SAT Reading Passages: Answering Main Idea Questions

Ah, SAT reading comprehension—that part of the SAT where you get to read endlessly fascinating passages about science, art, historic events, literary analysis, and other heady, academic stuff. OK, so maybe the reading passages are not endlessly fascinating, but the truth is, once you get used to these passages and the questions, the critical reading section isn't as difficult as it first appears.

It helps to be familiar with the seven types of questions you'll encounter in the critical reading section, so we’re devoting a series of posts to each type. Here are the seven question types: 1) Main Idea, 2) Attitude or Tone, 3) Specific Information, 4) Implied Information, 5) Themes and Arguments, 6) Technique, and 7) Words in Context.

Earlier this week, we discussed ways to decode author meaning across an entire passage. Today, we're going to dig into answering those questions that ask specifically about main idea. As you probably know, a main idea is a summary of the whole passage's primary purpose. Sometimes main idea questions appear in the most straightforward way possible: “What is the main idea of this passage?” But, as we all know, the SAT writers can be tricky, so you're also likely to come across a question like this: “What is the best title for this passage?" Title questions are simply main idea questions in disguise. Don't be fooled. You're not literally looking for the best title as if you were a magazine editor trying to sell copies with great headlines. You're simply looking for the title that best sums up the passage.

In order to answer a main idea question, try the following technique:

1. Pay close attention to the introductory and concluding paragraphs when you're reading the passage. Introductions may contain thesis statements, which will tell you the author's main idea. Concluding paragraphs sometimes summarize the main idea.

2. Create a one-sentence summary of the passage. To make sure your summary hits on the pertinent information, remember the journalistic 5 Ws: Who, Where, When, What, Why (or How)—though all five may not necessarily apply to the passage.

3. Compare your summary sentence to the answer choices. Eliminate the answers that clearly don't match.

4. If you're left with two or more answers that seem like they might be correct, look carefully to see if any of them are too broadly or narrowly focused to summarize the main idea. Also watch out for answer choices that use qualifying words such as always, never, etc. Many passages don’t make absolute claims, so you can often eliminate answers that use words like always and never. Through this process of elimination, you should be able to choose the correct main idea.

Next up in the series, we'll take a look at tone questions. Stay tuned.

And if you have any questions about the critical reading section, let us know in the comments or email testpreptutor@sparknotes.com.

Related Post: What's the Point?