Critical Reading Flashcards
Tip 2
the correct answers to SAT Critical Reading questions always function by restating relevant ideas from the text, and the incorrect answers are always wrong because they fail to restate ideas from the text.)
In other words, believe it or not, we’ll find that the correct answer to every single question on the Critical Reading section of the SAT is spelled out somewhere on the page.
Quotation marks
When we see unattributed quotation marks in a reading question, they are almost always serving to call the meaning of the quoted word into question.
Tip 3
On the SAT, when a question or answer choice refers to a metaphor, it’s referring to any non- literal use of a term.
Tip 4
So even for the “tone, mood, and attitude” questions, the correct answer is going to be spelled out (defined) somewhere in the text.
Debate
Requires an Opposing view point
Tip 5
in English, if we say that something is “as X as it is Y,” we mean that it is very X and very Y, not just that it is equally X and Y.
Tip 6
the College Board will treat two ideas expressed in quick succession as though they are perfectly synonymous; if there is a negating word between those two ideas, the College Board will treat those ideas as though they are perfect antonyms.
The first of these rules has to do with something I call “parallelism,” and it says that two ideas stated in succession can be treated as exact synonyms if a question asks about them, even though they aren’t synonyms in real life. If two ideas are stated in quick succession and they have some kind of negating phrase between them, then we should treat those two ideas as exact antonyms for the purpose of the SAT, even though they wouldn’t have to be antonyms in real life.
Humor
Whe n the College Board refers to part of a passage as “humorous,” “comical,” “funny,” or anything else along those lines, we should understand that to mean that the text cannot be true in a literal sense. For instance, if the text says something like “when I found out we would have homework over the vacation I was the mayor of Angrytown,” then the College Board might refer to that remark as humorous, because the speaker wasn’t really made the mayor of a place called Angrytown just because he found out about a test. Whether a real person would actually laugh at something doesn’t matter on the SAT; all that matters is whether the text describes something that couldn’t literally happen.
Irony
something as “ironic,” we should understand that the text describes some kind of contradiction.
