SAT Critical Reading

Proper time management is a key skill on the SAT and ACT alike. Both tests actively assess a person’s ability to properly manage his or her time since these skills are indeed important in college and in life more generally. There are many time management techniques that I could discuss, but for this post I just want to hone in on one specifically because it is one that I find myself repeating to almost every person I tutor: survey each section before you start so that you have an overview of what you are getting yourself into.

This is probably most important on the Math sections and here is why: One of the Math sections will contain Grid-Ins and you need to know when you are on that section since the questions will not go exactly in order of difficulty. Many people do worse on the Grid-In section and most people tend to attribute that to the fact that there are no answer choices on those questions – that is certainly a factor. But another factor is that people tend to run out of time on the Grid-Ins because they don’t realize that the multiple choice questions leading up to the Grid-Ins are difficult and they consequently waste time on those questions. This is entirely preventable!

First of all, you need to know that you are on the Grid-In section. This should be easy enough because that section is the only one that has 18 questions, which is information that is given at the top of the first page of the section. But most people forget to look at that, which is why I just recommend that on EVERY section (not just the Math ones) you scan ahead and just get an overview of what is on that section). Once you know you are on the Grid-In section you need to remember that questions 6, 7, and 8 will tend to be more difficult questions. The first Grid-Ins (9, 10, 11) will be comparatively very easy. But what happens for most people is that they don’t realize that they are on the Grid-In section and they therefore don’t understand why they are struggling with questions 7 or 8. Had they known, they should have considered skipping those questions temporarily to get to the much easier questions that immediately follow.

This idea of previewing the section is important on the CR sections as well. First of all, knowing that you have a passage ahead that is difficult for you (say, if you struggle with the Fiction passages or the Science ones) will allow you to adjust your time management strategy to deal with that fact. Secondly, some sections are easier to finish on time and others more difficult. When you have 2 short passages and then 1 long passage that is usually a lot easier than having 2 short passages and then 2 medium to long passages since in the latter case you have a whole extra passage to read. So just knowing how many passages are ahead allows you to pace yourself accordingly.

Therefore, it is good to get in the habit of previewing each section before you start answering any questions. Doing so will allow you to anticipate what is ahead and plan your time management strategies accordingly.

For anyone new to the posts in this series feel free to go back to the first post to get a little background about what is going on here…..

Below is the link for the article that was the subject of the 4th installment of the series:

http://www.historytoday.com/fern-riddell/curiouser-and-curiouser-case-lewis-carroll

Before I get into the questions themselves, let me first point out that one of the things that makes this passage so difficult is that there are multiple viewpoints being expressed and its almost as if there are layers of opinions that need to be peeled back like an onion. A similar thing happens on very difficult SAT passages so this is something that you should be prepared for.

On this particular passage, there is the author who is expressing her opinion about the viewpoint of a filmmaker who is herself expressing a viewpoint about another author: Lewis Carroll. Both the filmmaker and the author of this passage refer to other authors who themselves have an opinion of Lewis Carroll. And to make matters even worse, you have authors (like Karoline Leach and Jenny Woolf) who draw upon previous authors who wrote about Lewis Carroll (the author). I had to throw that last “the author” in there because its almost comical, but really it’s helpful to view it as an onion where on the outside you have the author who wrote the passage and then the authors (and filmmakers) to whom she is referring and then at the inner most layer you have Lewis Carroll who is obviously the focus of all of the other author’s attention.

SAT passages won’t be quite as hard as this one, but they will occasionally express multiple viewpoints in a similar way, so it is good to get exposed to this sort of passage.

Now, on to the questions…

1) What is the author’s purpose in the passage?

The author’s purpose is to criticize the recent documentary and its makers for their treatment of the issue of Carroll’s alleged pedophilia. The author believes that the evidence does not support the view that he had an inappropriate relationship with children and accuses the filmmakers of distorting the truth for the sake of being sensational.

As with many articles the title itself gives a good indication of where the author is headed and although the blurbs that precede real SAT passages don’t always give quite as much information, they often hint at the author’s purpose.

2) What can we infer about the opinion that Karoline Leach and Jenny Woolf have of Carroll’s relationship with children?

