Center For Academic Excellence
CAE | SAT Prep: Verbal Portion
This part of the test is difficult for three reasons:
- The reading selection is often obscure to ensure that test takers do not answer from memory.
- There is no title· therefore, you have no idea what you are going to read about.
- The readings are carefully edited to fit questions, and therefore the text is dense.
Six types of questions:
- Main idea, purpose, title, source
- Logical structure
- Tone (attitude of the author toward the work
- Facts, details
- Implications suggestions, inferences
- Further applications
Strategies for reading comprehension
- Find the topic first by reading the first paragraph and the first sentence of each paragraph. (maybe the first three sentences in the first paragraph)
- Read the stem of each question noting key words.
- As you read each paragraph ask, "What is the point? Why is the information given?"
- As you read the answers, eliminate some choices immediately and draw a line through them.
- Make a sentence with the pairs (lack of, type of, part of, place for, degree of, tool for, sign of, sequence, spurious form of)
- If all answers fit the analogy of your sentence, make your sentence more specific.
- If you cannot make a sentence with the question analogy, reverse the order and check the answer for a possible relationship.
- Remember that often the second word is often an extreme degree of the first.
- Recognize that most pairs are adjectives or nouns and the answer will have the same pairing.
- This test is a test of overall reading comprehenion.
- As you read, anticipate and supply your own word or words.
- Often a suggested answer is wrong because it creates a phrase that is not idiomatic.
- Another reason to reject a pssible answer is that it fails to support the logic of the sentence.
Produced by MUSC's Center for Academic Excellence under the supcrvision of Dr. Jennie Ariail.
Jennie Ariail, Ph.D. - Director
Tom Smith, Ph.D. - Associate Director