are clearer. What confuses you might not be important anyway.

 

3) When you finish the passage, write the tone and the point

Try to limit the point to 4-6 words, symbols, etc. OR, if you see the point directly stated in the passage, underline it and draw a big arrow/star, etc. so you remember to keep referring back to it. For the tone, you can write an adjective (e.g. skeptical) or just positive (+) or negative (-).

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