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Reading Comprehension Skills

6 dot points across 6 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you analyze why a writer made a choice, and what effect that choice has, in a Part 1 craft question?

Analyzing author's craft and purpose: explaining why a writer made a particular choice of word, structure, or technique, identifying its effect on the reader, and answering Part 1 questions about purpose, tone, and the function of a passage.
How to analyze author's craft on the Regents: explaining why a writer chose a particular word, structure, or technique and what effect it creates, and answering Part 1 questions about purpose, tone, and the function of a line or paragraph.
9 min answer →

What is a reliable method for the 24 Part 1 multiple-choice questions, and how do you avoid the distractor traps?

Answering the multiple-choice questions: a reliable method for the 24 Part 1 items (read, locate, predict, eliminate), recognizing vocabulary-in-context questions, and avoiding the distractor types the Regents builds (true-but-irrelevant, half-right, extreme, out-of-scope).
A reliable method for the 24 Part 1 Regents multiple-choice questions: read, locate, predict, eliminate; how to handle vocabulary-in-context items; and how to spot the distractor types the exam uses, true-but-irrelevant, half-right, extreme, and out-of-scope answers.
9 min answer →

How do you read an unseen Regents text closely enough to answer multiple-choice questions from evidence rather than memory?

Close reading and text evidence: reading an unseen literary, poetry, or informational text actively, tracking what the text states and implies, and answering Part 1 questions from located textual evidence rather than gist or recall.
How to read an unseen Regents text closely: active reading habits, the difference between what a text states and what it implies, and answering Part 1 multiple-choice questions from located textual evidence rather than a vague memory of the passage.
9 min answer →

How do you identify the central idea of an unseen Regents text and track how it develops?

Determining central ideas: distinguishing a central idea from a topic or a detail, identifying the central idea of an unseen literary or informational text, and tracking how it develops across the passage for Part 1 questions and the Part 3 response.
How to determine the central idea of an unseen Regents text: distinguishing a central idea from a topic or detail, finding the idea a whole passage develops, and tracking how it builds across the text, the skill behind Part 1 central-idea questions and the Part 3 Text-Analysis Response.
9 min answer →

How do you make an inference that the text supports, and avoid the over-reach the wrong answers reward?

Making inferences: drawing a conclusion the text supports without stating it outright, anchoring every inference to its textual trigger, and rejecting the plausible-but-unsupported and the over-reaching inferences that Part 1 distractors are built from.
How to make an inference the Regents text supports: drawing a conclusion the passage implies without stating, anchoring it to the textual detail that triggered it, and spotting the plausible-but-unsupported and over-reaching inferences that Part 1 wrong answers are designed from.
9 min answer →

How do you read the Part 1 poem closely enough to answer its multiple-choice questions on meaning, figurative language, and form?

Reading poetry on the Regents: reading the Part 1 poem for literal sense and implied meaning, interpreting figurative language and imagery in context, and recognizing how form (line, stanza, repetition) shapes meaning for the multiple-choice questions.
How to read the Part 1 Regents poem: working out the literal sense first, interpreting figurative language and imagery in context, and recognizing how form (line breaks, stanzas, repetition) shapes meaning, the skills behind the poem's multiple-choice questions.
9 min answer →