Craft and Structure: Words, Purpose, and Structure
What this domain tests
Craft and Structure asks you to read like a writer: to determine what a word means as it is used in a passage, why an author makes a particular choice, and how a passage is built. The concepts you must control are contextual word meaning (including a word whose common meaning differs from its passage meaning), tone and attitude, text structure (how sentences and paragraphs relate: contrast, cause, example, sequence), point of view and purpose, and cross-text connections when two short passages address one topic.
Traps to watch for
- The familiar-meaning trap: a common word like check, sound, or novel is used in an unusual sense; the tempting answer gives the everyday definition.
- The right idea, wrong degree: an answer that captures the gist but overstates tone ("outraged" for merely skeptical).
- The true-but-irrelevant choice: a statement that is accurate about the passage but does not answer the actual question about purpose or structure.
- Half-right pairs: in "which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence," one clause fits and the other does not.
Rule of thumb
For word-meaning questions, cover the word, read the sentence, and predict your own word before looking at choices; then pick the choice closest to your prediction. For purpose questions, ask what would be lost if this sentence were deleted? The answer names that job.
Worked example
Passage: "The committee's report was sound: every claim could be traced to a primary document." A tempting choice is "a noise." But the colon explains supportability, so sound means well-founded. Predict first, then match.