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Ssat Reading Strategies

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Joe Joseph
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76 views14 pages

Ssat Reading Strategies

Uploaded by

Joe Joseph
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SSAT Reading

Strategies
STRUCTURE
• SSAT Reading is the third timed section of the SSAT. It
appears right after Quantitative 1 and right before a brief
break.
• Format: 40 minutes, 40 multiple choice questions
• Content: 7 passages of about 250-350 words each
• Genres: Literary fiction, humanities (including poetry),
science, philosophy, and/or social studies
• 40 minutes to work through reading passages and 40
questions.
• Ability to apply specific strategies.
• No outside knowledge.
SUCCESS DEPENDS ON

• Strategy, strategy, strategy


• Versatile active reading skills
• Familiarity with the question types
1. Know the test

• unlike any test students encounter in middle school.


• It is predictable. Students should thus make sure they are very
familiar with 2 things:
• 1.The passage types
• 2.The question types
• Reading passage types include:
• Literary fiction
• Humanities (biography, art, poetry)
• Science (anthropology, astronomy, medicine)
• Social studies (history, sociology, economics)
• Some passages may also be harder than others. Older texts,
• for example, or poetry passages may be more difficult to comprehend.
Question types include:
• Main ideas
• Details
• Inference
• Words in context
• Author’s purpose
• Author’s tone and attitude
• Evaluation of author’s attitude and opinions
• Evidence-based predictions
2. Play to your strengths

• tackle what is easiest for them first.


• This might mean taking passages out of order.
• It could further mean taking questions for those specific
passages out of order.
• Prioritizing the easiest ones over the more challenging ones.
• Students also don’t have to complete all 40 questions to earn
a competitive score on this section.
• Prioritize accuracy over quantity here.
3. Boost your fluency in wrong
answers

• Process of elimination
• students should be very wary of the following:
• Extreme answer choices (i.e., answers that include words like “never” or
“always”)
• Half-right answers (i.e., ones that might be partially but not entirely true)
• Distorted details (i.e., answers that have keywords from the passage but are
misleading)
• Outside the text answers (i.e., those that take it too far beyond the passage)
4. Have an active reading plan

• These passages are often dense, detailed, and simply boring!


• focus on main ideas
• Statements of opinion or argument
• Transition words
• Keywords from the questions
• Concluding statements
• thesis sentence?
• Underline it.
• What is the structure of the passage as a whole?
5. Preview questions and predict
answers

• Full of tempting trap answers


• 2-step approach:
• Preview the questions before you actively read the passage (so you
know what to look for)
• Cover up the answer choices and predict your own answer for each
question (so you don’t get trapped)
• ead a passage and annotate for main ideas
6. Read, read, read

• Editorials and opinion pieces


• Journal articles
• “Older” texts, such as literary classics and primary
documents
• Poetry
• Creative nonfiction
SSAT QUESTION TYPES
• Question Type 1: Recognize the main idea
• Sample question: Which of the following most accurately states the main idea
of the passage?
• think of the passage as a whole. Rule out any answer choices
Question Type 2: Locate details
Sample question: According to the passage, why did Annie stop writing
postcards?
FIND “postcards”
Question Type 3: Make inferences
Sample question: It can be inferred from the passage that…
For example, a text may state that “Bailey enjoys traveling.”
We can infer from this statement that Bailey finds pleasure in
this activity, but we cannot infer that she enjoys traveling in
Europe.
• Question Type 4: Derive the meaning of a word or
phrase from its context
• Sample question: In the context of the passage, the word
“store” most nearly means…
• in context questions – even if you don’t know the word, you
should be able to answer this question by looking for clues
about how it is used in the text.
• Question Type 5: Determine the author’s purpose
• Sample question 1: What is the author’s purpose for
writing this passage?
• Answer choices for these questions often include phrases
“to describe,” “to identify,” or “to explain,” etc.
• Sample question 2: The author most likely repeats the
phrase “I have longed to move away” in the first stanza in
order to…
• Question Type 6: Determine the author’s attitude and tone
• Sample question 1: The author of this passage would most likely agree
that…
• Sample question 2: The tone of the second paragraph could best be
described as…
• look for the author’s specific choice of adjectives and verbs
• “thrill” and “unexpected,” this might lead you to identify a tone of
“suspense” or “urgency.”

• Question Type 7: Understand and evaluate


opinions/arguments
• Sample question: The author uses all of the following claims to
prove his point that the pros of vaccines outweigh the cons
EXCEPT…?
• student’s literal comprehension of an author’s opinions.
• Question Type 8: Make predictions based on
information in the passage
• Sample question: This passage most likely comes
from…
• Answer choices to these questions will include
sources such as “an atlas,” “an essay,” or “a
speech.”

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