Reading Literature and Informational Texts
Subtest I's Reading Literature and Informational Texts domain asks you to read closely across genres and to make defensible claims about what a text says, how it is built, and why those choices matter. Expect multiple-choice items on main idea, theme, inference, text structure, point of view, tone, author's purpose, vocabulary in context, and the evaluation of arguments and evidence.
Literary and informational reading
- Literary texts (stories, poems, dramas) foreground imagined experience, figurative language, and aesthetic form; informational texts (expository, argumentative, procedural) foreground explanation, claim, and evidence.
- Structure is the architecture: chronological, cause-effect, compare-contrast, problem-solution, description, and proposition-support. Informational arguments add claim, evidence, warrant, counterclaim, and qualifier.
Core reading moves
- Separate topic (what it is about) from main idea (the central point) and theme (an insight about life conveyed through a literary work). Theme must be stated as a sentence, not one word.
- Infer only what the text licenses; the best answer is both true and best supported at the right scope.
- Track point of view, tone, and shifts in stance, especially in informational texts where an author may qualify a claim.
Worked example
Passage (original): 'The city's new tree plan arrived with a budget line for saplings and none for watering. By August, the planting strips held rows of brown sticks, and the report's cover photograph-an artist's rendering of a leafy boulevard-looked less like a forecast than an accusation.' Question: Which best describes the passage's rhetorical strategy? A. It defines a term. B. It contrasts an official plan with its outcome to criticize implementation. C. It summarizes research on urban forestry. D. It compares two cities' policies. Reasoning: The passage sets the budgeted plan against the dead saplings and the idealized rendering; 'accusation' signals critique. No definition, research summary, or second city appears, so B is the only choice supported by the contrast. The trap is choosing C because the topic is urban forestry, but topic is not strategy.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing a true statement that the passage does not support, or that answers a different question.
- Treating a supporting detail as the main idea; ignoring concessive words ('although,' 'however') that shift emphasis.
- Confusing tone (author's attitude) with mood (reader's feeling); confusing author's purpose with main idea.
- Overreading informational texts as if every sentence were symbolic, or reading literary texts as if they were arguments.