SAT Reading Test
Oakland Schools
© 2015 The College Board
A Closer Look at the Reading Test
►
65 minutes to answer 52 questions
►
Reading across 500 – 750 words per passage or paired set
►
Some questions require the reader to look across two passages
►
U.S. and World Literature (20%)
1 passage; 10-11 Questions
►
History/Social Studies
(40%)
2 passages, or 1 passage and 1
pair; 10-11 Questions each
►
Science
(40%)
2 passages, or 1 passage and 1
pair; 10-11 Questions each
►
Readers will have to read graphs with high data density in History/Social Studies
and/or Science
2
© 2015 The College Board
Rhetorical Question Types
Analyzing word choice
author’s choice of words, phrases, and language
patterns to influence meaning, tone, and style
Analyzing text structure describing how author shapes and organizes a
text and how the parts of the passage contribute
to the whole text
Analyzing point of view recognizing point of view and how affects the
content and style of the passage
Analyzing purpose
determining main rhetorical aim of a passage or
a part of passage
Analyzing arguments
examining claims, counterclaims, reasoning,
and evidence
3
© 2015 The College Board
Analyzing Word Choice– Question Types
A. Students will determine the meaning of vocabulary in context
B. Students will analyze word choice rhetorically--focus less on definitions
and more on the rhetorical purpose, effect, or impact that particular
words, phrases, and language patterns (such as repetition) have on the
meaning, style, and tone of a passage.
General Vocabulary Information
► Vocabulary is important in all subjects
► Tier 2 vocabulary on SAT– saunter vs. walk
► Text Complexity– ranges between 9th - first-year college level
I
4
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Analyzing Words in Context
But it’s not only linguistic differences that make this transition hard. The way a
person speaks is just a small part of the social currency that determines who is
privileged and who is not. When Lisa Faison, 15, started at her elite private school,
she quickly learned that it wasn’t “normal” in her school community to have no
Internet at home. “We can’t afford it,” she shrugs -- an unfamiliar concept in this
world of luxury cars, high-end vacations, and school tuition that costs upwards of
$20,000 a year.
Based on the context, the word currency most probably means…
A. Money
B. Exchange
C. Community
D. Expression
5
Sample Question: Analyzing Words Rhetorically
“My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not
going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion,
the destruction, of the Constitution.”
The main rhetorical effect of the series of three phrases in lines 5-6
reprinted above (the diminution, the subversion, the destruction) is to
A)
convey with increasing intensity the seriousness of the threat Jordan
sees to the Constitution.
B)
clarify that Jordan believes the Constitution was first weakened, then
sabotaged, then broken.
C)
indicate that Jordan thinks the Constitution is prone to failure in three
distinct ways.
D)
propose a three-part agenda for rescuing the Constitution from the
current crisis.
6
© 2015 The College Board
Analyzing Text Structure
Question type spans from easy to difficult.
Two basic forms:
Easy:
reader is asked to characterize in some way the overall
structure of the passage. (e.g. cause-effect, sequence,
or problem-solution).
Difficult:
reader is asked to track how the structure shifts over
course of the passage, requiring the answer to be in two
or more parts of the passage.
7
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Analyzing Text Structure
“Teenagers… might not be needing their social networks in the way that you or I as
adults might really need our social networks,” Emily White, author of the book “Lonely:
Learning to Live With Solitude,” told Op-Talk. When she and her spouse separated, she
said, “I needed help in all sorts of ways, and if that help hadn’t been there I would’ve felt
lonely, whereas if I was 16 and you asked me after drama class whether my social
support network mattered a lot to me, my answer might have been no.”
She also floated a potential explanation for the finding that students’ self-reported
loneliness dropped even as social network isolation increased. Environmentalists, she
said, sometimes use the term “environmental amnesia.” “What it means is that every
generation is born into a more degraded ecosystem,” she explained, “and they take that
degraded ecosystem as their baseline, and they adjust to it.” Maybe teenagers today
have a sort of “social amnesia” — “I’m wondering if these high-school students have had
weaker support networks their whole lives, and so they’re reporting less loneliness
because that’s what they’re used to.”
8
Sample Question: Analyzing Text Structure, Cont.
How does Emily White explain the fact that teenagers face
increased social isolation yet report less loneliness?
A. She argues that there is no connection between social isolation
and loneliness
B. She gives the example of separating from her spouse to
demonstrate that teens don’t feel loneliness the way adults do
C. She claims students do not need social networks to get over
loneliness
D. She uses a cross-disciplinary example to demonstrate that
teens don’t understand loneliness and support the way older
generations do
9
Analyzing Point of View

