I. 6 Tactics for Analyzing a Reading Comprehension Passage

wA. The writer's purpose and voice

wB. Finding the essay's main point

wC. Finding the purpose of each paragraph

wD. Determining the scope of the argument

wE. Determining the structure

wF. Don't read, skim

II. Three Most Common Question Types

III. 4 Step Method of Attacking Reading Comprehension Passages and Sample Essay

Need Help With Pacing? Try 800score.com's exclusive pacer watch.

II. Three Most Common Question Types

A. Recall questions
B. Synthesis
C. Comprehension

A. Recall Questions

Recall questions ask you to recall by name key organizing terms (features, causes, and characteristics), special disciplinary terms, technical terms, metaphors and similes, symbols, and/or quantities. It's fairly simple to identify a recall question from its stem:

• According to the passage/author...
• The author states that...
• The author mentions which one of the following as...

Often, these questions provide very direct clues about where an answer may be found, such as line references or some text that links up with the passage structure.

    You may recall that we advised you to skim over details in Reading Comprehension passages and to focus on the topic, scope, and purpose. This appears to be a contradiction with these highly specific detail questions. The fact is most of the details that appear in a typical passage aren't tested in the questions. Of the few that are, you'll either

• Remember them from your reading;
• Be given a line reference to bring you right to them; or
• Simply have to find them on your own in order to track down the answer.

    If your mental road map and understanding of the purpose of each paragraph are both clear in your mind, it shouldn't take long to locate the relevant detail and then choose an answer. Despite this question type, the winning strategy is still to note the purpose of details in each paragraph's argument, but not to attempt to memorize the details themselves. Consider the following passage:

Entire disciplines contain scientists who participate in communities of colleagues. Crudely stated, what enlivens this system is recognition-incentives from within the discipline. Recognition facilitates access to funding, but the primary currency is said to be social and intellectual rather than financial. Scientists are favored with honors and awards, which are emblematic affirmations and increments of status within their specialties. Of these, eponymy--i.e., the designation, in this case of an entire science or a particular innovation by reference to the discoverer's name--is the most enduring, the most distinguished, and therefore, the most coveted form of recognition.

The recall question asks:
Which of the following best describes what animates the system of rewards in scientific research?
A) financial rewards
B) honors and awards specific to excellence in the science
C) social and intellectual recognition
D) competition for original discovery
E) exchange of original information



The recall question asks only that you retrieve factual data stated flatly in the passage. In this case, the correct answer is (C). Recall questions can almost always be answered by a direct quote: "Recognition facilitates access to funding, but the primary currency is said to be social and intellectual rather than financial." The primary currency is "social and intellectual." That is the answer.

Strategy 1: Recall questions tend to occur more at the lower skill levels. Because the test is a CAT, lower skill level students will tend to encounter them more.

Strategy 2: If the passage puts a highly unusual phrase in quotes or emphasizes some unusual jargon, make a mental note of it because there is a good chance that an important piece of jargon or new phrase may be used in a question. In this case, when you are reading the essay, you can expect a question about "eponymy".

 

B. Synthesis Questions

    Synthesis questions ask that you identify the whole object, system, organism, process, or idea and/or establish the relationship of the whole to its parts. 

Consider the following passage:

These stages reflect the system of color discrimination common to all primates. Roughly, four paired sets of neurons respond to light of different wavelengths, the pair that responds to light/dark distinctions being phylogenetically the oldest. The pair that responds to red/green is perhaps the second oldest, and so on. In other words, the distinctions that have been longest within the power of our remote ancestors to make are the most likely to be represented in language, while more recent ones are progressively less likely, and those that depend on cultural rather than biological factors (the browns, pinks, and so on) are rarer still.

The synthesis question asks the following:

In this passage, color discrimination is described as:
A) deriving from the visual properties of objects
B) deriving from cultural factors to a lesser extent than from biological factors
C) occurring in fixed order corresponding to phylogenetic order of development of sets of neurons
D) deriving from biological factors to a lesser extent than from cultural factors
E) occurring first at random in response to environmental circumstances, then in increasingly predictable stages


Although (B) may be derived from the passage, the most broadly correct answer is (C). (C) makes a general claim about the whole: that the system of color discrimination (whole) proceeds in stages (parts) according to a particular order (phylogeneticage). (A) is incorrect. The passage flatly declares that color discrimination does not derive from specific objects. (B) is correct but too narrow. (D) is flatly contradicted by the information in the passage. The conditions of (E) are not mentioned at all in the passage.

 

C. Comprehension Questions

     Comprehension questions derive from the full factual, organizational, and argumentative field of the passage. These questions draw on all your resources of analysis and understanding and ask that you restate, interpret, or deduce logically consistent statements from the thesis or general claim of a passage. They typically look like this:

• It can be inferred from the passage that...
• The passage/author suggests that…
• The passage/author implies that...
• The passage supports which one of the following statements regarding...

     In answering the comprehension question, you must determine the thesis or general claim of the passage. Frequently, but not always, this will be the first or the last sentence of the passage. It will advance a broad claim relative to the parts/whole or reasons given as evidence in the passage. You must also look closely at the conditions expressed in the word choice of the thesis or general claim. Extracting valid inferences from Reading Comprehension passages requires the ability to recognize that information in the passage can be expressed in different ways. The ability to bridge the gap between the way information is presented in the passage and the way it's presented in the correct answer choice is vital. In fact, comprehension questions often boil down to an exercise in "translation." Consider the general claim of this passage:

This is the noble lie, which Plato broaches through the mouth of Socrates in the third book of the Republic. "How, then," Socrates asks, "might we contrive one of those opportune falsehoods of which we were just now speaking, so as by one noble lie to persuade the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city?" Plato assumes that the rulers, being philosophers, may gulp at their own propaganda but that the masses might eventually be brought to swallow it.

     May we infer that Plato approves of Socrates' proposal? May we infer that Socrates bears malevolence toward the populace? May we infer that Socrates was extremely reluctant to use terror as an instrument of persuasion? None of these inferences is supported by the statements given. However, we may infer that Socrates has spoken of several opportune falsehoods before the time of this telling. We may infer, on the basis of Plato's inference, that because the rulers are philosophers, they may gulp at their own propaganda. A close reading will support each of these inferences.
      

Strategy 1: Comprehension questions don't focus on individual issues. When a question asks, "What is the main point of the passage?", the answer will not be a small detail.

Strategy 2: Be alert for partially correct answers. Occasionally you will encounter an instance in which two or more answers to a question are correct. When you do, look for the most broadly and comprehensively accurate answer, the one that accounts correctly for the greatest number of aspects or features or parts or qualities named in the reading passage. For example, an answer may be correct but too narrow; the best answer will be both correct and broadly inclusive within the scope of the question.

 

III. 4 Step Method of Attacking Reading Comprehension Passages and Sample Essay

---

<< go back to table of contents

If you have any more questions or suggestions, email 800score.com