Reading Flashcards
Discuss responding to questions regarding predictions of the future
To respond to questions requiring future predictions, base your answers on evidence of past or present behavior.
Discuss finding contextual clues in a reading passage
Look for contextual clues. An answer can be right but not correct. The contextual clues will help you find the answer that is most right and correct.
When asked for the implied meaning of a statement made in the passage, immediately go find the statement and read the context it was made in. Also, look for an aster choice that has a similar phrase to the statement in question.
Discuss making comparisons and contrasts in the reading passage
The author will often present comparisons and contrasts in the reading passage. These are often couples with signal words, such as: more, most, less, least, but, or, instead, then-now, and before-after.
Discuss determining the topic of the reading passage
Your first task when you begin reading is to answer the question “What is the topic of the selection?” This can best be answered by quickly skimming the passage for the general idea, stopping to read only the first sentence of each paragraph. A paragraph’s first is usually the main topic sentence, and it gives you a summary of the content of the paragraph.
Discuss the importance of answering the related questions only from the reading
The reader should not use any outside knowledge that is not gathered from the reading passage to answer the related questions. Correct answers can be derived straight from the reading passage.
Discuss drawing conclusions from a reading passage
When asked for a conclusion that may be drawn, look for critical “hedge” phrases, such as likely, may, can, will often, sometimes, etc, often, almost, mostly, usually, generally, rarely, sometimes. Question writers insert these hedge phrases, to cover every possibility. Often an answer will be wrong simply because it leaves no room for exception. Extreme positive or negative answers (such as always, never, etc.) are usually not correct.
Discuss determining the author’s thought process
A number of questions become much easier when you place yourself into the mind of the author of the passage. Ask yourself a few different questions:
“Why did the author write this passage?”
“What was the author trying to say?”
“What angle is the author taking?”
“What is the single most important point the author is trying to make?”
Put yourself in the shoes of the author and imagine that you wrote the passage and try to identify what you were trying to describe an dhow you were trying to describe it. If you take on the opinions and ideas expressed by the author as your own, then it becomes easier to answer questions that would be easy for the author to answer.
Discuss emotional words in reading passages
Each question will be about a different angel of the passage. For questions asking about the author’s emotions, find words in the passage that are adjectives describing emotions.
So, if a question asks what sort of attitude an author had towards the passage or subject, then look throughout the passage for attitude words that might convey a positive or negative attitude. Are words such as brilliant, excited, delightful used? or are words such as depressive, gloomy, disappointing used?
A lot of questions could be answered correctly simply by going through a circling all the adjectives in a passage. WIthout looking at anything else except the adjectives most questions about attitude or emotion could be answered corruptly.
Another way of handling these situations is to arrange all the answer choices in a list from most negative to most positive. That will help sort out the different choices and keep you from overlooking an answer choice and making an easy mistake.
Discuss drawing generalizations
To answer generalization questions, you have to go beyond what is directly stated in the passage but the author. It helps to put yourself again in the author’s shoes. If you were the author and believed in what you had just written, how would you feel about another similar situation? What would either strengthen or weaken your argument? How would your apply the information you have just expressed to a completely different situation?
Discuss determining cause-effect relationships
There are often questions relating to cause-effect relationships in a reading passage.
The following words announce a cause being presented: because, since, and thus.
The effect results from the cause is announced by the words: therefore, effects, and leads to.
Discuss eliminating choices
Some choices can quickly be eliminated. “Andy Warhol lived there.” Is Andy Warhol even mentioned in the article? If not, quickly eliminate it.
When trying to answer a question such as “the passage indicates all of the following EXCEPT” quickly ski the paragraph searching for references to each choice. If the reference exists, scratch it off as a choice. Similar choices may be crossed off simultaneously if they are close enough.
In choices that ask you to choose “which answer choice is NOT described?” or “all of the following answer choices are identifiable characteristics EXCEPT which?”look for answers that are similarly worded. Since only one answer can be correct, it there are two answer that appear to mean the same thing, they must BOTH be incorrect and can be eliminated.
Discuss understanding sequence of events
Some test questions ask you about the sequence or order that events or things take place. These questions use words like:
first and last,
then and next,
before and after.
