Understand the Task- what is the task?
strengthen task
complex; asks you to strengthen a claim made in the passage. tends to further support evidence associated with the claim referenced in the question stem.
weaken task
complex; asks you to weaken a claim presented in the passage/make the claim less believable. typical correct answers will call the evidence used to support the claim into question
tone task
general; evaluate how strongly the author feels on the subject of the question
structure task
general; figure out the sequence of the passage (or about smaller pieces of it)
main idea task
general; figure out what the author wants you to believe
primary purpose task
general; figure out why the author wrote the passage
specific purpose task
specific; asks why the author included the subject or particular piece of info. means you need to find the claim that the author supports/objects
retrieval task
specific; asks you to find a piece of information in the passage (may make a reference to a detail or fact); the answer is typically a paraphrase of this info in the passage
inference task
specific; infer = what must be true; the answer will just be a paraphrase of information in the passage
vocabulary-in-context task
specific; state what the author means by a certain word or phrase