Question goes beyond just recognizing whether in first or third person
omniscient.

Includes the idea of stance or perspective of the author, narrator, or
speaker (e.g. attitude, bias).

Question does NOT just happen with literary passages BUT also
informational passages.

Question usually has embedded stem such as perspective or point of
view.
10
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Analyzing Point of View
Every day seems to turn up opportunities to abuse science in new
and perverse ways, especially when it comes to health. You open a
newspaper or news site, and you read about a health claim
making the rounds: a diet that will give you the energy of a
teenager, an exercise routine that will elongate your legs, a policy
that will protect Americans from scary viruses. Many of these
claims — even the ones that come from the lips of the most
esteemed doctors and public officials — aren't backed by any
good evidence. Some even run in the opposite direction of what
the best-available evidence tells us. In the interest of the
correcting the record, we rounded up the most egregious abuses
of health science in 2014.
11
Sample Question: Analyzing Point of View, Cont.
The author’s perspective in this piece is that of…
A. A social reformer on a crusade
B. A medical professional dispensing advice
C. A scholar exposing bedrocks of hypocrisy
D. An observer interested in scientific integrity
12
Analyzing Purpose
Questions focus on text structure asking the reader to think abstractly
about the text—NOT just understanding what the text says BUT also what
the author is trying to achieve.
Consider main purpose/function of the whole passage or of a significant part
of the passage (multiple paragraphs).
Question stem usually contains “purpose” or “function” and answer choices
often begin with rhetorically focused verbs (criticize, support, present, or
introduce).
13
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Analyzing Purpose
And then there are the issues of quality and value, which are similarly complex. As you know,
when deciding whether it’s worth sending their girls to school, parents aren’t just asking
themselves, will this be a good experience for my daughter, they’re calculating what those
school fees will mean for their family’s food budget, they’re contemplating the loss of household
help that is critical to the survival of that family. So they want to see real evidence that their
daughter is learning real, marketable skills –- things like literacy, numeracy, vocational skills that
will help her provide for herself and, ultimately, her family.
That’s the kind of bar that we need to clear as we move forward. Because in our work to
educate girls, especially adolescent girls, we’re often asking families to do what seems to be in
the exact opposite of their daughters’ and their families’ best interests. Often, we’re asking them
to change or disregard some of their most strongly held values and traditions.
So, yes, we need more infrastructure. We need more resources. And, yes, we need more good
laws and policies -– those are absolutely the necessary building blocks for change. But we also
need buy-in from those families and those communities. We need parents to actually believe
that their daughters are as worthy of an education as their sons, and that sending girls to school
is a good investment for their future.
And that might take some real effort on the ground to actually understand people’s concerns, to
gain their trust, to determine what resources they need to make the sacrifice of educating their
daughters.
14
Sample Question: Analyzing Purpose, Cont.
What is First Lady Obama’s purpose in giving this talk at the
Brookings Institute in December 2014?
A. To inform the nation about a major problem facing girls and
women worldwide
B. To criticize the mishandling of an international crisis
C. To spur greater involvement among key players poised to
redress the issue of girls’ neglected educations worldwide
D. To persuade the members of this institute to contribute funds
for the amelioration of this issue
15
Analyzing Arguments

Argumentative passages usually including 1 or more claims, use of
reasoning, evidence, and stylistic/persuasive elements.

