by Erica L. Meltzer | May 2, 2011 | Reading (SAT & ACT)
Warning: while this may look like an awfully long list of things to circle, chances are that only a handful of these words/phrases will show up on any given passage. This is also not intended to be a exercise in memorization; rather, it is to get you thinking about the kinds of ways in which authors indicate to their readers the most important aspects of what they’re trying to say.
Furthermore, the point of looking out for these things is not to turn your reading into a transition hunt at the expense of actually absorbing what you’re reading. Just circling transitions mechanically and not thinking about what role they play in the passage at large will not get you very far and may in fact make things harder for you. However, if you actively consider them in relation to the point of the passage once you’ve established it, they will help you establish a general “map” of the key places in the argument.
Major Transitions:
Supporting:
And
So
For
In fact
Indeed
Of course
Therefore/Thus
Consequently
As a result
In addition
Also
Furthermore
Moreover
Likewise
Similarly
Contradicting:
But
Yet
However
(Al)though/Even though
Despite
While
Whereas
Nevertheless
Rather
Comparison/Contrast:
In comparison
In contrast
Just as…so
Explanations:
Because
Since
Explains
The answer is
Giving you the point:
The point is
The goal/aim is
To sum up
In other words
After all
In the end
The (main) idea
Important Information:
Important
Key
Crucial
Essential
Fundamental
It is true/not true
It is clear/unclear
Strong Language:
Absolutely
Unequivocally
Exceptionally
Extraordinarily
Unquestionably
Definitely
Always
Never
Nothing
Inevitably
Fundamentally
“Unusual” Punctuation:
Question Marks – Indicate rhetorical questions. Questions are prime targets for inference questions because information is often implied but not stated.
Colons – Explanations Dashes – Explanations or supplementary (qualifying) information
Semicolons – Imply a relationship between two thoughts that is not necessarily spelled out — likely spot for inference questions to deal with
Words in quotes – Used figuratively. The answer to at least one question will depend on your understanding of how a word in quotes is being used, even if the question doesn’t ask about it directly. Often indicates skepticism.
Italicized words – Used to emphasize, underscore, call attention to, highlight
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 27, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT), SAT Critical Reading (Old Test)
One of the hardest things for many test-takers to adjust to on the SAT and ACT is the idea that English questions have answers that are both objectively correct and objectively incorrect. The truth, however, is that if you really want to improve your score, you need to approach each question with the attitude that there is only one answer. It might not be phrased in the way you would say it, or even be the answer that you would expect to see, but that doesn’t make it any less right.
Your English teacher might give you points for the creativity of your interpretations; ETS and the ACT will not. These tests are in no way, shape or form asking for your own personal interpretation or for speculation about what might be going on in a given passage; they are asking for what an author indicates is definitely going on in the passage. That means you need to base your answer exclusively on the exact wording that appears in the text and nothing else. If you have to twist the passage in any way to make the answer work, the answer is wrong.
In other words, match the question to the passage, not the passage to the question.
Let’s look at an example:
Newspaper editor and political commentator Henry Louis Mencken was a force of nature, brushing aside all objects animal and mineral in his headlong rush to the publicity that surely awaited him. He seized each day, shook it to within an inch of its life, and then gaily went on to the next. No matter where his writing appeared, it was quoted widely, his pungently outspoken opinions debated hotly. Nobody else could make so many people so angry, or make so many others laugh so hard.
9. In lines 4-5, the words “seized” and “shook” help establish which aspect of Mencken’s personality?
(A) His code of honor
(B) His sense of humor
(C) His vindictiveness
(D) His intensity
(E) His petulance
What words does the author use to describe Louis Mencken?
He was “a force of nature.” He “brushed aside objects…in his headlong rush.” He “seized each day and shook it…then went gaily onto the next.”
So Louis Mencken was like a whirlwind. He threw himself into things and did them as fully as possible. All this clearly points to (D) because someone who behaves like this is pretty intense.
If you were to read the question first and then just glance through the passage, however, you might just pick up on words/phrases like “brushed aside,” “seized,” and “hotly debated,” all of which are pretty negative, you might go for (C) or (E) instead. Now, Louis Mencken could have also been vindictive in his life. He could have also been petulant (irritable or ill-tempered).
But if you read carefully, this particular author is not actually saying either of those things about Mencken in this particular passage.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 20, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
Remember the movie Awakenings? Actually, if you’re in high school now, you’re probably way too young to actually remember the movie, but you may have stumbled across it on late-night cable at some point: it’s the one with Robert DeNiro, about a guy who suddenly wakes up after being in a coma for decades… It got nominated for a couple of Academy Awards.
Anyway, if you’re wondering what on earth a movie released all the way back in 1990 could possibly have to do with standardized test-prep in 2011, the answer is: quite a bit. You see, Awakenings is based on a book of the same name, a book that was written by a man named Oliver Sacks. Sacks is a neurologist who happens to have a fascination with unusual illnesses involving the brain: people who have strokes and suddenly develop extraordinary musical abilities, or those who are unable to identify the faces of their loved ones, despite having perfect vision (an affiction from which Sacks himself suffers). He is also one of the authors whose works appear on both SAT Critical Reading and ACT Reading Comprehension.
I think that there are a couple of reasons why test-makers are so partial to Sacks’ work: its written in a style just accessible enough to be comprehensible to non-specialists but also just sophisticated enough to be challenging to many high school students. It deals with a subject matter that is culturally neutral but that at the same time presents a distinct point of view.
