A helpful, supplementary study guide for the SAT provides students with additional practice and test-taking strategies to help them tackle the exam's toughest questions and raise scores in order to gain admission to one of America's top colleges. Original.
Chapter One: The Critical Reading Challenge
• Learn Kaplan's Five-Step Method for Critical Reading
• Practice the five Kaplan Reading Principles for working with Critical Reading passages.
• Get to know the Critical Reading question types.
If you're already a top scorer, you may find Critical Reading easy, like browsing through an article in your favorite magazine, and then having a pleasant chat about its contents with one of your more intellectual friends. Right. Most SAT takers, even high scorers, have trouble with Critical Reading. The passages are usually very dull, and the questions are either impossibly broad or way too picky.
As with all the other SAT question types, practice helps. Reading lots of dull books in your spare time may help you to get prepped for those zone-out passages. However, there's something much more helpful that you can do right now if you want to improve your Critical Reading performance. Let's say that again, in bold this time, in case you missed it.
One Thing You Can Do to Improve in SAT Critical Reading:
Learn how to spend less time reading the passage, and more time researching the questions and attacking the answer choices.
A 1600 test taker manages time wisely, especially when tackling tough passages.
Time management is a critical issue in SAT Critical Reading. Most students spend far too much time reading the passage, and not enough time researching the passage for the answers to specific questions, attacking the answer choices, and choosing the best response. To help you manage your time more efficiently, Kaplan has developed the following approach.
Attacking SAT Critical Reading Strategically
Step 1: When you first encounter the passage, read enough of it to figure out the author's "Big Idea" and get a general sense of how the passage is organized.
Step 2: Read the question; if a question seems hard, go back to it after you've answered the other questions in the set.
Step 3: As necessary, go back into the passage to locate the answer to a specific question.
Step 4: Put the answer in your own words.
Step 5: Attack the answer choices, and choose the one that comes closest to the answer you found.
This is the approach that you should internalize as you work through the Critical Reading passages in this book. We'll talk more about how to work with the passage and questions in the following sections, but this process should stay with you, no matter what.
Working with the Passage: Step 1
Step 1: When you first encounter the passage, read enough of it to figure out the author's "Big Idea" and get a general sense of how the passage is organized.
How you approach reading the passage may vary depending on how difficult the passage is, and whether you are running into time trouble. For instance, when you're not running into time trouble and the passage itself doesn't present serious obstacles, you'll want to read the entire passage. Here are some reading principles that will allow you to do so with maximum efficiency.
A 1600 test taker follows the Kaplan Reading Principles in order to focus and save time.
Principle 1: Focus on the author.
Principle 2: Don't sweat the details.
Principle 3: Read the first third closely.
Principle 4: Note paragraph topics and make a roadmap.
Principle 5: Stop to sum up.
Let's try this on the following passage.
The following passage is excerpted from the catalog of a museum exhibition on arms and armor. The passage provides examples of the connections between art and weaponry throughout the ages.
From the beginning, arms and art were essential and interrelated elements in the life of mankind. Weapons for the hunt were necessary tools in the daily struggle for survival. Art, meanwhile, seems to have begun primarily as hunting magic. By painting images of game animals on cave walls and carving them on spear-throwers and arrow straighteners, hunters attempted to use supernatural means to secure an abundant supply of meat and hides for food and clothing.
Since arms were literally a matter of life and death, either as weapons designed to kill or as armor designed to protect, it was crucial that they be constructed for maximum effect and with the greatest technical efficiency; in many cases this process also resulted in functional beauty. To further enhance the aesthetic and ideological values of arms -- and to increase their cachet as status symbols -- arms of all periods were embellished with a wide range of designs in every technique known to the decorative arts.
In classical antiquity, too, there was a close relationship between art and arms. The patron deity of the arts in ancient Greece, for instance, was Pallas Athena, who was represented as helmeted, armored, and carrying a shield and a spear. Significantly, there was also one among the Olympian gods who worked with his hands at a human craft, the divine smith Hephaestos -- known as Vulcan to the Romans -- who not only created dazzling jewelry for the goddesses but also manufactured impenetrable and splendidly decorated armor for the god of war Ares, or Mars, as well as for the mortal hero Achilles.
