SAT Humor

No, that’s actually not an oxymoron.

There is, believe it or not, humor on quite a few Critical Reading passages. It’s not ha-ha, laugh-out-loud, in-your-face humor; it’s adult humor, subtle, wry, dry, irreverent, ironic, and facetious.

And I’ve started to notice recently that it’s the one thing that pretty much every single one of my students has trouble with, regardless of how far into the 700s they’re scoring.

I think there are a few reasons for this difficulty:

A lot of the strong readers, the ones who actually know what these things are and can recognize them under normal circumstances, get so incredibly freaked out by the test that it simply doesn’t occur to them that certain parts of passages are intended to be funny. When I prod them to think about what’s being said and to read it out loud (more about that later), they usually get it without too much trouble.

The weaker readers, and even some of the stronger ones, are usually not even sure what facetiousness, wry humor, and irreverence are. The concepts quite literally do not exist for them.

On one hand, this is not terribly surprising; all of these kinds of humor are, by definition, subtle. That’s why they’re hard, and that’s precisely why they’re tested on “hard” questions.

One of the things that makes these kinds of humorous tones so difficult to identify is the fact that recognizing them is largely based on understanding the relationship between written and spoken language.

Even more so than other kinds of tones, wry humor and irony are more reliant on the readers’ ability to hear the author’s voice internally, to “feel” where the stresses and emphases occur, where the pitch rises and falls. If someone is not a totally fluent reader — that is, if they have to devote their attention to puzzling out what the words actually 1) sound like, and 2) what they literally mean — there is simply no way they can hear those words as part of a naturally spoken phrase.

And hearing the author’s voice in turn often depends on the reader’s ability to understand how authors convey emphases through punctuation. In such cases, hearing tone becomes the result of seeing tone; aural becomes visual. It’s relatively easy to figure out that the tone is negative when the author is using words like “difficult,” “terrible,” or “impossible;” it’s much harder to hear the relationship between, say, a parentheses or dashes and the kind of dropped, drawn-out voice that indicates someone is making an ironic aside — especially if no one’s ever asked you to pay much attention to punctuation in the first place, or asked you to think about how to translate the natural cadences of your own speech into writing.

I actually think that is why so many test-takers also have trouble identifying when the author’s tone is conversational or informal. They simply can’t draw the connection between what’s on the page and how people actually speak.

Finally, this kind of humor is largely based on wordplay. Many relatively straightforward vocabulary questions test the ability to recognize when words are being used in their second or third meaning based, and “humor” questions add yet another layer of complication. Here the test does not explicitly inform the test-taker that words are being used in non-literal ways; rather, the reader is expected to deduce it from context and perceive the humor accordingly.

Tricky? Some (ok, many) might call it that, but understanding these kinds of subtleties is a big part of what adult-level reading involves, SAT or no SAT.

I think many of the difficulties that people have with these kinds of questions results from that fact that Americans are generally taught to be very suspicious of people who play with words. They’re seen as slippery, untrustworthy somehow. There’s an assumption that language is, or should be, transparent: being plain-spoken is seen as a sign of honesty and integrity. Wordplay, which destabilizes meaning, is urbane, highbrow, intellectual humor, and is seen as vaguely arrogant and decadent, I think it’s fair to say that mastering it — or even learning to recognize it — is not an integral part of English education in the United States. The result is that kids who are lucky enough to grow up surrounded by people who like to play with words tend to absorb this kind of humor naturally; kids who aren’t exposed to that kind of linguistic play, or who grow in homes where English isn’t spoken, tend to have an extremely hard time recognizing it and/or understanding why it’s funny.

Unfortunately, this is one type of question that there’s no easy way to master. The shortcut would be to simply pick “wry” when it appears as an option and none of the choices you do understand clearly seem to work — the odds are likely in your favor, but knowing the SAT, that’s probably not a foolproof solution. If you do have some familiarity with this type of humor and see “wry” or “facetious” or “irreverent” as an answer choice, go back to the passage carefully and see if the author has done anything to indicate that he or she is not being entirely serious (quotes, italics, exclamations marks, deliberately exaggerated language…) If that’s the case and you’re still not 100% sure, you can at least make a reasonably educated guess.

Neutral tone, definite opinion

Pretty much everyone agrees that SAT passages can be boring. Really boring. They’re like the literary equivalent of your physics teacher droning on…and on…and on while you try your hardest not to turn fifth period into an inadvertent nap time.

I don’t draw this science analogy by accident: of all the types of passages on the SAT, science passages tend to score the lowest in terms of their engagement factor. They also tend to be written in a tone that’s considerably more neutral (or “objective” or “analytical”) than that found in other types of passages.

