BRIGHT Test cheat sheet

Main idea questions: the correct answer restates the overall topic or purpose, not a supporting detail; eliminate options that are true but too narrow.

Inference questions: the answer must be logically supported by the passage but not explicitly stated; reject choices that require outside knowledge or go beyond the text.

Author's tone or attitude: look for evaluative adjectives, adverbs, and verbs (e.g., 'unfortunately,' 'remarkably') that signal positive, negative, or neutral stance.

Vocabulary in context: replace the target word with each answer choice and check whether the surrounding sentence still makes logical and grammatical sense.

Listening for numbers and dates: note place values (hundred vs. thousand), ordinals (third vs. thirty), and teen/-ty endings (thirteen vs. thirty) as they are common distractors.

Reference questions (what does 'it' refer to): the antecedent is usually the nearest preceding noun that agrees in number and makes semantic sense in the sentence.

Detail questions in lectures: the professor often signals importance with phrases like 'the key point is,' 'remember that,' or 'what's interesting here is.'

Cause-effect relationships: identify signal words (because, therefore, as a result, consequently, since) and map which event is the cause and which is the effect.

Paraphrase recognition: the correct answer to a rephrasing question preserves the original meaning while changing vocabulary and sentence structure; beware of answers that reverse the relationship.

Subject-verb agreement: the verb agrees with the grammatical subject, not with a phrase between the subject and verb (e.g., 'The list of items is long').

Prepositional phrases between subject and verb do not change agreement; identify the head noun before choosing singular or plural verb forms.

Indefinite pronouns: each, either, neither, everyone, everybody, anyone, nobody are singular and take singular verbs and pronouns.

Collective nouns (team, family, government) take a singular verb when acting as a unit, but may take a plural verb when members act individually.

Relative clauses: use 'who' for people, 'which' for things, and 'that' for restrictive clauses; 'whose' shows possession.

Conditional structures: zero conditional (present + present) for general truths; first (present + will) for real future; second (past + would) for unreal present; third (had + past participle + would have) for unreal past.

Parallel structure: items joined by 'and,' 'or,' 'but,' or in a list must share the same grammatical form (e.g., all infinitives or all gerunds).

Comparatives and superlatives: use -er/-est for one-syllable adjectives, more/most for adjectives of three or more syllables; never double-mark (e.g., 'more better' is incorrect).

Articles: 'a/an' for first mention or one of many; 'the' for specific or previously mentioned nouns; no article for general plural or abstract nouns.