multiple choice strategies

Whatever you do, DON’T

look at the possible answers.

Whatever you do, DON’T

leave a question blank.

This is a “high stakes” reading test

Don’t skim.

Don’t look at the questions first.

Don’t blindly guess (unless it's a time thing.)

Count on

Variety: fiction, nonfictionletterspeechessayplayScience journalsNovel excerpts“primary source documents”poetry

Count on

diversityagedifficultyideasgenre

There are not 54 questions on the test.

There are just a few types of questions:

inferencepurposecontexttonerhetorical term

inference

high volume question

“intelligence”

purpose questions

function

Why is this here?What should go here?evidenceaudiencestructure

context questions

high volume question

The answers to context questions are often “8 lines” above or “8 lines” below.

The answer to a context question is rarely the “common” definition.

rhetorical term questions

The correct answer is never the weird rhetorical term.

anaphorachiasmusparaprosdokian

There might not be a right answer.

There might be a best answer. (key)

They want you to feel stupid.

You can’t know every word.contextetymologyWords come from somewhere.

a pattern to consider

The test usually begins by asking a question(s) about the whole passage and then moves through the passage in a linear pattern.

And so therefore...

exam vocabulary

question stemkeydistracters2013 Corvette

a Corvette can have characteristics

longweird wordrecapitulation of a words or phrases

from the passagefacthalf right