Reading and Comprehension
Domain 1: Reading and Comprehension
The Reading and Comprehension domain measures how well you extract, organize, and evaluate meaning from informational and literary texts. Expect items on main idea, supporting detail, inference, vocabulary in context, text structure, author's purpose and tone, and argument analysis, often with paired passages that must be synthesized.
Core rules and concepts
- Main idea vs. topic: the topic is what a text is about (a phrase); the main idea is the claim it makes about that topic (a sentence). Theme belongs to literary texts and states a universal idea.
- Inference: every inference must be licensed by textual evidence plus ordinary reasoning, never by outside opinion. Prefer the least extravagant answer that explains the most text.
- Text structures: chronology, comparison–contrast, cause–effect, problem–solution, description. Signal words (because, however, as a result, first) reveal the structure.
- Vocabulary in context: use definition, example, contrast, and inference clues; substitute the word into the sentence and check connotation.
- Argument: separate claim, evidence, and warrant-the unstated assumption linking them. Watch for hasty generalization, false dilemma, circular reasoning, and ad hominem.
Worked example
Passage: "The city launched a bike-share program in March with 200 bicycles at 20 stations. By August ridership had tripled, and the transit authority announced 15 more stations. The program's own quarterly report, however, notes that 40 percent of trips replaced walking rather than driving."
Question: Which inference is best supported?
Reasoning: The facts are growth and trip replacement. Because walking produces no tailpipe emissions, trips shifted from walking yield little emissions benefit. The defensible inference-"the program may cut emissions less than its growth suggests"-uses may and stays inside the evidence. Options saying the program "failed" contradict the ridership data; options about cost are unsupported.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing a true statement the passage never asserts.
- Confusing the author's tone toward a subject with the subject's own mood.
- Ignoring qualifiers: "most likely," "chiefly," "according to the passage."
- Answering from prior knowledge on paired-passage items.