Hello everyone,
I have difficulty with paired-passage because of the vocabulary range from historical documents. In The Complete guide to SAT Reading by Erica L.Meltzer, I read that it is good to go through AP US History passages.
The problem is all the APUSH wordlist provide the list of public figures, treties, etc, but not ‘common words’ that can be used in historical documents. Could anyone suggest where to find these “antiquated words”?
I’m not clear exactly what you are asking about. Is it about being unable to understand the content of the passages due to difficult words? Or is it more about answering the vocab questions stated “As used in line X, the word _____ most nearly means”, followed by four word choices?
I’m a test prep tutor. I don’t teach my students what words mean. I teach them to use context and elimination strategies. I’m guessing you are using the College Board SAT study guide. Using Test #3 as an example, the paired passages are by Talleyrand and Wollstonecraft, respectively. You can look that test up for free, just google SAT Test 3 College Board
These historic document passages are best approached by reading what you know, and for whatever you don’t know, just use context. And remember that most of the time, the two authors in a paired passage disagree on a SPECIFIC issue.
Tip #1. ALWAYS read the header at the start of the passage first. I’d say 95% of the time, there is useful info in that header. Think about this: if they didn’t want to you to know something BEFORE you start reading, why would they bother to include that info?
The header of that passage tells us some useful stuff, written in simple language. The two passages are old, written in the 1790’s. So it’s going to be written in old-fashioned language. Talleyrand wrote “Report on Public Instruction.” Wollstonecraft wrote about the “…Rights of Woman.”
But the important thing is what the header says about the Report: It was a plan for national education, and Wollstonecraft wrote in response to what Talleyrand says.
Now you know the topic of the two passages. We can assume that Wollstonecraft thinks women should be educated. Why else would she write …“Rights of Woman” in response to Talleyrand? It means we can probably assume that Talleyrand perhaps doesn’t feel women need to be educated, and Wollstonecraft believes women should be educated, and most importantly, we can probably guess that these two writers do NOT agree on the specific topic at hand.
So before we even begin reading the passages, we know that even if we don’t understand what Talleyrand says in the text, we do know he doesn’t think women need formal education, and Wollstonecraft believes the opposite.
As you answer questions, if you are in doubt, eliminate any answers that don’t reflect those viewpoints.
Tip #2. To eliminate answers for vocab in context questions, as mentioned earlier, you can rely on instinct much of the time. First, eliminate the ones you know are wrong. Look at question #31. Most people can pretty quickly eliminate two choices. Of those left, read the entire complete sentence again, with the new word choice. Ideally, read the sentence both before and after the sentence in question. This is how you get CONTEXT. If you can’t eliminate any at first, read all three sentences and put the new word into the sentence in question each time.
Remember that the word in the question is rarely used in its usual way. This is about how to use words differently. So eliminate the ones you know are wrong. Then think about what is wrong with the two left. If you can see one is wrong, but don’t know why the other one is right, you MUST get rid of the one you know is wrong. Don’t be scared of a word you don’t know. Often, that’s the right choice.
Eliminate wrong ones to get to the right one. Whatever you do, eliminate something when you don’t know what the right answer is.
because of the vocabulary range from historical documents = being unable to understand the content of the passages due to difficult words
Ok, so do what I suggested above. It works. And of course, reading a lot helps too.
@maratpsm87 College Confidential recently covered this topic in an article that may help answer your question. Read more here: https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/finding-context-for-vocab-in-context-on-the-sat