Supporting Details: Locating and Verifying Evidence
What counts as a supporting detail
Supporting details are the facts, examples, statistics, quotations, and reasons that make the main idea credible. Detail questions ask you to find, verify, or distinguish them. Because the answer is always anchored in the text, these questions reward careful locating rather than outside knowledge. Resist bringing in what you happen to know about the subject; the passage, not the world, is the authority.
A locating routine
- Read the question stem and underline its key term (a name, date, quantity, or distinctive noun).
- Scan for that term or a paraphrase of it, not for the whole stem.
- Read the sentence before and after the match, since answers often span two sentences.
- Compare each option against the exact wording, watching for altered qualifiers.
Traps to expect
- Reversed relationship: cause and effect swapped, or a comparison flipped.
- Swapped quantities: numbers, dates, or percentages exchanged between items.
- Overstatement: all, always, never, only inserted where the passage says many, often, rarely, mainly.
- True elsewhere: a statement accurate to the passage but answering a different question.
- Outside knowledge: a fact that is true in general but not stated in the text.
Worked example
Suppose the passage says a survey found that most respondents preferred morning shifts, while a smaller group cited childcare as the reason for preferring evenings. An option claiming "most respondents preferred evening shifts for childcare reasons" fails twice: the majority preference is reversed, and the reason is attached to the wrong group. The correct option keeps both the proportion and the attribution intact.
Rule of thumb
For every option, point to the specific sentence that licenses it. If you cannot put your finger on that sentence, the option is probably a distractor, however sensible it sounds.