This is a really difficult question because the paragraph that first mentions them is really confusing and talks about multiple viewpoints (as I explained above)!!! You have to try to unravel the paragraph, but the author says that Leach and Woolf “exposed” the reliance on the biographers who (with good intentions) reduced the age of the children with whom Carroll had a relationship (the unintended consequence of this was that people were MORE apt to believe that his relationship with them was inappropriate). So because these authors tried to “expose our reliance” on these biographers they were trying to show that the children weren’t as young as we were led to believe and that he therefore probably did NOT have an inappropriate relationship with them. That is really, really difficult.

The other key, however, is that 2 paragraphs down the author mentions Jenny Woolf again and cites the fact that in her book Woolf brings forward information to show that Carroll donated money to causes that helped exploited children. She also mentions that the producers of the documentary seemed to have ignored this information (this gets at the next question). But from this we can infer that Woolf defends Carroll in her book and that she (and by association Leach) do not believe that Carroll was a pedophile.

3) What does the author imply in her statement about Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst?

This is another tough question. As per my explanation above, the author faults the producers of the documentary for not mentioning the evidence revealed in Woolf’s book that would support the view that Carroll was not a pedophile even though it was “was well known to the programme’s consultant, Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.” There is nothing really to suggest that the professor himself withheld that insight from the filmmakers. The author of the passage is, overall, faulting the filmmakers for offering a skewed and inaccurate portrayal, so it seems that she is suggesting here that since the professor was aware of the research, its not that the filmmakers themselves would have been unaware of it – they just chose not to present it because it would conflict with their view.

4) In context, what does the expression “shoe-horning” (in the first sentence of the second-to-last paragraph) most probably mean?

It helps a lot here to know what a shore horn is and to be able to picture how it is used!!! But the context also provides clues because the author says that the “sudden” shoe-horning in of the photograph at the very end “smacks a little of desperation.” Its sounds like the author is kind of squeezing in or quickly dropping or wedging in something that doesn’t really fit or is out of place. Again it helps to be able to picture a shoe-horn but in this context it means to push or squeeze something into a place where it doesn’t really fit.

5) In context, what does the word “scant” (last sentence of the article) mean?

This question is not completely SAT-like because vocab-in-context questions almost always test a secondary or tertiary definition of a word that can be gleaned from the context and that does not match the obvious definition that you might think of if the word was not placed in any context. In this case, however, scant is being used in its primary way: it means a very small amount or an insufficient amount. Still, even if you didn’t know what the word means you could have gleaned it from the context because the author is overall faulting the filmmakers for presenting a biased view and basically argues that the evidence does not support their perspective. So you could guess that their view is based on “non-existent” evidence or something like that.

6) What is the author implying by saying (in the last paragraph) that, “Popular culture is dangerously good at historical myth making”?

Again, the author is accusing the filmmakers of painting an inaccurate portrayal of Carroll for the sake of being sensational and making a splash. For example, she says, “The idea that the third most quoted literary work in the world, behind only Shakespeare and the Bible, was authored by a man harbouring a dangerous intent towards his young friends is obviously an attractive prospect for television.” So she seems to believe that the “history” of Lewis Carroll is being distorted for the sake of making a TV show that will be popular with audiences and draw a lot of viewers. So trying to appeal to “popular culture” will often lead to turning historical facts into inaccurate “myths.” Anyway, that is the author’s view.

This was a very hard passage….I wanted to pick a very difficult one just to challenge people a bit. I will not make the next one as hard as this…..I promise. Stay tuned for the next installment.

Below is the link to the next article in the installment. This one is pretty hard in my opinion, but it is also pretty short so it should make for a fairly quick exercise. Happy reading!!!

http://www.historytoday.com/fern-riddell/curiouser-and-curiouser-case-lewis-carroll

1) What is the author’s purpose in the passage?

2) What can we infer about the opinion that Karoline Leach and Jenny Wolf have of Carroll’s relationship with children?

3) What does the author imply in her statement about Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst?

4) In context, what does the expression “shoe-horning” (in the first sentence of the second-to-last paragraph) most probably mean?

5) In context, what does the word “scant” (last sentence of the article) mean?

6) What is the author implying by saying (in the last paragraph) that, “Popular culture is dangerously good at historical myth making”?

Answers and analysis will follow in the next post….