In short, it’s the College Board and the ACT’s dream come true. It’s also incredibly interesting reading, particulary when not condensed into 85 lines and accompanied by 10-12 questions. So if you’re looking to acquaint yourself with the kind of reading material that tends to show up on these tests, you can start by reading something by Oliver Sacks. Who knows? You might even like it.
Books by Oliver Sacks:
–Awakenings
–An Anthropologist on Mars
–The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
–The Island of the Colorblind
–Musicophilia
-Hallucinations
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 12, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
When I used to tell students to write down every step of their reasoning process on Reading questions, their typical reaction was, “But doesn’t that take too much time?” While perfectly understandable, that thinking is based on the assumption that writing things down on a standardized test is somehow akin to writing in, say, English class. It isn’t. As a matter of fact, it’s not even close. It’s not about thinking things over leisurely or making them sound nice or being original. It’s about keeping yourself actively and sharply focused on the information you’re looking for, and it needs to be done fast. So in the service of that end, here are some general rules:
1) Keep it very, very short
Five or six words tops for your main point, three or so for anything else. Note-taking should not noticeably cut into the time you spend either reading or answering questions. That means:
2) Abbreviate like there’s no tomorrow.
Draw symbols, arrows, whatever you need to get the point across fast. Vowels and full words are your enemies. No one is grading you on your eloquence. The only thing that matters is that you understand what you mean and are able to use that information effectively.
Compare, for example, the following two versions of the main point for an imaginary passage about the effect of World War II on women’s roles in American society
Way too long: World War II had a positive effect on the lives of American women because it expanded their traditional roles by allowing them to find jobs outside of their homes for the first time.
Good Length: WWII + b/c women ? jobs
The first version takes up a lot of time to write, the second one virtually none. Guess which one is more effective at keeping you focused.
3) Write down arguments, not facts
Let’s go back to that pretend WWII passage and imagine that it’s about Rosie the Riveter (come to think of it, this might actually be in a real passage somewhere). You can’t just write “Rosie the Riveter;” that tells you nothing.
Instead, you want to write something like, “RR impt b/c inspired US wmn” (Rosie the Riveter was important because she inspired American women).
4) Circle transitions, not nouns
Transitions such as “however” and “furthermore,” and “because” tell you why information is important. Simply underlining the information itself will tell you nothing and will probably do little to help you answer the questions. Do not ever circle any form of the verb “to be.”
5) Focus on the argument of the overall passage, not the individual paragraphs
You don’t need to to write the argument of every paragraph when you do an initial read-through. Figuring out where a particular paragraph fits into a passage’s overall argument in something you can deal with when you encounter a specific question about that paragraph. At absolute most, you could do something like +, +, – for two paragraphs that support a point and one that contradicts it, but anything more will get
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 17, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
Here’s a good rule of thumb: If the wording in an answer choice is too close to the wording in the passage, the answer is probably wrong. This is a bit more true on the SAT than the ACT, but in general, it applies to both tests. It’s so easy to fall for these answers choices… After all, they’re actually right there in the passage.
But wait… are they?
Normally, these are the answers that fall into the category of “half-right, half-wrong.”
Knowing that many readers will be unsure of the meaning of a particular phrase, the test-writers will often quote it directly in the answer choice; relieved, the unsuspecting test-taker will simply pick it without thinking twice. But usually there’s a word in the answer that makes it incorrect.
For example, if the passage uses the phrase enigmatic figure to describe an author, the answer might indicate that the phrase actually refers to a character in one of his novels. Don’t fall for the trick. Your job is to identify the answer that expresses the same general idea discussed in the passage, but one that does so in different words.
So when you go to the answer choices, look for ones that contain synonyms for words in the passage. And the fact that those words are ones that you would might not come up with on your own is entirely irrelevant. So repeat after me: Same idea, different words!
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 17, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
While it’s ok to skim through a passage just to get the gist, at least during an initial read-through, you need to read the questions very, very carefully. If even one word of an answer choice is incorrect, the whole answer is automatically incorrect. It doesn’t matter how much the rest of the answer works; it’s just wrong.
A huge mistake that test-takers make is to read both questions and answer choices too quickly. This essentially creates two problems for them:
1) They don’t really understand what questions are asking
2) They don’t think carefully about what the answer choices are actually saying
Then they get the question wrong and blame the test for being “tricky.”
One of the things that initially surprises and then rapidly bores my students is the sheer amount of time I spend re-defining questions for myself. (And by “sheer amount of time,” I mean 10 or 15 seconds). I’ll often rephrase questions two or three times, “stripping them down” progressively into simpler and simpler wording to make sure that I’m totally, 100% clear about what they’re actually asking.
My students almost never do this. They just want to plow through the question and the answer choices, leaping at the first thing that seems like it could work. And when I try to make them slow down and actually think about what they’re doing, I can practically see the impatience steaming out of their ears.
Sometimes they even beg me to just let them have one more go at it. At which point they proceed to reject any semblance of methodical thinking, simply stare at the answer choices without working anything out, and then ask me hesitantly, is it (C)?
Usually I just shrug and tell them I haven’t finished working out the answer yet. As I remind them, no one gets bonus points for speed. I’m doing what I do to make sure I get the question right, speed be damned. It’s not that I can’t answer the question quickly – it’s that I’m deliberately choosing not to because I know that I would leave myself open to making careless errors that way, or to overlooking crucial pieces of information staring me right in the face.
Unfortunately, that’s a lesson that comes with experience; sometimes it takes a while to sink in.
