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