Reading: Informational Text
The Reading: Informational Text domain tests how well you explain a nonfiction passage. You will identify main ideas, trace how events or ideas connect, interpret vocabulary and text features, compare firsthand and secondhand accounts, and judge whether reasons actually support a point.
Find the main idea and the frame
- Main idea is the point the whole passage makes; details support it. Test a choice by asking whether every paragraph helps prove it.
- Summaries contain main ideas in a logical order and no new opinion.
- Text structure is the author's plan: chronology, comparison, cause and effect, or problem and solution. Signal words such as first, unlike, because, and as a result are clues.
Read features and sources critically
Headings, captions, diagrams, and charts carry information, but a single caption is usually a detail, not the main idea. A firsthand account comes from someone who was there and may include feelings; a secondhand account reports from other sources and usually relies on facts. An author's reasons need evidence, not just strong wording.
Worked example
A passage explains that a town replaced a steep culvert with a series of stepped pools so salmon could swim upstream. It reports that the number of nests rose the next spring. What is the main idea? A Salmon are interesting fish. B The new pools helped salmon reach spawning grounds. C The town spent money. D Culverts are made of metal. B is supported by the problem, the change, and the result. A is too broad, C is a detail, and D is not stated.
Traps that cost marks
Selecting a main idea that is too broad or too narrow; treating an interesting detail as the whole point; mixing up cause and effect; accepting an opinion in a firsthand account as a proven fact; ignoring a chart that contradicts the paragraph.