Evidence of the artistry brought to weapons in ancient times is abundant. In The Iliad, Homer describes the shield of Achilles as a mirror of the world "in imperishable bronze, some tin, and precious gold and silver." When Mycenae was excavated in 1875 by Heinrich Schliemann, he found swords and daggers decorated with superb multicolored inlays in the technique vividly described by Homer. They were of such artistic finesse that they would have met with the approval even of Hephaestos.
Under the influence of Christianity, the idea of the divine craftsman was transformed into a human figure: the legendary Wayland the Smith. Wayland worked in gold as well as in steel, fashioning jewels so temptingly beautiful as to sway the virtue of princesses, and forging sword blades painstakingly wrought from interwoven strands of iron and steel. The craft of the smith was believed to hold a powerful magic, and the prestige of even the greatest of Celtic or Germanic heroes was enhanced if they were apprenticed to smiths.
For centuries master craftsmen remained nameless, but when awakening artistic self-esteem in the Renaissance let artists step out of the shadows of anonymity, the greatest names, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Hans Holbein, Albrecht Durer, and Benvenuto Cellini, were found quite matter-of-factly among those of designers and manufacturers of arms.
Principle 1: Focus on the Author.
SAT Critical Reading tests your understanding of what the author is thinking and doing. Therefore, your focus as you read must always be on the author. The test writers may want you to draw conclusions about why the passage is organized the way it is and what the author's purpose is in writing it.
Inside your brain:
"Okay, this passage doesn't seem so bad. It appears to be about the relationship between art and weaponry in human history. In fact, the italicized information tells me that much, and also tells me that the passage was written for an art catalog. The author's tone is descriptive and neutral."
This is a good way to begin. Get the gist of the author's tone and his or her purpose in writing the passage.
Principle 2: Don't Sweat the Details.
Details are in the passage only to illustrate what the author is thinking or doing. Therefore, read over details quickly. Trying to comprehend all of the content is a waste of time. Always boil down the passage to its basics.
Inside your brain:
"'...Pallas Athena, who was represented as...In The Iliad, Homer describes...When Mycenae was excavated...' These are details. I don't need to memorize them. They might ask me questions about them later but that's okay, because I can always go back to the passage."
It's okay to recognize details. Just don't obsess over them.
Principle 3: Read the First Third Closely.
You should read the first third more closely than the rest of the passage. Why? Because the passage's topic is revealed here, and -- quite often -- so is the author's purpose, as well as his or her attitude towards the subject. This is what you want to know to get a sense of the "Big Picture."
Inside your brain:
"Since the beginning of mankind, art and weaponry have been very closely allied human activities. The very first sentence here gives me big idea of the whole passage. The rest of this paragraph applies this big idea to prehistoric man. The second discusses how a wide range of decorative arts were used in each period, and how art could even make weaponry a status symbol."
Good. Recognizing the topic and supporting details is key to understanding the passage.
Principle 4: Note Paragraph Topics and Make a Roadmap.
Paragraphs are the fundamental building blocks of a passage. Therefore, as you read, you should take note of paragraph topics and make a mental roadmap. Ask yourself: "What's the point of this paragraph? How does it fit into the overall structure of the passage?"
Inside your brain:
"The first paragraph discusses art and weaponry in the stone age and subsequent paragraphs carry this discussion up through the Renaissance (¶ 1: the stone age, ¶ 2: background, general about each period, ¶ ¶ 3 and 4: classical antiquity, ¶ 5: early Christianity, ¶ 6: the Renaissance)."
Principle 5: Stop to Sum Up.
After you've read through the passage, take a moment to think about how the passage was put together. Sum up the main idea of the passage in your own words.
Inside your brain:
"The passage was amazingly straightforward. It's about the close relationship between art and weaponry throughout history. It carries this discussion up through the Renaissance."
That's a clear, concise summary of the passage.
All the work that you've done to read and understand the passage in Step 1 will serve you well as you move on to Step 2: Attacking the Questions.
Working with the Questions: Step 2
As soon as you've read through the passage, you're ready to focus on the questions. Understanding the different types of Critical Reading questions can help you cut down on the amount of time you spend answering them. Each type of question calls for a slightly different plan of attack. Let's take a look at the different types of Critical Reading questions.
"Big Picture" Questions
Big picture questions relate to the passage as a whole. They may ask about the main idea or primary purpose of the passage. You should be able to answer these questions based on your initial reading of the passage.
