<p>How do you get inference/function questions right? I'm taking the sat in may and i really need help in these areas.</p>
<p>You use your cerebral cortex, that's how you get inference questions. Studying vocab and the format is all you can do. The IQ part of the SAT rests in how you use those neurons in your head of yours to separate yourself from the rest of America to get an 800 in CR. Really though just take a lot of practice tests until you get used to it.</p>
<p>^ LOL!
Thanks for that!</p>
<p>@crisscross - Just calm down, read attentively (or as most books say, <em>actively</em> even though that brings to mind the horrific experiences of gym class, and remembering those memories of humiliation definitely don't help at all with CR passages, but anyway...), and practice! I cannot stress this enough!</p>
<p>Here's another tip. Whenever you have to deal with a CR passage, always take note of the:
1. Main Idea (the gist of the passage)
2. Tone</p>
<p>This always helps me. :)
Good luck!</p>
<p>Remember that inferences, by SAT standards, are really solid deductions you can make from the text. In other words, an inference is something that must be true (or is nearly so) based on what is directly stated in the text. Do not make unnecessary assumptions when looking for an inference. Analyze all five choices on these questions and convince yourself that there is always one and only one choice that fits this criterion, and the four other choices are things that could be true or could be false (based on the text) or must be false.</p>
<p>thanks so much i'm taking ithe sat in may 3 and i really want a high score</p>
<p>Hey crisscross,</p>
<p>Godot brings up some good points. Let me elaborate a little further. Inferences you make on the SAT are different from the types of inferences you probably make in your daily life. You should not treat SAT inference questions in same the manner in which you make inferences with, say, your friends or even your teachers in school. You should not be jumping to any conclusions of your own or drawing your own assumptions. Instead, you should simply be pulling out answers from the passages. Let me give you an oversimplified example:</p>
<p>In your daily life, someone may tell you that, “Matt is fat.”</p>
<p>Based on this, you may draw the assumption (or infer) that, “Matt likes food.”</p>
<p>HOWEVER, on the SAT you can’t make such a conclusion. A better answer may be that “Matt is perhaps a portly individual.” </p>
<p>I know this is a way oversimplified example, but it gets my point across. The reason that you can’t draw your own conclusions on the SAT is that the SAT is a standardized, or objective, test. This means that the only answers that could be deemed correct are the ones that every student can come to conclude is true based on what’s given. </p>
<p>This brings me to my second, and more important, tip: learn to evaluate the answer choices. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but your focus should be on the answer choices more than on the passages themselves. If you think about it, each passage-based question can only have one correct answer, which means that the test-makers have to devise four other choices that are intentionally meant to fool you and draw you to them. If you analyze the answer choices, you’ll notice that there are some patterns in these answer choices that’ll help you determine which ones are incorrect. The same goes for identifying the correct answer.</p>
<p>I’ve written about this extensively in the past for my students in a post entitled How</a> I improved my Critical Reading Score by 150 Points. Malcolm Gladwell has also published some pieces in the New Yorker about similar patterns on the SAT. I know this may be a little confusing at first, but it’ll become much clearer with some practice. These are some advanced techniques I developed after many years of studying for and teaching the SAT. I hope this helps. If you’re confused by anything I’ve said, I’d be glad to clarify.</p>
<p>Wow thanks Godot and fattymatty! I do tend to jump to conclusions a lot during critical reading, reducing my overall grade by 40-50 points. I just need to stay focused and try not to put my own input into the passage.</p>
<pre><code> THANKS SO MUCH!!
</code></pre>
<p>fattymatty, when you say analyze the answer choices do you mean identify them as "Out-of scope", "Distortion" or "Too Extreme"?</p>
<p>fattymatty - your site is the !@#$! its awesome!</p>
<p>^ ditto!!!</p>
<p>^agreed!! Thanks!! Do you have any math help posts?</p>
<p>yeah, I left you a comment. Keep them coming, super fast =]. SATS 6 days away.</p>
<p>crisscross, jakezhang, circumlocution2, and jumpngo,</p>
<p>Thanks for all the positive words about the site guys. I haven't had a chance to cover a lot of the things yet, but I intend to. I wanted to start off with the Critical Reading Sections because I haven't found many good resources for passage-based questions on the web. I plan to cover all the sections of the test eventually and add explanations for the blue book questions, among many other things. Good luck on your tests.</p>
<p>thanks. could i make a request. Could you post the best tips/techniques/ or whatever tidbits that would help the most. Some additional supplements that we could all add to our own strategies to maximize efficienecy w;eoifja;oiejf;oiwej etc. stupid SATs... Thanks again fattymatty.</p>
<p>I'm going to go over as much of the grammatical concepts for the Writing Sections, the Essay, and some general strategies, all by the end of this week. There's just too much stuff to do with math to start an entire section before this upcoming test. </p>
<p>I've never felt so much pressure from the SAT without actually having to take it. I really want all of you guys to do well! It's encouraging to see from your journal posts that you guys are studying so hard for this. Keep up with the studying, and I'll try my best to post the advice you need on my site.</p>
<p>thanks. I think math can wait too =]. Writing strats & CR strats are definatley needed. Thanks for the encouragement and thanks for helping us.</p>
<p>could some one message me the site please?</p>