Materials for SAT Evidence-Based Reading Prep
Practice Questions for the Digital SAT
Provided by the College Board:
|
Create a free account to use questions provided from either of these:
|
Previous Test Questions and Answers
- PSAT 11 - Oct. 2020 Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 11 - Oct. 2019 Reading questions from the test booklet and incorrect reading question analysis and Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 10 - Apr. 2019 Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 9 - Apr. 2019 Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 11 - Oct. 2018 Reading questions from the test booklet and incorrect reading question analysis and Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 10 - Apr. 2018 Reading questions from the test booklet
- PSAT 9 - Apr. 2018 Reading questions from the test booklet
- PSAT 11 - Oct. 2017 Reading questions from the test booklet and Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 10 - Apr. 2017 Reading questions from the test booklet
- PSAT 11 - Oct. 2016 Reading questions with answers and explanations
- PSAT 10 - Apr. 2016: Reading questions with answers and explanations
Instructional Materials
Lesson Ideas & Materials: |
Handouts:
|
SAT prep resources folder Includes resources for classroom use:
Lesson Ideas by Subject Area:
|
Web Sites:
Words in Context - Instructional Strategies:
LPR3 Using Context Clues to Comprehend Unknown Words
PrepScholar's Vocab in Context Strategies for SAT Reading
Resources for Instruction:
|
Overview of Skills Tested
Words in Context
Skill:
Sample Question: Information and Ideas/Interpreting Words and Phrases in Context [. . .] The coming decades will likely see more intense clustering of jobs, innovation, and productivity in a smaller number of bigger cities and city-regions. Some regions could end up bloated beyond the capacity of their infrastructure, while others struggle, their promise stymied by inadequate human or other resources. Adapted from Richard Florida, The Great Reset. ©2010 by Richard Florida. (Note that the tested word is in bold here only for convenience; in an actual test, no highlighting would appear.) As used in line 1, “intense” most nearly means A) emotional. B) concentrated. C) brilliant. D) determined. Sample Question: Information and Ideas / Understanding relationships He had taken to the girl from the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, “You must be Ethan!” as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking over her slight person: “She don’t look much on housework, but she ain’t a fretter, anyhow.” But it was not only that the coming to his house of a bit of hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. The girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will. The description in the first paragraph indicates that what Ethan values most about Mattie is her A) fitness for farm labor. B) vivacious youth. C) receptive nature. D) freedom from worry. |
Command of Evidence
Skill:
Sample Question: Synthesis: Analyzing Quantitative Information Transportation planners perform critical work within the broader field of urban and regional planning. As of 2010, there were approximately 40,300 urban and regional planners employed in the United States. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts steady job growth in this field, projecting that 16 percent of new jobs in all occupations will be related to urban and regional planning. Population growth and concerns about environmental sustainability are expected to spur the need for transportation planning professionals. Which choice completes the sentence with accurate data based on the graph below? A) NO CHANGE B) warning, however, that job growth in urban and regional planning will slow to 14 percent by 2020. C) predicting that employment of urban and regional planners will increase 16 percent between 2010 and 2020. D) indicating that 14 to 18 percent of urban and regional planning positions will remain unfilled. |
Delivering Instruction of SAT Skills
Use the following visible thinking questions to guide your instruction using practice SAT questions:
Claim:
What type of question is being asked? What is the student being asked to do or solve? |
Support:
What is the skill or concept needed to correctly answer the question? |
Question:
What instructional strategies can be used to teach this skill? |
Practice Passages & Test Questions
From the College Board's SAT practice tests, separated by individual reading passage and identified by subject area.
Skills Addressed in Reading Section Questions
|
|
|
Additional Reading Materials for Practice
Article passages with evidence-based questions:
Science news articles:
|
History / Social Studies primary sources:
|
Skill-Building Strategies for Reading
Excerpted from The Redesigned SAT: Teacher Implementation Guide https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/redesigned-sat-k12-teacher-implementation-guide.pdf
- Students may be unaccustomed to the length and challenge of Reading Test passages. Assign a range of reading passages that includes some longer and more difficult selections, and provide students with needed scaffolding and support so that they can develop the needed independence in reading such pieces.
- To help students recognize how an author’s selection of words and phrases shapes meaning, style, and tone, ask them to select a particularly meaningful or powerful word or phrase from a reading selection and substitute for it another word or phrase of similar meaning. Discuss how it is uncommon for two words or phrases to have exactly the same impact, nuance, or connotation even when they have similar dictionary definitions.
- When reading literature passages, primary sources, or current event publications, ask students to use the SOAPSTone method to analyze the text. Ask students to identify the Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. Students can deepen their understanding of both content and meaning by comparing these elements across several documents focused on a similar theme or topic. (Similar to SOAPStone is the Toulmin Model, helpful for guiding students through analyzing a persuasive text.)
- Ask students to write questions that investigate understanding of a lesson or unit. Questions should be at various levels: literal, interpretive, and universal questions that prompt deeper thinking. Students will practice identifying meaningful and relevant information in order to create high-quality questions for their peers to answer. When students answer their peers’ questions, require them to provide the evidence that supports their selection.
- Ask students to identify similarities and differences in multiple passages. Have them create a Venn diagram or develop their own graphic organizers to organize their thoughts and facilitate synthesis and analysis of multiple texts. Visual representations can also be used to trace other kinds of relationships, such as sequence and cause-effect.
- Ask students to locate and present additional texts that support an author’s conclusion and to defend their choices by citing textual evidence (e.g., quotations) from the additional texts. This allows students to practice both synthesizing and supporting their ideas with evidence.