Correct answers to Critical Reading questions tend to be fairly inconspicuous, while incorrect answers always contain some sort of wording that makes them definitely wrong. Therefore, the process of elimination is essential on this question type.
What does this mean to me?
You should concentrate your efforts on attacking and eliminating wrong answer choices. Common wrong answer choices to big picture questions include those that:
• Don't relate to the main idea of the passage
• Contradict the passage
• Are too specific (deal with just one part of the passage)
• Are too general (go beyond the scope of the passage)
• Are too extreme
A 1600 test taker has the Big Picture -- the author's main idea and purpose -- in mind before attacking the questions.
Keeping this in mind, give this big picture question a try.
The following passage is excerpted from the catalog of a museum exhibition on arms and armor. The passage provides examples of the connections between art and weaponry throughout the ages.
From the beginning, arms and art were essential and interrelated elements in the life of mankind. Weapons for the hunt were necessary tools in the daily struggle for survival. Art, meanwhile, seems to have begun primarily as hunting magic. By painting images of game animals on cave walls and carving them on spear-throwers and arrow straighteners, hunters attempted to use supernatural means to secure an abundant supply of meat and hides for food and clothing.
Since arms were literally a matter of life and death, either as weapons designed to kill or as armor designed to protect, it was crucial that they be constructed for maximum effect and with the greatest technical efficiency; in many cases this process also resulted in functional beauty. To further enhance the aesthetic and ideological values of arms -- and to increase their cachet as status symbols -- arms of all periods were embellished with a wide range of designs in every technique known to the decorative arts.
In classical antiquity, too, there was a close relationship between art and arms. The patron deity of the arts in ancient Greece, for instance, was Pallas Athena, who was represented as helmeted, armored, and carrying a shield and a spear. Significantly, there was also one among the Olympian gods who worked with his hands at a human craft, the divine smith Hephaestos -- known as Vulcan to the Romans -- who not only created dazzling jewelry for the goddesses but also manufactured impenetrable and splendidly decorated armor for the god of war Ares, or Mars, as well as for the mortal hero Achilles.
Evidence of the artistry brought to weapons in ancient times is abundant. In The Iliad, Homer describes the shield of Achilles as a mirror of the world "in imperishable bronze, some tin, and precious gold and silver." When Mycenae was excavated in 1875 by Heinrich Schliemann, he found swords and daggers decorated with superb multicolored inlays in the technique vividly described by Homer. They were of such artistic finesse that they would have met with the approval even of Hephaestos.
Under the influence of Christianity, the idea of the divine craftsman was transformed into a human figure: the legendary Wayland the Smith. Wayland worked in gold as well as in steel, fashioning jewels so temptingly beautiful as to sway the virtue of princesses, and forging sword blades painstakingly wrought from interwoven strands of iron and steel. The craft of the smith was believed to hold a powerful magic, and the prestige of even the greatest of Celtic or Germanic heroes was enhanced if they were apprenticed to smiths.
For centuries master craftsmen remained nameless, but when awakening artistic self-esteem in the Renaissance let artists step out of the shadows of anonymity, the greatest names, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Hans Holbein, Albrecht Durer, and Benvenuto Cellini, were found quite matter-of-factly among those of designers and manufacturers of arms.
1. The central purpose of the passage is to
(A) compare the relative importance of art and of arms-making in various eras
(B) describe the high level of artistry brought to arms-making throughout history
(C) show how the influence of Christianity affected the practice of arms-making
(D) analyze the interplay between Renaissance ideals of beauty and function in the design of arms
(E) trace the artistic growth of arms-making artisans throughout human history
This is a classic big picture question stem, one that you'll see often on the SAT. The answer should be summed up by the purpose and main idea of the passage.
(B) gives the most accurate paraphrase of the passage. (A) is wrong because the passage never says or implies that art and arms-making were more or less important in one era than in another. (C) is too narrow; the influence of Christianity is mentioned as one chapter in a lengthy history. (D) is also too specific; the Renaissance is only mentioned in the final paragraph. And (E) is off because the passage is about the relationship between arms-making and artistry, not the "artistic growth" of arms-making artisans.
Detail Questions
Detail questions ask about a specific part of the passage. On these questions, you may have to go back into the passage to research the answer.
