Cracking The SAT Premium

describes pitting in a way the author would most likely agree with? The author definitely did not believe
the pitting was caused by cosmic rays or nuclear fallout, so you can eliminate the 20 (B)/21 (A) pair,
leaving you with the correct answer of 20 (A)/21 (D).

On the official test, it would be too complicated to draw a full table, so all you need to do is create a
column to the left of the “best evidence” choices for the answers to the previous question. It should look
something like this:

Q20 21.Which    choice  provides    the best    evidence    for the answer  to  the previous    question?

A A) Lines  12-14   (“Panicked  residents...tests.”)

B B) Lines  30-32   (“As    summer...shelters.”)

C C) Lines  60-64   (“The   idea...guillotine.”)

D D) Lines  86-89   (“I suspect...it.”)

Parallel    POE

Since   you can’t   draw    a   full

table   on  the actual  exam,

try making  notations   as

shown   in  question    21; that

is, create  a   column  to  the

left    of  the “best   evidence”

answer  choices listing

out the choices to  the

previous    question.

Main Idea/General Questions

For many of the Reading passages, the very first question will ask a general question about the passage. It
might ask about the main idea or purpose of the passage, the narrative point of view, or a shift that occurs
through the passage. Remember the Select a Question step? Those general questions are not good to do
first because you haven’t read the passage yet, but once you’ve done most of the other questions, you have
a really good idea of the overall themes of the text.

Let’s take a look at the first question from the windshield passage:

11.The  central claim   of  the passage is  that

Because this question asks about the central claim of the passage, there’s no one place you can look.
General questions don’t have line references or lead words, so there’s no way to use the text to predict an
answer. It’s okay, though: You’ve answered almost all of the questions about the passage, so you know
what the main idea of the passage is. Not only that, but you also have a good sense of what the test writers
found most interesting about the passage. While having this knowledge does not always help, it sure can
sometimes. If there are answer choices that have nothing to do with either the questions or the answers