<p>I won't rewrite the whole passage and question, but can someone explain why it is choice C over choice A?</p>
<p>I really don't understand this, and this is the only passage question I got wrong on the whole practice test. Can someone give advice for doing this type of hard difficulty question?</p>
<p>I just read the passage.</p>
<p>"C" is the right answer (i think) because lines 3-6 of Passage 1 say that science fiction ridicules the art of science as a whole, while Passage 2 says science fiction values science and respects its methodology.</p>
<p>Answer A just defends how science fiction sometimes does not use scientific facts properly.</p>
<p>This is another example of avoiding convoluted logic. Here you're given two statements which will both seem to be equally true if you think too broadly about them. Yet one is clearly the only correct answer, if you qualify it logically.</p>
<p>A is basically a true statement - however, it does not capture the main rhetorical argument that the author of passage 2 uses. Consider the second half of passage 2, from "And because science fiction combines..." to the end: what's the main premise of that argument? That science fiction is great literature? Not really. Although he does mention "people and relationships" and "the arts", he doesn't stress the literary merit of science fiction. The closest he comes to praising the literature is that "Young readers" will absorb the scientific and "humanistic" elements. What's the tone indicate? Does it extol the talent of science fiction writers? No; if anything, it's somewhat patronizing, and dismisses science fiction as a type of "kiddy" lit, which - nevertheless - is a valuable exposure to those young kids. But where does that value come from? Not from the great writing, but from the fact that it instills an appreciation of science in the minds of those young readers. And the dead giveaway that that is the author's main point is in line 13:
[quote]
"But beneath all the surface trickery of science fiction, there is a general respect for science and some appreciation of its methodology, which is probably more important than the facts that can be found in a textbook."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is a VERY strong declarative statement. There is no statement of similar strength pertaining to the author's views on the literary merits of science fiction. Thus, the author's central argument clearly lies in the fact that science fiction installs "respect for science" and "appreciation for its methodology" in young readers, and not that it is great writing.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the help.</p>
<p>Out of all the times I've tried to stop reading into questions, there's still a few like this one that subconsciously slip by, making me interpret without really meaning to.</p>
<p>It turns out that the one below it was the hard difficulty one. It was a tone question that I thought was easy for once.</p>
<p>For these types of response questions, will the answer usually be the one that best paraphrases the author's premise?</p>
<p>Yes. That type of question is basically "What is the main idea of the passage?" reworded.</p>
<p>Here's some more (from recent practice test)</p>
<p>Pg. 798 #7</p>
<p>I put down E and the answer was A. This was a guess and if I narrowed it down correctly I could've probably just put down A, though the description confused me.</p>
<p>I put down E because he was wearing what appeared to be Egyptian clothes, so it made sense to put that ("convoluted logic" I'm sure - so hard to get past these inferrences). </p>
<p>However, the description of him being "oh-so exquisitely bored" was confusing. What does this mean. That and the fact that I'm not sure what "affected manner" means either. What does "affected" mean in this context?</p>
<p>Pg. 798 #8</p>
<p>I had E, but it's A. Isn't the purpose of the words to clarify the meaning of the images. It says it right there in the first line! How is it "accentuating" the information?</p>
<p>I got 12. right on the next page, but I had some trouble deciding. I blocked out C which I thought was a natural inference and went to D which I thought it somehow clearly said. Can this be clarified?</p>
<p>Pg. 800 #16</p>
<p>I got C but the answer is A. I thought I remembered seeing individualism of the black women being discussed. Isn't the talk about listening to the voices and silencing one showing individualism? However, I must say that I don't really know what multiplicity means (I'll look it up) but I thought that inclusion was the opposite of the point, as inclusion means that the black women won't be set apart, which was a goal. </p>
<p>I also got this one right, but through process of elimination, and I may not be so lucky next time:</p>
<p>Pg. 802 #22</p>
<p>The answer was A, but I could not find an example that explicitly shows that without inferring anything. The reason I got it was because the other answer choices were ridiculous, but what if a few weren't?</p>
<p>Finally: Pg. 789 #15</p>
<p>I think I understand after I looked up conjecture, as it is an educated guess, as opposed to an observation, which can be directly observed. Am I right?</p>
<p>Thanks again for the help.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pg. 798 #7</p>
<p>I put down E and the answer was A. This was a guess and if I narrowed it down correctly I could've probably just put down A, though the description confused me.</p>
<p>I put down E because he was wearing what appeared to be Egyptian clothes, so it made sense to put that ("convoluted logic" I'm sure - so hard to get past these inferrences). </p>
<p>However, the description of him being "oh-so exquisitely bored" was confusing. What does this mean. That and the fact that I'm not sure what "affected manner" means either. What does "affected" mean in this context?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think not knowing what "affected" means is probably what caused you to miss this one. "Affected" as an adjective means phony. Now it's probably already making sense. The author describes how the museum will "inspire you to read the travel classic Flaubert in Egypt." Then he describes how by looking at the photographs in the museum, you can imagine the author hanging around Egypt, and "seeming oh-so-exquisitely bored." Notice the irony?</p>
<p>In other words; Flaubert's a guy who wrote a classic book on Egyptian travels, but when you see the photographs in the museum, it's obvious that Egypt was not an exciting place for him, because he looks "oh-so-exquisitely bored." So even though he was writing a book about traveling to Egypt, it's obvious he didn't really enjoy Egypt! Hence, he had an "affected" (phony, fake) manner. He was pretending to be this grand Egyptologist when in fact he didn't even like Egypt. </p>
<h1>8: I think you answered the question before reading the entire passage (something that some people recommend doing, but which I don't). Even though it's about line 1, you need to consider the whole passage to understand it. What's the principal argument of that whole passage? That "breaking down" makes it harder to understand the images? No; quite the contrary, the author contends that by breaking down the words and numbers into visual symbols and patterns, maps engage the highly developed human capacity for pattern recognition, to quote:
[quote]
"Maps enable humans to use inherent biological skills of perception, their "educated" eyes, to seperate the message from the static, to see the story line running through the random pattern."
