Essential Academic Skills Subtests I–III
Reading
Understand main idea, supporting details, inference, author’s purpose, tone, and vocabulary in context. Practice summarizing paragraphs and distinguishing fact from opinion. Questions may ask for the “best” title or the logical next sentence.
Writing
Know grammar, usage, punctuation, sentence structure, and paragraph and essay organization. Revise for clarity, concision, and coherence. Identify fragments, run-ons, misplaced modifiers, and pronoun agreement errors.
Mathematics
Master number sense, ratios, percentages, algebra, geometry, and data interpretation. Translate word problems into equations and check units. Estimation can eliminate choices quickly.
Traps
Questions often use absolutes (“always,” “never”) that are wrong. Grammar distractors may sound formal but create errors. Math items may require reading the stem twice; do not assume a calculation method before identifying what is asked.
Worked example
A price rises from $40 to $50. Percent increase = (50−40)/40 × 100 = 25%. Rule: the original amount is the base.
Rule of thumb
Read the question stem first, eliminate extreme choices, and verify math by estimating before computing.