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Study Guide
Reading Comprehension & Main Idea
Reading comprehension questions test your ability to understand both explicit statements and implied meanings in a passage, and to identify the author's main point.
Key Rules
- Explicit information: directly stated in the text — find the exact sentence.
- Implicit information: suggested but not stated — must be inferred logically from what is stated.
- The main idea answers the question: "What is this text primarily about?"
- Never use outside knowledge — all answers are supported by the text.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Choosing an answer that could be true in real life but isn't supported by the passage.
- Going too far: making inferences beyond what the text reasonably implies.
- Misidentifying the main idea as a supporting detail.
SAT Strategy Tips
- →Active reading: for each paragraph, ask "what does this paragraph DO for the passage?"
- →For inference questions: the answer must be a logical conclusion from the text, not a guess.
- →Use the line references given in the question to locate the relevant section quickly.
- →"Most nearly means" questions: consider the context around the word, not just its general definition.
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