Questions are much like questions asking about main idea or theme:
have to decide on primary claim (main point) and distinguish that claim
from secondary assertions (minor points) and details.

Question stems use words and concepts such as: claim, counterclaims,
reason, and evidence.
16
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Analyzing Arguments
In a way, to be indifferent to... suffering is what makes the human being inhuman.
Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times
be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something
special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one
witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a
response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.
Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a
beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the
enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified
when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children,
the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude
by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in
denying their humanity, we betray our own. Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is
a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing
century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.
17
Sample Question: Analyzing Arguments, Cont.
What is the reasoning behind Elie Weisel’s claim that indifference is the greatest
evil?
A. Indifference is a sin and a punishment
B. Indifference denies the humanity of others
C. Indifference benefits the aggressor
D. Indifference is more dangerous than anger and hatred
18
Command of Evidence – Reading Test
 Understand and use evidence in reading, writing, and math in a
broad array of contexts
 Determine the best textual support for the answer to another
question
 For every passage students will have to answer at least 1
question requiring a quote from the text passage that best
supports the answer.
 Some passages will be paired with informational graphics,
requiring students to integrate info from both the text passage
and graphic in order to answer question.
19
© 2015 The College Board
Reading Test – Command of Evidence
He had taken to the girl from the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to
meet her, and she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, “You
must be Ethan!” as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: “She don’t look much on housework, but she ain’t a fretter,
anyhow.” But it was not only that the coming to his house of a bit of hopeful young
life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. The girl was more than the bright
serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear:
he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he
imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
1. The description in the first paragraph indicates that what Ethan values most
about Mattie is her
(A) fitness for farm labor.
(B) vivacious youth.
(C) receptive nature.
(D) freedom from worry.
20
© 2015 The College Board
Reading Test – Command of Evidence, Cont.
Mattie Silver had lived under Ethan’s roof for a year, and from early morning till they met
at supper he had frequent chances of seeing her; but no moments in her company were
comparable to those when, her arm in his, and her light step flying to keep time with his
long stride, they walked back through the night to the farm. He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and she had smiled and
waved to him from the train, crying out, “You must be Ethan!” as she jumped down with
her bundles, while he reflected, looking over her slight person: “She don’t look much on
housework, but she ain’t a fretter, anyhow.” But it was not only that the coming to his
house of a bit of hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. The girl
was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see
and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of
feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
2. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
(A) Lines 1-4 (“Mattie . . . farm”)
(B) Lines 4-8 (“He had . . . anyhow”)
(C) Lines 8-9 (“But it . . . hearth”)
(D) Lines 11-13 (“She had . . . will”)
CONTENT: Information and Ideas / Citing Textual Evidence
21
© 2015 The College Board
Command of Evidence – Reading Test
 Retain, add, revise, or delete information and ideas in a text
 Interpret graphics and correct errors in the accompanying
passages (possibly across multiple graphics)
 Selected response questions only – no actual writing
22
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Command of Graphic Evidence
[. . .] Transportation planners perform critical work within the broader field of
urban and regional planning. As of 2010, there were approximately 40,300
urban and regional planners employed in the United States. The United States
Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts steady job growth in this field, projecting
that 16 percent of new jobs in all occupations will be related to urban and
regional planning. Population growth and concerns about environmental
sustainability are expected to spur the need for transportation planning
professionals.
23
© 2015 The College Board
Sample Question: Command of Graphic Evidence, Cont.
Which choice completes the sentence with accurate data based
on the above graph?
A) NO CHANGE
B) warning, however, that job growth in urban and regional
planning will slow to 14 percent by 2020.
C) predicting that employment of urban and regional
planners will increase 16 percent between 2010 and
2020.
D) indicating that 14 to 18 percent of urban and regional
planning positions will remain unfilled.
24
© 2015 The College Board