<p>Hey, guys. I'm trying to help my brother understand the logic of reading comprehension. That all the answers are IN THE TEXT and that he needs to not allow his mind to make up answers and just pick the answers that are most obvious from the words in the text.</p>
<p>Its very hard for him to grasp. He has SAT in a week or two but I think if he does several questions a day, he may start getting it and maybe by his next SAT it'll sink in BUT...</p>
<p>There are a few questions that even /I/ cannot quite see the logic in. That I don't know how to explain to him are the answer! Does anyone have a more-or-less full proof system for reading comprehension?</p>
<p>P.S. Is there a service out there that will give us the PSAT answer explanations??</p>
<p>I had the same problem for a VERY long time, but until I thought about it for like 5 minutes, I understood it. EVERY answer COMES from the passage no matter what. Even inference questions. What makes inference questions harder than others are that often it is just ONE keyword that leads to the answer. But EVERY answer is in the passage somewhere. there really is no full proof system to check it. Only way really… is to just read the passage again closely</p>
<p>Every answer is NOT in the text. NOT in the text at all! Are some answers in the text? Yes. If you want a test where all answers are in the text, go take the ACT.</p>
<p>SAT has “what does this word mean in this context”, what is the main idea, what can you infer, etc…it’s a much harder test than the ACT.</p>
<p>Usually, CR comprehension answers are paraphrases of what is explicitly stated in the text. I would stress this point to him. But some questions, such as drawing an analogically comparable situation, are not. But for these it is a matter of applying a similar situation to one that matches the context of the phrase in question.</p>
<p>sometimes they try to trick you by putting in the exact words from the text in an answer choice. Keep that in mind. Answers that have strong words such as “always, never” are usually not the answers. These are some tricks I use sometimes. I get about 3 wrong in CR passage questions in the 3 sections combined. I used to get scores like 9/16 and such because honestly out of 5 answer choices 3-4 would look like they could be correct. </p>
<p>It’s just practice and learning what to look for. I was terrible at CR (56 on PSAT and around 570s in initial practice tests). This was bad for my standards, but in a short period of time I’ve gotten my scores up much higher. Just practice and repetition is the key. You WILL find what they are looking for. I sometimes do a section and get perfect on the passage q’s and I think to myself “how did I do that?” lol. It’s just practice.</p>
<p>EDIT: google SAT Ninja or something like that. This person has a blog in which she has tips for the CR section</p>