Very often, test-takers get stumped on “tone” or “attitude” questions because they look at each answer choice individually and ponder whether it could fit the passage. In other words, they try to fit the answer to the reading — always a bad idea.

Very often, test-takers get stumped on “tone” or “attitude” questions because they look at each answer choice individually and ponder whether it could fit the passage. In other words, they try to fit the answer to the reading — always a bad idea.

The process for breaking down tone questions is actually pretty simple: the first thing you always want to determine is whether the author’s attitude is positive or negative.

Say, for example, you’re dealing with a passage about the California gold rush, and you see the following question:

In lines 47-51, the author’s attitude toward the process of “staking claims” could best be characterized as:

(A) skeptical
(B) vitriolic
(C) approving
(D) elated
(E) ambivalent

The first thing you need to do is to figure out whether the author considers “staking claims” a good thing or a bad thing.

If it’s a good thing, you can automatically eliminate anything that is either negative or neutral, in this case A, B, and E. If it’s a bad thing, you can get rid of C and D.

Notice that we don’t care about the actual words at this point, only whether they’re good or bad.

Let’s say that the author considers “staking claims” a good thing, so we’re left with C and D.

In general, extreme answers tend to be wrong (if the tone of the passage were too obvious, you wouldn’t have to read closely, and the test would be too easy!), so right away, you know that there’s about a 90% chance the answer is C.

But unless you’re absolutely certain, go back to the passage and check!