Victoria LET Assessment cheat sheet

Main idea = the claim the whole passage supports; supporting details only illustrate it. Test a candidate main idea by asking whether every paragraph relates to it.

Inference is unstated but logically forced by the text; if a statement could be false without contradicting the passage, it is not a valid inference.

Tone and attitude words carry evaluative weight: 'acknowledges', 'concedes', 'laments', 'dismisses' signal stance, while 'notes' and 'reports' are neutral.

Context clues: definition (appositive or dash), contrast ('however', 'unlike'), cause-effect ('because', 'thus'), and example ('such as') types each point to a word's meaning.

Scope words change answer validity: 'all', 'only', 'primarily', and 'best' demand different levels of support than 'some' or 'one reason'.

Passage structure markers: 'first/then/finally' = sequence; 'in contrast' = comparison; 'therefore' = conclusion; 'for example' = illustration.

Author's purpose options map to verbs: inform (explain a process), persuade (advocate a position), entertain (narrate), critique (evaluate strengths and flaws).

Vocabulary in context: substitute each answer choice into the sentence and keep only the choice that preserves both meaning and grammatical fit.

Valid argument form (modus ponens): If P then Q; P; therefore Q. Affirming the consequent (If P then Q; Q; therefore P) is invalid.

Valid contrapositive: If P then Q is equivalent to If not Q then not P. The inverse (If not P then not Q) is not equivalent.

Necessary condition: Q is necessary for P when P cannot occur without Q; sufficient condition: P guarantees Q. Confusing the two is the most common logic error.

'Some' means at least one and possibly all; 'most' means more than half; 'none' and 'all' are contradictories, so negating 'all A are B' yields 'some A are not B'.

Syllogism check: two premises sharing a middle term yield a conclusion only if the middle term is distributed (covers all members) in at least one premise.

Analogy relations to name explicitly: part-to-whole, cause-to-effect, function, degree, category membership, and antonym; the relation must hold in the same direction.

Assumption questions: the correct answer is required by the argument, so negate it - if the argument collapses, it was a necessary assumption.

Weaken/strengthen questions target the link between evidence and conclusion; alternative explanations and unrepresentative samples weaken, while ruling out alternatives strengthens.

Percent change = (new − old) ÷ old × 100. A 20% increase followed by a 20% decrease leaves 96% of the original, a net 4% loss.

Successive percentage changes multiply: multipliers 1.2 and 0.8 give 0.96; add multipliers only for changes applied to the same base.

Part : whole = percent ÷ 100. To find the original after a percentage change, divide by the multiplier rather than subtracting the percentage.

Average = sum ÷ count, so sum = average × count. If one value changes by d, the average changes by d ÷ count.

Ratio scaling: express as a : b, find the total number of parts, then value per part = total ÷ (a + b).

Rate problems use distance = rate × time; combined work rates add as fractions of the job per unit time (1/a + 1/b = 1/t).

Simple interest = principal × rate × time; compound amount = principal × (1 + rate)^periods, so compounding exceeds simple interest after one period.

Probability of independent events multiplies; probability of either of two mutually exclusive events adds. Probability of an event plus its complement equals 1.

Estimation control: round each number to one significant figure, compute, then confirm the exact answer lies within the rounding error band.

Subject-verb agreement: the verb agrees with the head noun, not with intervening prepositional phrases ('The box of nails is').

Compound subjects joined by 'and' take plural verbs; those joined by 'or'/'nor' agree with the nearer subject.

Pronoun case: use subject pronouns for subjects and after linking verbs in formal writing; object pronouns follow prepositions and transitive verbs.

Comma rules: separate independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction; do not join two independent clauses with a comma alone (comma splice).

Non-essential clauses take paired commas; essential (restrictive) clauses take none, and 'that' introduces restrictive clauses while 'which' usually introduces non-essential ones.

Dangling modifiers: the introductory phrase must describe the grammatical subject of the main clause ('Walking home, she saw...' not 'Walking home, the rain...').

Parallel structure: items in a list, and elements joined by 'and', 'or', 'not only...but also', must share grammatical form.

Diction confusions to check: affect/effect, its/it's, their/there/they're, fewer (countable)/less (mass), lie/lay, who (subject)/whom (object).

Punctuation of quotations: commas and periods go inside closing quotation marks; semicolons and colons go outside in standard usage.

Rotation preserves shape and size; reflection reverses orientation (handedness). Track a single asymmetric feature to distinguish the two.

Common series rules: rotate by a fixed angle, add or remove a side, move an element one position clockwise, alternate two independent patterns.

Counting rule: when element counts rise 1, 2, 3, the next term has 4; check counts before checking positions.

Superposition rule: the third figure often equals the first two combined, with overlapping lines cancelled (XOR) or retained (OR).

Symmetry checks: count lines of symmetry and note rotational symmetry order; many sequences alternate symmetry types.

Odd-one-out strategy: find the property shared by all but one item - number of enclosed regions, curved versus straight lines, or closed versus open figures.

Matrix problems: test row and column rules separately; a rule that holds across rows but not columns is usually the intended one.

Analogy format A : B :: C : ? means apply the exact transformation from A to B to C, including direction of rotation and element movement.

Source evaluation criteria: author expertise, publication venue, date, cited evidence, and whether the purpose is to inform or to sell.

Primary source = original data, document, or eyewitness account; secondary source interprets or summarizes primary material.

Correlation is not causation: a third variable, reverse causation, or coincidence can explain an observed association.

Graph reading order: title, axis labels and units, scale increments, legend, then trend. A truncated y-axis exaggerates apparent change.

Sample bias: results generalize only to the population sampled; self-selected or small samples support weak conclusions.

Mean is sensitive to outliers; median and mode are resistant. Report which measure a data set uses before comparing groups.

Note-taking structures: outline (hierarchy), Cornell (cues, notes, summary), and concept map (relationships); choose by whether the material is sequential or relational.

Spaced review beats massed review: distributing study across sessions improves long-term retention more than equal total time in one session.

Standardized-test timing: answer confident items first, flag and return; a guessed answer costs nothing when there is no wrong-answer penalty.