[/quote]
</h1>
<p>The rest of the passage also emphasizes this point: that the human mind is BETTER able to understand the map, ("easy on the eyes", line 3, "highly evovled human capacity for pattern recognition", line 5-6) because of the removal of the words and converting them to patterns. Far from the words clarifying the image, the author contends that the patterns and visual symbols clarify themselves sans words; therefore the breaking down "accentuates selected information."</p>
<p>12, 799: This is a question where CB tries to trip you up by using language in an answer choice that immediately seems to paraphrase or connote what is described in the passage, drawing you naturally to select it. When you see "agents for change" your mind automatically associates that with chemistry (i.e, "chemical agents"), so you naturally gravitate towards that answer, because it seems to paraphrase what you just read! But you have to consider the full scope of the question: "The chemistry metaphor in lines (xx) is used to..." The question does not want you to identify the metaphor, but to identity HOW it is used within the passage to rhetorical effect. Is the main purpose of the metaphor to identify the agents of change? Not really. She could just as easily have listed them, and you would know what they are just the same. Or she could've used a particular metaphor that relates directly to those agents if the purpose was to identify them; for example, the author mentions race, gender, class - if she had made a metaphor about the class struggles of serfs in Russia, or the slavery of Jews in Egypt, C might well have been the right answer. But look at what the chemistry metaphors refers to: "the blending of their seperate identities in a way that chemists would call a combination, not just a mixture" (lines 17-19) Hence the main idea of the metaphor is not what the identities are, but how they combine together in a unique way. In chemistry, a mixture is merely something that is stirred together but does not fuse into a new substance. A combination is something that fuses into a new substance with new properties. So the metaphor is that the different identities of black woman combine to form a new one, that they don't just intermingle as seperate entities. But you don't have to know the meaning of the chemistry terminology to see that the rhetorical purpose of the metaphor lies not in identification of the identities, but in illustrating the way in which they mix/fuse through a comparison with chemistry. </p>
<h1>16. Here you're miscontruing the passage. As soon as Elsa Barkley Brown is mentioned in the passage, what new idea is introduced? It's this one:</h1>
<p>
[quote]
"The Louisiana conversational style 'gumbo ya ya,' in which everyone talks at once and all the stories told interrelate and play off each other. 'History' says Barkley Brown, 'also is everybody talking at once, multiple rhythms being played simultaneously.'"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The rest of the passage from that point on is a convincing argument of how history is in fact the story of many diverse and different people fused together - in other words, what Barkley Brown is saying is that History is not just about one culture, one group, one place, but that at any given moment studied in history, a broad number of disparate groups are being effected by what's happening. Far from inclusion being the opposite of her meaning, she specifically states:
[quote]
"Listening to all those voices at once can be confusing, but silencing any of them puts in danger the very meaning of historical pursuit."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Her argument is that even though listening to all the complexities of the different groups of history is DIFFICULT, it is ESSENTIAL "to the very meaning of historical pursuit." Thus she is saying that you must include all the different parts/groups/people in history in any analysis of history, including that of black women. Clearly, this is a theme of inclusion. Now, even if you didn't know what multiplicity meant exactly, you should naturally gravitate towards A because the others don't convey that theme at all (except for B with "mutual respect" though it contradicts itself with "privacy" so you can toss it). Also just seeing the root "multi" in "multiplicity" and understanding that inclusion was the theme of that part of the passage, should make you think "hmm... inclusion... multiple groups, people... multiplicity... should be related," and enabled you to answer with a good amount of confidence, even though you only knew one of the two words in the answer. </p>
<p>802, #22. This one requires some major analysis that you don't normally expect from the SAT, which I think makes that a very valuable practice question. Basically, the author never really states what he thinks about the young clerks - his tone is very neutral, and he does not tell you what he's thinking. There is no way to "find" the answer to this in the passage. This is more of a literary interpretation. Consider the whole portrait that the writer paints of this man, and the way he is bullied by the young clerks; further consider his martyr-like attitude, and the pathos that is evoked what the man says "Why do you insult me? Let me work" and the other guy says "I am your brother." Further consider the way the passage ends, which also evokes pathos. Clearly, the author is painting a very sympathetic portrait of this man (and it is logical that if he is sympathetic to the man, he is disapproving of those who are antagonistic to the man; the young clerks). Further consider that his tone is much too subdued for any of the other answers (which are all somewhat bombastic).
