How to answer “supporting evidence” questions
If you’ve looked at the redesigned PSAT or SATs, you’ve probably noticed that the reading section now includes a number of “supporting evidence” sets — that is, pairs of questions in which the second question asks which lines provide the best “evidence” for the answer to the previous question.
The first thing to understand about these questions is that they are not really about “evidence” in the usual sense. Rather they are comprehension questions asked two different ways. The answer to the second question simply indicates where in the passage the answer the first question appears.
So although paired questions may look very complicated, that appearance is deceiving. The correct answer to the first question must appear in one of the four sets of lines in the second question. As a result, the easiest way to approach these questions is usually to plug the line references from the second question into the first question. (more…)