CPM

Reading Technique

Have you ever read something and felt that you were understanding as you read each line but,
when you finally got to the end, you couldnt really say what the whole piece was about?

This takes place when you read every line in the same manner. If you read this way, you might
comprehend most of what you read, but you can only hold so much stuff in your memory. As
you move along, you can quickly forget what you read earlier. If you hit something complicated,
you might feel unsure but you keep moving past it. When you finally finish, you might recall
some parts of the piece, but you forget others, and you dont have a sense of the whole.

What makes a good reader, particularly under the time pressure of a standardized test, is the
ability to identify different kinds of information as one reads and adjust how one reads
accordingly. By being sensitive to these differences, you can take a dense block of text and make
it come to life.

This packet will cover the following:

1. Standardized test procedure
2. Identifying claims
3. Following navigators
4. Images: picturing sensory description and figurative language
5. Arguments: structure and organization
6. Tone/Irony
7. Character sketch
8. Retrieving details; vocabulary in context
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Reading Technique
Part 1: Standardized test procedure

Before we dive into specific reading comprehension techniques, well talk about how to go about
the task of a reading passage on a standardized test. Particularly important for now is the
question-answering procedure, which you should practice as we gradually build up reading
comprehension skills.

Reading

Start by reading the blurb. This is helpful for two reasons: it can tell you about the genre of the
passage youll read, and the title of the article or book often provides insight into the main idea
of the passage.

Next, read through the passage to find the main idea. Also, pay attention to how the passage is
organized and where any shifts in focus happen.

At the end of the passage, identify and write down the main idea and the tone. You can do this
very briefly and informally the important thing is to record your impressions.

Questions

Read the question. Do not rush past the question. Take time to comprehend and absorb it.

After reading the question, formulate your own prediction of the answer. This is crucial: do not
move to the answer choices before finding your own response. You can look back in the passage
to refresh your memory or find the details you need. The goal is for you to work to find the
answer before moving to the choices.

If you dont understand the question or are struggling to find the information you need, skip and
come back.

Answer Choices

Read through all of the answer choices to see whether they match your prediction. Give each
answer choice a Yes, No, or Maybe. If it takes longer than a couple of seconds to decide, always
put maybe.

If you find a match for your prediction, trust it and move on.

If you cannot find a match for your prediction, then skip and come back. Avoid the temptation to
find an answer choice that sounds good instead. When you come back, make a new prediction.

Common wrong answer types include: too extreme; half right and half wrong; not in the passage;
irrelevant to the question.
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Paired Passages

Follow the steps above for the first passage, answering only the questions for that passage.

Then follow the steps above for the second passage.

Once you finish the questions about the individual passages, attack the questions about both
passages.

If the passages contrast each other, expect a question about their similarities. If they share the
same side of the argument, expect questions about how they differ.

Why skip and come back?

Skipping and coming back is going to be an important strategy for every section of a
standardized test.

Part of good test-taking is maintaining a balanced pace. You should work carefully and
deliberately, but you also want to maintain a steady momentum.

So avoid getting stuck. Skip and come back as soon as you run into trouble. If you cant make
sense of a question, or if your problem solving has come to a halt, just skip and come back.

Once youve pursued a particular approach to reading and answering a question, your brain will
just retrace your steps if you go back and look at it a second or third time. You need to distract
yourself by moving to other questions before you can look at it differently.

Furthermore, getting stuck feels stressful, and a lot of time passes by when you keep staring at a
question and hoping to find an answer.

When you come back to a question, try to focus on something that you didnt see the first time.
For example, try to look at the question slightly differently, or formulate a different prediction, or
check a different part of the passage.
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Reading Technique
Part 2: Identifying claims

Your most important task during your first read of a passage is to find the main idea of a
passage. Even the more detail-specific questions are often informed by this main idea. If you
dont get it on your initial read ahead of the questions, you wont get it at all.

To read for the main idea, you want to distinguish between two types of information: claims and
supporting details. Lets talk about what each looks like.

Claims

Claims will express the authors individual perspective. What sounds more like the authors
opinion, rather than fact? What does the author say that others writing on the same subject might
not say? What is the author trying to contribute to our understanding of that subject?

Claims typically combine generality and incisiveness. In other words, they make wide-ranging
assertions that cut beneath more surface-level observations.

Claims are often (but not always) found in the introduction, the conclusion, and the topic
sentences of body paragraphs.

Claims often take place where you see contradictor transitions (e.g. however, nevertheless,
although) or cause-and-effect transitions (e.g. therefore, thus, as a consequence).

As you practice identifying claims, you want to get a feel for what a claim sounds like. Claims
pack a punch. They are tightly wound, and that tension gives them the ability to jump off a page.

Supporting Details

Supporting details are essential to developing the authors argument, but they will ultimately be
facts that are widely agreed upon and could be looked up on Wikipedia.

Some supporting details have a narrative structure, particularly those that form a historical
backdrop for a subject. You can detect these when you can see names, dates, and places, and
these will have progressive movement through time.

Other supporting details have an explanatory structure, particularly those that describe a
technical mechanism or scientific phenomenon. You often see complicated jargon with these
details. They provide in-depth explanations for how something works.

Finally, other supporting details provide specific examples of a more general phenomenon. Look
out for transitions that link general claims to specific instances (e.g. for example, for instance).
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Prioritize the claims

Because claims express the viewpoint and feelings of the author, you should underline those and
pay close attention to them. These wont constitute more than 10-12 lines of a passage. They are
the foundation of non-fiction passages.

The supporting details serve to support or illustrate a claim, and are therefore subservient to the
claims. This does not mean that you should completely ignore them, but you should not give
them the same attention and emphasis that claims get.

It is easy to get bogged down in the minutia of supporting details, but you want to avoid doing
this. You dont have to understand every little nuance of the supporting details.

Remember, you can always look up a specific detail if a question asks you for it.