One of the most important principles of effective teaching is to keep students focused on whatever it is you want them to learn. When you see that statement written out so directly, it seems so intuitive and obvious that it hardly bears consideration; however, it can be surprisingly challenging to put into practice, particularly when it comes to standardized tests, whose passages and questions contain both relevant and irrelevant information—and sometimes a good deal more of the latter than the former. As a test-prep tutor, you are responsible for helping students learn to identify what is relevant information and, just as importantly, ignore what it is not.
Both SAT and ACT questions may appear to be testing one thing when in fact they are testing something else; alternatively, they may appear to test multiple concepts when in fact they are really focused on only one. Students are, of course, routinely coached on how to spot “distractor” answers, but from a teaching perspective, it is just as crucial not to bog students down with explanations and concepts that are only tangential to what’s being tested.
You should also be able to model the simplification process, as well as lead students through it, until they can reliably distinguish “signal” from “noise” on their own.
This is a fine line to walk: you want to make things seem manageable but not simplistic, nor do you want to inadvertently downplay the challenges of the test, especially for low-scoring students (I learned that lesson the hard way early on). This part of what makes teaching an art and not a science.
It helps, though, to know that cognitive science research has shown novice learners have a limited capacity to absorb new concepts, and that instruction tends to be most effective when no more than a few pieces of information are introduced at a time. To teach novices effectively, you must therefore know what principal concept(s) to highlight and which others to ignore on any given question. As a side benefit, this approach tends to solve most potential timing problems, as well as the ensuing anxiety issues, before they ever have a chance to emerge.
With that said, let’s look at an example.
The spacecraft Voyager 1, which was launched in 1977 along with Voyager 2, _____ more than 15.8 miles and is now the human-made object most distant from Earth.
A. has traveled
B. have traveled
C. are traveling
D. traveling
This is a pretty typical question structure, for both the SAT and the ACT; it also contains a pretty common set of answer-choice patterns. If you know the tests well, it’s quite easy to predict the correct answer without even reading the question (which is why I’m starting with it).
The presence of both a singular (has) and plural (has, are) verbs strongly suggests that the question is testing subject-verb agreement, and that the presence of different tenses (present perfect vs. present) and the -ing form in D are only distractions.
The fact there are two plural options (potentially ambiguous) versus only one singular option (straightforwardly right or wrong) further suggests that the singular form will be correct.
Indeed, when we go back to the question, we can see that it follows the common subject – non-essential clause – verb structure, as indicated by the commas around the phrase which was launched in 1977 along with Voyager 2. The subject, The spacecraft Voyager 1, is singular, and so a singular main verb (has) is required, making A the only option.
From a tutoring perspective, this type of question requires you to distinguish, and thus to help your students distinguish, between information that is present and information that is relevant. And here, the presence of different tenses has no bearing whatsoever on the answer.
Thus, while it might at first glance seem reasonable to go over the distinction between the present and the present perfect, a discussion about tense on this particular question would actually redirect students’ attention from relevant to irrelevant information, increasing the chance of their having difficulty recognizing the pattern at play in similar questions.
To be clear, this is not about teaching “tricks,” even though it may seem that way to an adult who takes a lot of knowledge for granted. Rather, it’s about making provisional assumptions based on how the test often works, then checking out those assumptions to make sure the probable answer does in fact fit. And that in turn requires some pretty hefty skills.
Consider that to confirm the correct answer grammatically, students must be able to:
- Identify subjects (nouns) and their corresponding verbs.
- Distinguish between singular and plural verbs.
- Recall that singular *verbs* (unlike nouns) end in -s, whereas plural verbs do not.
- Identify the non-essential information placed between the subject and verb, as indicated by the two commas.
- In the case of the SAT, mentally remove the non-essential information and read the remainder of the sentence accurately on a screen.
For a student with little previous grammar study—which is to say the vast majority of U.S. high school students—this already represents a very considerable strain on working memory. Throwing additional terminology and rules unrelated to question’s true focus into the mix is likely to be cognitively overwhelming: it raises the chance that none of it will be retained, or that some sort of confusion will occur.
Regarding choice D: if a student genuinely has difficulty identifying sentences and fragments, and understanding when -ing forms can and cannot be used, then you may need to discuss this choice as well. But again, remember that the purpose of a distractor answer is, well, to distract. Because these concepts are not the main focus of the question, it is a good idea to keep your discussion of them to a minimum and save the in-depth explanations for questions on which they are the point.
Now let’s look at something trickier. It’s an ACT-style question, written to seem much more complicated than it is, and it is exactly the type of question on which tutors tend to inadvertently get caught up in distracting minutiae.
Buried for centuries after it was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD, the Roman city of Pompeii is among the most thoroughly excavated sites in the world. Today, it continues to reveal clues about the _____ that constructed it.
A. fascinating, ancient, civilization
B. fascinating ancient, civilization
C. fascinating, ancient civilization,
D. fascinating, ancient civilization
When we look at the answer choices, we can notice that they involve two adjectives (fascinating, ancient) and a comma in various combinations. So that tells us the question is testing commas with adjectives.
At this point, I suspect that many tutors have something like the following thought process: What’s the rule for putting commas between two adjectives…? Oh right, you can use a comma if “and” can be inserted between the adjectives, and if the order of the adjectives can be reversed. And then they start spinning from there.
Unfortunately, that approach is not particularly useful. First, because questions specifically targeting that rule are really, really rare; and second, because it’s not actually that relevant in this case. Also, it can sometimes fall into a gray area, which I’ll get to in a little bit.
Here’s the simpler, less ambiguous way to answer the question: A and B can both be eliminated automatically because no comma should ever be placed between an adjective (ancient) and the noun it modifies (civilization). C can also be gotten rid of right away because when the answer is plugged in, a comma is placed before that, which is basically is always wrong as well. So by default, D must be right.
In case you’re wondering, the comma is acceptable because it is fine to say fascinating and ancient civilizationor ancient, fascinating civilization, even if the second version sounds less great. Now, here’s the rub: it is also fine to say fascinating ancient civilization, without the comma, because ancient civilization can be understood as a single chunk, which is then modified by fascinating. In that reading, the adjectives aren’t serial, and hence no comma is necessary.
See what I mean about a gray area?
So while grounds for a potentially fascinating discussion about how punctuation can be used to create subtle shades of meaning —if you’re into that sort of thing, of course—in a short-term test-prep context this is also a hideous waste of time and has the potential to be massively confusing to students.
What this means is that if you are just starting out as a tutor; or if you come from a more traditional teaching background; or if you are shaky in a particular area, you may need to spend some real time before sessions making sure you know exactly what every question you’re going to cover is truly testing. Not only that, but it strongly—to use one of my twelfth-grade English teacher’s favorite words—behooves you to identify questions that appear to be testing one thing but are actually testing something else so that you can alert your students to that fact and direct their attention accordingly.
Yes, this may involve some additional work on your end, but both you and your students will almost certainly be happier with the result.