This is the type of question where they want you to identify the only answer that makes sense, because it is not a literally stated type thing. If you use some literary sensibility on those types of questions, combined with good process of elimination, you will always be fine.</p>
<p>789, #15: Yes, conjecture is definitely it. The way I detected it is by tone. Notice "there must..." He is seeing something new around him occuring, but he does not know what the underlying cause is. So he conjectures that it "there must..." again notice diction and tone. The three dots are a sign of hesitation, which implies that he is guessing/assuming things. To further confirm that he is guessing, he goes on to say of the brain signals "though our methods of brain imaging are still too crude to show these." (lines 16-17) It can't be an observation, because he states that current brain imaging technology cannot show it. Having to choose between A or D, you would now choose A, even if you didn't know what conjecture meant, because it cannot be D. It can't be an observation if modern methods can't observe it! Hence, it is a hypothesis he has - and must be that unknown word - conjecture.</p>
<p>Remember that you don't have to know what the words in all 5 answer choices mean if you know the words in 4 of them, and can rule all of those out.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the advice. This really helps.</p>
<p>The most confusing one to me was the "breaking down" one. I think that it does do both A and E, and E can be construed as true, but the primary effect was A. Perhaps if the question asked, "The PURPOSE of..." rather than effect, I may have gotten it. Because of it, is it a good idea to replace "effect" with "purpose" to think in more concrete terms.</p>
<p>Throughout the last several practice tests, my score has seemed to stagnate at a point where I usually get 3 to 5 questions wrong. Any suggestion for transcending myself past this? I do go to the questions before reading, but if I do what you suggest, how will I know that I will have enough time? Do you suggest at the very least reading through the shortest passages, since chances are I'll read through an entire long passage through all of the citations anyway? Note that I've been following the Grammatix method mostly.</p>
<p>Thanks again. I'd take the time to reciprocate if I could, but I don't think I'd be able to help with much.</p>
<p>I never staggered my reading because I can always read the passages the whole way through before answering the questions, and still have several minutes left to spare. Have you tried doing that? You might be assuming you're a slower reader than you really are. I think it's better if you read the whole way through, because the way I see it, you're going to have to read over all the text at some point, so why not do it before the questions, so you're really prepared for them? I think if your mind has already processed the text once, you can make faster and more efficient decisions regarding the answer choices, and if you need to refer back to the text, you know exactly where everything is.</p>
<p>If you find that it's hard to do this, then staggering may be the best way for you - but you would still want to read in large chunks. Try to get to a major turning point or epiphany in the text - and then check the questions. Don't stop before an important point is made, or you may end up lowering your comprehension.</p>
<p>One thing that I definitely think helps is glancing over the questions first so you have an idea of what the difficulty level is and what to look for specifically. But glance means glance: No more than 10 seconds.</p>
<p>As far as getting past 3-5 questions wrong, that's been my goal too. It is hard; but here's the strategy I've come up with: on practice tests, I write down the "feelings" or "thoughts" that I had when I selected my answer, and I circle which answer I might have selected, but didn't, and the one I did select, with the feeling or thought next to it. Often what this ends up being is one answer is labeled "reason" and the other is labeled "intuition." I only do one section at a time - No entire practice tests. This way the text and my thought processes while I was reading it are still fresh in my head. Then I go back and check the ones I had wrong, and see what it was labeled - and try to analyse my thinking and see where I went wrong. then I keep a score card for how often "intuition" wins and how often "reason" wins. That's how I discovered "convoluted logic." I found that a lot of my wrong "intuition" responses were based on an illogical assumption or conclusion that was unsupported upon close examination of the text, but to which I was naturally drawn to. So I developed a series of checks/reasonings with which to verify them against (and you've seen examples of them in the posts I've made), and that's how I rule them out. I went from constantly getting 3-5 wrong on practice tests, to getting 1-2 wrong. In Critical Reading, I think the real key to getting an 800 or near it, is to be able to closely examine your own thinking, so that you know you aren't selecting foolish responses. Ultimately, you will always know if you weren't 100% sure of your answer, and most of the time, for someone who is easily scoring in the 700's, the only answers you will get wrong are the ones you were not 100% sure of. So by examing your thought process on the practice tests with that systematic method I described, I think you can develop an accurate process for eliminating that uncertainty and grabbing those final points.</p>
<p>Know of any sites that provide good passages that are most similar (or are) ones that collegeboard uses? I'd like to try that strategy to make sure I have enough time before I try another practice test, though time is running out. How long do you usually take to read the passages. I actually have noticed that as I have been getting more adept at the passages, I have been having more time. On average I believe that I have around two minutes at the end to check. The only time where I'm pressed for time is when I come across a sentence completion that trips me up, which is usually rare.</p>