SAT — Information and Ideas, mixed set
The three materials before this one take the question types of this domain one at a time, which is the right way to learn them and the wrong way to be tested on them. On the real section they arrive interleaved, and a large part of the difficulty is simply noticing what is being asked before starting to answer. This set restores that difficulty: ten questions, no two of the same type together, in the proportions the domain actually uses — three central idea, two detail, two textual evidence, two inference, and one set of results to read.
The types reward different reflexes, and mixing them is what makes the reflexes worth having. A central idea question wants the claim the passage was built to make, which is often a correction of the view stated in its own first sentence. A detail question wants only what is on the page, and is failed most often by a choice that is a reasonable inference rather than a statement — one item here separates a butterfly's departure date from its speed of travel, which are easy to conflate when reading quickly. An inference question wants what follows and nothing more, and includes among its wrong answers a completion that simply restates a fact already given: true, harmless, and wrong after the words "it is therefore fair to say". A textual evidence question wants the finding that would change one's confidence in a claim, which for a comparative claim means whatever rules out the rival explanation. And a set of results wants the comparison the figures actually make — here two figures differ and two are identical, and the identical pair is in the passage precisely to catch a claim built on the wrong comparison.
Two items are worth attention after answering. The screen-and-sleep question asks what weakens a claim that names a mechanism, and the strongest attack is on the mechanism: remove the blue light with a filter, and see whether the effect survives. Its wrong answers include one that supports the claim, one that is merely compatible with it, and one that widens it — three different relationships to a claim, only one of which is damage. The marine reserve question asks the same skill in the supporting direction: the biologist argues the ban rather than the water, so the evidence she needs is that the water behaved identically inside and outside.
Every explanation names the question type first and says what that type asks for, then justifies the key and describes what is wrong with each other choice. Every study, researcher, institution, firm and work here is invented, and no invented finding is attributed to a real organization, journal or university. Nothing is reproduced from any College Board publication, released test, practice test, question bank or scoring guideline. The real section presents some results as graphs; here they are in sentences.
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- Recognize which of the domain's question types is being asked before choosing an answer
- Find a passage's central claim, including when it corrects the view stated in its first line
- Answer a detail question from the page alone, refusing a reasonable inference in its place
- Complete a passage with what follows, and reject a completion that only restates a given fact
- Support a comparative claim by ruling out the explanation it argues against
- Attack a claim at its named mechanism rather than at whether any effect occurs
- Tell a finding that damages a claim from one that merely fails to help it
- Read a short set of figures for which comparison they make and which they do not
- Hold both halves of a balanced description when drawing a conclusion from it
- Notice when a writer declines to rank two things, and refuse an answer that ranks them
Consider this claim. "A marine biologist argues that the recovery of reef fish populations inside the Calder Marine Reserve is due chiefly to the ban on net fishing introduced there, rather than to any change in water conditions." Which finding, if true, would most strongly support her argument?
Sample question
Consider this passage. "The nineteenth-century painter Elena Vance was long dismissed by critics as an imitator of the French Impressionists. Recently discovered private journals show, however, that she was experimenting with light-refraction techniques years before her contemporaries in Paris, and they document a systematic study of optics alongside a deliberate rejection of the soft-focus manner her peers favored." Which choice best states the writer's main point?
- Vance was heavily influenced by the French Impressionists throughout her working life.
- The critics were right to describe Vance as an imitator of the Impressionist movement.
- New evidence indicates that Vance was an innovator who arrived at her techniques before her peers.
- Vance kept her journals chiefly in order to justify her choices to the critics of her day.
See the answer
New evidence indicates that Vance was an innovator who arrived at her techniques before her peers.
This is a central idea question, which asks for the claim the whole passage is built to make. Here that claim is a correction: the journals show Vance experimenting independently, and earlier, than the painters she was said to be copying. Saying she was heavily influenced throughout her life is the view the passage introduces in order to overturn. Saying the critics were right ignores the evidence the writer brings in with "however". And the statement about why she kept the journals supplies a motive the writer never gives — they appear here as a record of what she did, not as a document addressed to critics.