But just because the author writes in an objective tone does not mean that he/she is entirely neutral. That is, an author can use language that does not contain any strong wording and still clearly indicate that they believe that one idea or theory is right and that another one is wrong.The fact that they do not say I think or I believe and avoid using words like absolutely or conclusively in no way detracts from the fact that they are still expressing a point of view rather than simply rattling off an objective set of facts — and it’s your job to figure out, based on the passage alone, what that point of view or opinion is and why the author holds it.

The ability to distinguish between tone and point of view is crucial on the SAT; sometimes it’s even tested directly. (As a matter of fact, this post was inspired by an exchange that involved me convincing a student that the correct answer to a tone question could still be “impartial” even though the author of the passage had a distinct opinion).

Incidentally, this is a point that most of the major commercial test-prep books stumble over: though sometimes dense, their passages tend to be overly straightforward and factual. SAT passages are, for all intents and purposes, not just straightforward and factual, even if they do sometimes contain lots of facts.

Think of it this way: most English teachers forbid their students from using “I” in their papers. They typically justify this prohibition by arguing that everything you write is by definition your opinion (at least under normal circumstances), and besides, having to read a two dozen sentences that start with “I think” or “I believe” or “In my opinion” in the space of three pages would drive anyone crazy. SAT passages are based on the same principle.

So the next time you’re faced with a passage about, say, string theory (actually one of the SAT’s preferred topics), forget the details of the theory itself and focus on what the author thinks is important — or not important — about it. If you get a question that asks about a detail about it, you can always go back and reread, but the details shouldn’t be your main focus. Because guess what: if you know what the author thinks, you can probably figure out a lot of the questions just based on that knowledge. But if you’ve gotten caught up in trying to understand the details, you’ll probably get, well…not very far.

No comma before “because”

Comma + Because = Wrong

Any answer on the SAT that includes a comma before the word “because” is incorrect. Incidentally, the College Board has been known to ignore this rule in other situations, but it’s always true for Fixing Sentences — the only place it’s directly tested.

In case you’re interested, here’s the rule:

The word “because” is what’s known as a subordinating conjunction, which means any clause that begins with it cannot function as a stand-alone sentence; instead that clause must be joined to an independent clause (a complete, stand-alone sentence).

The need for a comma in a sentence that contains both a dependent and an independent clause is determined by the order of the clauses.

When the independent clause comes first, no comma is usually required. (There are exceptions, but they are not tested.)

Independent clause first: Because it contains buildings from so many different periods, London is a very interesting city to explore. When the dependent clause comes first, a comma is required.

Dependent clause first: London is a very interesting city to explore because it contains buildings from many different periods.

BUT NOT:

Incorrect: London is a very interesting city to explore, because it contains buildings from so many different periods.

How to work through Error-Identification questions, part 2

Here are some examples of how to work through Error-Identification questions.

Example #1:

In 1965, Betty Friedan’s publication of The Feminine

Mystique has marked a turning point that resulted in

improved labor rights and working conditions for

women. No error

Strategy:

The big “clue” in this question is the date 1965, which tells us that this is probably a tense question. So that means we’re going to start by checking the tenses of any underlined verbs, which in this case means choice (B), “has marked.”

Now, any finished event or action in the past (e.g. the publication of The Feminine Mystique, which occurred once) must be referred to by a verb in the simple past: “marked,” not “has marked.”

So the answer is (B). Notice that working from the clue made it unnecessary to even check any of the other answers.

Example #2

The findings of an astronomy team overseen by

researchers at Stanford University has confirmed many

of Einstein’s strangest predictions about the nature

of gravity. No error

Strategy:

Since there’s no obvious clue in this sentence, we’re going to start by looking for the option most likely to be incorrect. In this case it’s choice (B). it could either be a subject-verb agreement question (because you can say either “has confirmed” or “have confirmed”) OR a tense question.

Since there’s no date or time period, however, we know right away that tense probably isn’t the issue. So we’re going to check the subject. It’s “findings,” which is plural; “has” is singular, so right there you have your answer.

This is a classic subject — prepositional phrase — verb question. It’s tricky, and so it would probably show up close to the end of a section.

Example #3

The snakehead fish, a rapidly reproducing predator, has so

voracious an appetite that it can wipe out entire schools of

fish and destroy entire ecosystems when placed outside

its native habitat. No error

Strategy: Again, here, there’s no obvious error, so we’re going to check in order of what’s most likely to be wrong.

The first thing we notice is the word “its.” That’s usually a very dangerous word in this section, so we’re going to start with it. In this case, it refers to “the snakehead fish,” which is also singular, so “it” actually checks out.

When a word that is commonly wrong turns out to be right, that’s a hint the answer might be “No error.” But we have to check out everything else just to be sure.

We’re going to check choice (D) next because it’s a verb in the present tense and is therefore also a top error candidate.

Choice (D): there’s nothing to suggest that “destroy” is in the wrong tense; it’s also parallel to “wipe out” (it can wipe out…it can destroy), which means there’s no problem.

Now we move to the other options.

