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When I first started doing SAT Reading problems in high school, I naturally thought to use what I learned in middle school and high school. Seems pretty logical, right? Turns out I was very wrong. The first thing you need to know about SAT Reading is that it's not really testing what you learned in school. In fact, a lot of the things we learned in school actually end up hurting us in this section. Before we even get started on any SAT Reading questions, let's go over the top 3 reasons we struggle on SAT Reading...
1. We Interpret: Think of high school English class and all the times you had to read a novel and then talk about it in class and then write an essay about it. Chances are your teachers didn't just want to talk about what happened in the book, but they also wanted you to analyze it. Read between the lines. Make inferences. Interpret. "What do you think F. Scott Fitzgerald thought about society when he wrote Great Gatsby?" Analyzing different works is extremely valuable in college and the real world...it's just not something you want to do on the SAT Reading section. Why? The SAT doesn't care about your interpretation or my interpretation. They only care about what actually happens in the passage. That's it! The correct answer is always directly stated in the passage. Otherwise, it's wrong!
The interpretation process is something that's so ingrained in our minds, that it does take a bit of time and effort to unlearn. Let's take an example of a hypothetical SAT reading passage describing a man named John. The passage states, "John fought as a confederate soldier during the American Civil War." The passage goes on to mention other aspects of John's life, but only that one sentence regarding the Civil War. This is where our interpretive minds can get us into trouble on the SAT...
Based on bolded statement above, the bullets points are all reasonable interpretations. However, they would all be incorrect as answer choices on the SAT! All we can take at face value is that John fought as a confederate soldier during the civil war. We can't make any assumptions on his views or even where he lived, unless the passage directly says so.
2. We Jump to the Answer Choices: After reading an SAT Reading question, it only makes sense to look at the answer choices, right? Wrong! Normally, it might make sense, but not on SAT Reading. In fact, jumping to the answer choices is one of the worst things you can do. Why? The answer choices are not our friends, but rather our enemies. Each answer choice has a way of messing with our heads to think it's correct. In other words, the answer choices start making us interpret. Instead, we we want to ignore the answer choices, refer back to the passage and create our own answer. We'll talk more about the steps later, but for now, just know that immediately jumping to the choices after reading the question is a big no no.
3. We try to Find the Correct Answer: All we've ever learned, from kindergarten to high school, is to focus on finding the right answer. Again, what seems like a no-brainer actually hurts us. We run into the same problems in trying to find the correct answer as immediately jumping to the answer choices...we let our brains get influenced by the fancy sounding answers and end up interpreting. Instead, I'm going to show you to focus on eliminating the 3 wrong answer choices. By focusing on eliminating, we're more focused on finding answer choices that are not in the passage.
When I first started doing SAT Reading problems in high school, I naturally thought to use what I learned in middle school and high school. Seems pretty logical, right? Turns out I was very wrong. The first thing you need to know about SAT Reading is that it's not really testing what you learned in school. In fact, a lot of the things we learned in school actually end up hurting us in this section. Before we even get started on any SAT Reading questions, let's go over the top 3 reasons we struggle on SAT Reading...
1. We Interpret: Think of high school English class and all the times you had to read a novel and then talk about it in class and then write an essay about it. Chances are your teachers didn't just want to talk about what happened in the book, but they also wanted you to analyze it. Read between the lines. Make inferences. Interpret. "What do you think F. Scott Fitzgerald thought about society when he wrote Great Gatsby?" Analyzing different works is extremely valuable in college and the real world...it's just not something you want to do on the SAT Reading section. Why? The SAT doesn't care about your interpretation or my interpretation. They only care about what actually happens in the passage. That's it! The correct answer is always directly stated in the passage. Otherwise, it's wrong!
The interpretation process is something that's so ingrained in our minds, that it does take a bit of time and effort to unlearn. Let's take an example of a hypothetical SAT reading passage describing a man named John. The passage states, "John fought as a confederate soldier during the American Civil War." The passage goes on to mention other aspects of John's life, but only that one sentence regarding the Civil War. This is where our interpretive minds can get us into trouble on the SAT...
- John was pro-slavery
- John thought that black people didn't deserve the same rights as white people
- John had racist tendencies
- John grew up and enjoyed living in the south
Based on bolded statement above, the bullets points are all reasonable interpretations. However, they would all be incorrect as answer choices on the SAT! All we can take at face value is that John fought as a confederate soldier during the civil war. We can't make any assumptions on his views or even where he lived, unless the passage directly says so.
2. We Jump to the Answer Choices: After reading an SAT Reading question, it only makes sense to look at the answer choices, right? Wrong! Normally, it might make sense, but not on SAT Reading. In fact, jumping to the answer choices is one of the worst things you can do. Why? The answer choices are not our friends, but rather our enemies. Each answer choice has a way of messing with our heads to think it's correct. In other words, the answer choices start making us interpret. Instead, we we want to ignore the answer choices, refer back to the passage and create our own answer. We'll talk more about the steps later, but for now, just know that immediately jumping to the choices after reading the question is a big no no.
3. We try to Find the Correct Answer: All we've ever learned, from kindergarten to high school, is to focus on finding the right answer. Again, what seems like a no-brainer actually hurts us. We run into the same problems in trying to find the correct answer as immediately jumping to the answer choices...we let our brains get influenced by the fancy sounding answers and end up interpreting. Instead, I'm going to show you to focus on eliminating the 3 wrong answer choices. By focusing on eliminating, we're more focused on finding answer choices that are not in the passage.