The key is to know where to look for the answer. Also note that common wrong answer choices to detail questions include those that:
• Refer to the wrong part of the passage -- in other words, they don't answer the question being asked
• Use similar wording to the passage, but distort what was said
• Contradict the passage
• Go outside the scope of the passage, stating things that aren't said
• Use extreme wording
Line Reference Questions
Sometimes the test maker is kind enough to tell you exactly where to look in the passage to research the answer. Since you are told exactly where to go in the passage, go ahead and reread the sentence containing the line reference. Try to formulate your own answer to the question before looking at the answer choices.
Take a look at the following question. Refer to the passage as necessary to find the answer:
2. It is most likely that the author mentions Pallas Athena (line 18) and Hephaestos (line 21) in order to demonstrate
(A) the close association between the tools of war and the arts
(B) the difference between human and divine arts
(C) the classical ideals of beauty and craftsmanship
(D) the notion of artists as divinely inspired
(E) the technical advances in the artistry of weapon-making
This detail question gives us a line reference, so to answer the question we can go directly to the cited lines. Rereading the sentence before the referenced line will point to the best answer. "In classical antiquity, too, there was a close relationship between art and arms" (lines 16-17). Athena and Hephaestos are then used as examples of the connection between weaponry and the arts, so (A) is the correct answer.
Choice (B) isn't right because the paragraph isn't about divine arts. You can eliminate (C) because not enough description of Athena's weaponry is provided to qualify as a demonstration of the classical ideals of beauty and craftsmanship. (D) is out because the examples have nothing to do with artists being inspired. And finally, (E) is completely off base, as the paragraph in question has nothing to do with "technical advances."
Inference Questions
Inference questions can deal with either the big picture or details in the passage, but because of the way they are worded they present a unique challenge for test takers. This is because inference questions require you to conclude something that is not explicitly stated in the passage. To some extent, they require you to "read between the lines."
A 1600 test taker draws reasonable inferences that are within the scope of the passage.
We'll talk more about inference questions in a later section, but let's try one that fits with this passage.
3. In lines 12-15, the author implies that arms were decorated as a way of
(A) lending legitimacy to the causes for which wars were fought
(B) distinguishing them from purely ceremonial objects
(C) enhancing their effectiveness in battle
(D) identifying strategic military alliances
(E) suggesting the importance of those who possessed them
The word implies in the question stem signals that this is an inference question, and you may need to think outside the passage a bit in order to find the answer.
This question asks you to make an inference from information in the passage: Why were arms decorated in ancient times? Lines 12-15 give several reasons: it enhanced their aesthetic and ideological value, and made them more valuable as status symbols. (E) captures the second of these ideas -- decorating arms helped suggest the status or importance of the arms-bearer.
(A) is too broad: Arms decorating couldn't really make a war seem more legitimate. (B) distorts the passage: Distinguishing arms from purely ceremonial objects (vases, statues, etc.) doesn't seem to have been a problem. (C) is simply not mentioned, nor is (D).
Vocabulary-in-Context Questions
Vocabulary-in-context questions ask you about the usage of a single word. You won't need to define the word, but you'll need to glean the meaning of the word from context.
Here's our recommended method for handling vocabulary-in-context questions:
Step 1: Read the sentence through looking for clues.
Step 2: Predict a word that could replace the vocabulary word.
Step 3: Check the answer choices for a word that matches.
Step 4: Plug your selection into the sentence to make sure it makes sense.
4. In line 6, secure most nearly means
(A) create
(B) make safe
(C) obtain
(D) guard
(E) attach
This is a straightforward vocabulary-in-context question, so the first thing to do is go back to the passage and do a little research. According to lines 6-7, "Hunters attempted to use supernatural means to secure an abundant supply of meat and hides for food and clothing." In other words, they were trying to obtain a supply.
It doesn't make sense that they would (A) create a supply of animals. (B) and (D) don't work because the sentence is not about making safe or guarding the supply -- it's about getting it in the first place. Finally (E) makes no sense; why would anyone attach a supply of animals?
A 1600 test taker predicts the answer before checking out the answer choices to nail vocabulary-in-context questions.
Now that you've got the overview, let's go on to some hard -- really hard -- passages and look at what makes them hard. In the next chapter, we'll examine the different passage types and give you strategies to crack the toughest ones.
Copyright © 2002, by Kaplan, Inc.