Choice (A): “rapidly” is adverb, so we stick in the adjective: “a rapid reproducing predator.” No — an adverb is necessary to modify “reproducing,” which functions as an adjective.

Choice (B): “so” might sound a little funny, but it’s half of a word pair, and here is correctly paired with “that.” It’s fine.

Which means that we’ve demonstrated the answer must be (E).

How to work through Error-Identification questions, part 1

Every time I hear someone advise SAT-takers to “just try to hear the error” on Error-ID questions, I get the overwhelming urge to smack them. This kind of thinking overlooks one exceedingly important fact: many Error-ID sentences are precisely constructed so that you won’t hear the error!

Sure, you can use your ear on a lot of the essay questions and on some of the medium ones, but on the hard ones… you’ll get trampled on. If you want a score above the 500s, you have to actually know what you’re looking for (unless, of course, you’re a 99th percentile outlier, in which case you probably don’t have to be reading this).

If you don’t immediately pick up on an error, you must work from the underlined words and phrases themselves. Particular types of underlined words often suggest particular types of errors, and if everything does indeed check out, you can pick option E with something resembling confidence.

While I’m not going to go through the entire list of everything that could possibly be wrong with Error-ID questions (you can find that list here, along with examples), I am going to cover only the most frequently occurring errors. So here goes. In order of what you should check:

1) Underlined Verbs

An underlined verb can have two possible errors: subject-verb agreement and tense.

If a verb is in the present tense, start by checking the subject. Make sure you cross out any potential distractions such as non-essential clauses and prepositional phrases, and make sure you identify the entire subject. If you don’t take the time to do this, you risk missing the fact that you’re dealing with a compound subject (two singular nouns joined by and).

If the agreement is ok, see if the tense works. Although there could theoretically be a lot of different errors involving tense, there really aren’t most of the time. The main thing to remember is that verb tenses and forms should remain consistent (or parallel) throughout a sentence unless there’s good reason for them to change.

The inclusion of a date or time period often indicates a tense question, so if you see one, check tenses first. Remember: any finished event that occurred in the past (e.g. the Civil War) must be talked about in the simple past (“it happened,” not “it has happened”).

Gerunds and infinitives (e.g. “to go” and “going”) get switched, and “would” and “will” get switched, so if one of those is underlined, plug in the other one and see if it works better.

2) Pronouns

Next to verb errors, pronoun errors are most likely to occur. If a pronoun is underlined, check to make sure that it “matches” the noun it refers to.

Singular pronouns (like “it” or “its”) must refer to singular nouns, and plural pronouns (“they” or “their”) must go with plural nouns.

If the word “it” appears, check it first because it’s most likely wrong.

“One” goes with “one”

“You” goes with “you”

Any singular person goes with “he or she,” never “they”

Keep in mind that about 1/3 of all grammar questions deal with either verbs or pronouns, so if there’s no problem with either of these things, there’s already a decent chance the answer will be E.

If a collective noun (jury, team, agency, city, school, country, etc.) appear, chances are that’s what the question is testing: collective nouns are singular, so check both subject-verb and pronoun agreement.

3) Lists

All of the items in a list must be the same: noun, noun noun; verb, verb, verb, etc. If a sentence includes a list, there’s a good chance there’s an error in it.

3) Adjective and Adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs are switched only with one another. If an adjective is underlined, stick in the adverb (e.g. if “calm” is underlined, stick in “calmly”). Adverbs themselves are almost never wrong.

4) Faulty Comparison

Compare people to people and things to things (e.g. The novels of Jane Austen are more widely read than those of Charlotte Bronte, NOT: The novels of Jane Austen are more widely read thanCharlotte Bronte)

Always be on the lookout for expressions such as “more less/less than” that indicate things that are being compared, especially toward the ends of sections.

Also look out for a mention of artists and authors. They tend to be included in faulty comparisons.

5) Word Pairs

“Either…or,” “Neither…nor,” “As…as” and “Not only…but also” are the most common words pairs on Error-IDs. They tend to only be included when there’s something wrong with them, at least on easy-medium questions.

6) Prepositions and Idioms

This is the one place you do have to trust your ear. If a preposition sounds wrong to you (e.g. “She is familiar in the paintings of Marc Chagall), it probably is.

7) More vs. Most

If the word “more” is underlined, see how many things are being compared. If it’s two, you’re fine; if it’s more than two, you need “most.” (e.g. “Between the dog and the cat, the dog is more outgoing but the cat is more independent” BUT “the cat is the most independent of all domestic animals.”)

8) Noun Agreement

Plural subject = plural noun

Look for the phrase “as a + profession” (writer, director, entomologist…)

Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are recognized as the directors (not: the director) most responsible for producing hit action movies.

So no, this isn’t everything that could possibly show up, but if you don’t see one of these errors, don’t twist yourself into knots looking for something that probably isn’t there.