STEP 1: READ THE PASSAGE
The first thing you’re going to do is to read the passage. This should not come as a big surprise. It’s important to realize that while
you do not want to memorize or dissect the passage, you do need to read it. If you try to answer the questions without reading it,
you’re likely to waste time and make mistakes. Although you’ll learn more about how to read the passages later, keep in mind that
the main things you’re looking for when you read the passage are the Big Idea and the Paragraph topics. Additionally, you’re going
to note where the passage seems to be going.
For example, if you saw the following passage (which, admittedly, is a little shorter than the average SHSAT passage), these are
some of the things you might want to note...
Comparison between
Holmes and DarwinThis passage is basically
about detective stories...
and science.
Poe and Conan Doyle
seem to be important.Holmes is an example
of a detective hero with
a brilliant scientific mind.Ways that Holmes uses
a scientific approach.Again, you’ll spend more time a little later learning how to read the passage. The point here is that the first thing you’ll do is read
through the entire passage, noting the topic of each paragraph and the overall purpose of the passage.
The first detective stories, written by Edgar
Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, emerged in the
mid-nineteenth century, at a time when there was an
enormous public interest in scientific progress. The
( 5 ) newspapers of the day continually publicized the latest
scientific discoveries, and scientists were acclaimed
as the heroes of the age. Poe and Conan Doyle shared
this fascination with the step-by-step, logical approach
used by scientists in their experiments, and instilled
( 10 )their detective heroes with outstanding powers of
scientific reasoning.
The character of Sherlock Holmes, for example,
illustrates Conan Doyle’s admiration for the scientific
mind. In each case that Holmes investigates, he is
( 15 )able to use the most insubstantial evidence to track
down his opponent. Using only his restless eye and
ingenious reasoning powers, Holmes pieces together
the identity of the villain from such unremarkable
details as the type of cigar ashes left at the crime
( 20 )scene, or the kind of ink used in a handwritten letter.
In fact, Holmes’s painstaking attention to detail often
reminds the reader of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin
of the Species, published some twenty years earlier.