{"id":843,"date":"2013-03-01t09:00:08","date_gmt":"2013-03-01t09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=843"},"modified":"2015-04-15t23:23:17","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15t23:23:17","slug":"primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"“primary purpose” questions in sat reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

your sat reading comp sections will include a few questions that look something like this:<\/p>\n

the primary purpose of this passage is to<\/i><\/p>\n

or this:<\/p>\n

the authors overall tone could best be described as<\/i><\/p>\n

and in order pick the right answers for these big-picture questions, you need to zoom out. there are a lot of details in sat reading passages, of course, and not being clear on which are the more important ones can really throw you off. there will be a couple of wrong answers which focus too closely on specific details in the passage that just aren\u2019t universal enough in scope.<\/p>\n

it\u2019s pretty easy to get tricked by answer choices like that unless you have a method.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

sketching the big picture<\/h2>\n

if you take one thing away from this post, it should be this: take notes about the big picture while you read.<\/p>\n

besides keeping you focused,<\/a> notes also help by giving you a zoomed out picture. you\u2019re only going to put the most important details and how they relate to each other in your notes\u2014thinking about their function in the overall passage\u2014so when you look at those, later, you\u2019re not going to get distracted by the little details.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

why zooming out is important<\/h2>\n

imagine i have a picture of a river. i took the picture while sitting on the bank, skipping stones and eating a sandwich. what\u2019s in the picture? water, trees, rocks, sky, moss, bugs\u2026lots of stuff. then i ask you what shape the river is. is it curvy? straight? while you might see a curve in the picture, you\u2019d have a pretty hard time sketching its overall shape. any one little section of an sat reading passage is like that. even if i gave you a whole bunch of pictures, it\u2019d be pretty hard to decide, just like using the whole text without notes would be.<\/p>\n

you don\u2019t want that; you want a satellite image to see the river\u2019s shape. sure, it won\u2019t show the bugs, the rocks, or my sandwich, but it\u2019ll show the big picture. and that\u2019s what the question was asking for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

making sure you\u2019re ready for the main point<\/h2>\n

taking the right kind of margin-notes on your sat is a skill that takes practice. you have to remember to ask yourself those questions for staying focused: \u201cwhat\u2019s the main idea of this paragraph?\u201d \u201chow does this paragraph relate to the next one?\u201d<\/p>\n

practice that, and these big-picture questions will be a cinch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

your sat reading comp sections will include a few questions that look something like this: the primary purpose of this passage is to or this: the authors overall tone could best be described as and in order pick the right answers for these big-picture questions, you need to zoom out. there are a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[43,46,85],"ppma_author":[24883],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n"primary purpose" questions in sat reading - magoosh blog | high school<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""primary purpose" questions in sat reading\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"your sat reading comp sections will include a few questions that look something like this: the primary purpose of this passage is to or this: the authors overall tone could best be described as and in order pick the right answers for these big-picture questions, you need to zoom out. there are a lot of […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"magoosh blog | high school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-01t09:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-15t23:23:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"lucas fink\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"lucas fink\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"article\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/#article\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"lucas fink\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d\"},\"headline\":\"“primary purpose” questions in sat reading\",\"datepublished\":\"2013-03-01t09:00:08+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2015-04-15t23:23:17+00:00\",\"mainentityofpage\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/\"},\"wordcount\":438,\"commentcount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"sat critical reading\",\"sat reading comprehension\",\"sat reading section\"],\"articlesection\":[\"sat\"],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"commentaction\",\"name\":\"comment\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"webpage\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/primary-purpose-questions-in-sat-reading\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"primary purpose\\\" questions in sat reading - 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