PSAT Reading — primary sources from US history

History and social studies is one of the four subject areas from which the PSAT/NMSQT Reading and Writing section draws its short passages, and some of the most demanding of them are primary sources: a sentence from a founding document, a paragraph of a speech, a few lines of a letter. They are hard for reasons that have little to do with history knowledge. The sentences are long and built from clauses, familiar words carry older meanings (a “candid” world is an impartial one; to “deprecate” war is to wish to avoid it), and the argument often turns on a rhetorical question or on a “not this, but that” contrast.

This material practices those passages directly. Its twelve questions quote genuine excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, Federalist Nos. 10 and 51, George Washington's Farewell Address, Abigail Adams's 1776 letter asking her husband to “remember the ladies,” Abraham Lincoln's House Divided speech and Second Inaugural Address, Frederick Douglass's 1852 Fourth of July speech and Susan B. Anthony's 1873 argument that “we, the people” means the whole people. The questions cover the skills tested on these passages: main purpose, central idea, what a writer predicts or implies, an older word sense in context, the function of a passage in an argument, and one cross-text question comparing Washington and Madison on the spirit of party. Each question gives the author, date and occasion in a sentence, so no outside knowledge is needed, and each explanation shows which words decide the answer.

The flashcards collect the tools for reading such texts: finding the main clause, older word senses, rhetorical questions, antithesis, audience and purpose. The printable written work asks for short analyses of further excerpts, from “with malice toward none” and the logic of the Declaration's second paragraph to the Preamble words Anthony relied on. The oral exam puts the same excerpts into conversation, one question at a time, with the examiner asking you to point to the words behind each answer.

Practice material written by Zestly for students preparing for the PSAT/NMSQT; it is not produced or endorsed by the College Board or NMSC.

• Identify the main purpose and central idea of an excerpt from a founding document or speech
• Work out older word senses from context (candid, deprecate, faction)
• Follow long eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sentences to their main clause
• Recognize rhetorical questions and antithesis and what they assert
• Describe the function of an excerpt within a larger argument
• Compare the positions of two writers on the same problem

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the Information and Ideas and Craft and Structure skills described in the College Board's Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite. Excerpts from US founding documents, presidential addresses and nineteenth-century speeches and letters (public domain).