SAT Critical Reading : SAT Critical Reading
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT Critical Reading
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Example Questions
Example Question #21 : Sat Critical Reading
The clerk looked down her nose at the paper in such a __________ manner that I snatched it back, embarrassed.
genial
supercilious
gracious
convivial
deferential
supercilious
The blank in this sentence calls for a negative adjective describing the behavior of the clerk. “Gracious,” “genial,” and “convivial” are all positive adjectives, and looking “deferential” (meaning respectful) would not make someone embarrassed. The correct answer is “supercilious,” meaning arrogant or haughty.
Example Question #22 : Sat Critical Reading
Choose the word or set of words that best completes the following sentence.
Eliza could get a perfect score on the SAT, but she is far too __________ to work for it every day.
miserly
complacent
pretentious
perfidious
expressive
complacent
From the context of the sentence you know that the blank word must relate to some deficiency in Eliza’s character that causes her not to work as hard as she ought to. This reveals that the correct answer is “complacent” which means self-satisfied, lazy and lacking ambition. Perfidious means disloyal; pretentious means showy and conceited; miserly means not generous.
Example Question #23 : Sat Critical Reading
The following passage is adapted from “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published 1892.
It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.
A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.
John is a physician, and PERHAPS—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?
If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?
My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.
So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again.
Personally, I disagree with their ideas.
Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.
But what is one to do?
I did write for a while in spite of them; but it DOES exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.
I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.
As used in the last paragraph, “society” most nearly means __________.
an organization or club
being in the company of others
excitement
an ordered community
the influential people within a community
being in the company of others
In this case, the word "society" is used very generally to mean the situation of being in the company of others. This situation, presumably, would provide entertainment and stimulus. She does not speak specifically about a specific organization, she does not seem concerned about influential people (high-society), and she is not talking about the ordered community in which we live.
Example Question #23 : Sat Critical Reading
The effects of the deleterious allele could be seen in the population, where individuals with the allele all died before the age of thirty.
In the context of the sentence, the word "deleterious" most nearly means __________.
fortuitous
deadly
inevitable
adverse
impute
adverse
"Deleterious" means harmful to living things. "Adverse," meaning harmful, is the best answer. "Deadly" would not be correct because something can be harmful without being deadly. In this example, the allele was deadly, however, the question asks about the specific word "deleterious," which does not mean deadly.
Example Question #21 : Sentence Completion Questions
Skimming over the boring passages, the book still took me the better part of a month to finish.
Skimming over the boring passages, I still took the better part of a month to finish the book.
Skimming over the boring passages, the book still took me the better part of a month to finish. (No change)
Skimming over the boring passages, the book was still finished in the better part of a month.
Skimming over the boring passages, I still finished the book taking the better part of a month.
Skimming over the boring passages, it still took me the better part of a month to finish the book.
Skimming over the boring passages, I still took the better part of a month to finish the book.
The original sentence had a dangling modifier. The phrase “skimming over the boring passages” should be adjacent to the person who is doing the skimming: “I.” In the other option that correctly puts “I” as the subject, the “taking” phrase at the end is awkwardly phrased.
Example Question #25 : Sat Critical Reading
At the crack of dawn, the man in the beige overcoat who had sat by the door all night long keeping watch finally gave up and went to bed.
At the crack of dawn, the man in the beige overcoat, the one who had sat by the door all night long keeping watch, finally gave up and went to bed.
The man in the beige overcoat, the one who had sat by the door all night long keeping watch, finally gave up and went to bed at the crack of dawn.
At the crack of dawn, the man finally gave up and went to bed. He was wearing a beige overcoat and had sat by the door all night long keeping watch.
At the crack of dawn, the man in the beige overcoat who had sat by the door all night long keeping watch finally gave up and went to bed. (No change)
The man in the beige overcoat, the one who had sat by the door all night long keeping watch, at the crack of dawn, finally gave up and went to bed.
The man in the beige overcoat, the one who had sat by the door all night long keeping watch, finally gave up and went to bed at the crack of dawn.
The original sentence is a string of modifiers, and the adverbial phrase “at the crack of dawn” is at the other side of the sentence from the verb it modifies. The reader gets lost in the information in the middle. The correct answer not only breaks up the information a little bit, but it also brings the adverbial phrase closer to its verb.
Example Question #26 : Sat Critical Reading
The slowly disappearing sun turned the sky an array of colors before the sun finally was gone.
The slowly disappearing sun, before finally going, turned the sky an array of colors.
The slowly disappearing sun turned the sky an array of colors before it was finally gone.
The slowly disappearing sun, before the sun was finally gone, turned the sky an array of colors.
The slowly disappearing sun turned the sky an array of colors; the sun was finally gone.
The slowly disappearing sun turned the sky an array of colors before the sun finally was gone.
The slowly disappearing sun turned the sky an array of colors before it was finally gone.
This sentence had a problem with redundancy. The second “the sun” was not necessary and could be replaced with a pronoun. Shifting around the “before” phrase does not help the sentence read more smoothly.
Example Question #27 : Sat Critical Reading
Which of the underlined words in this sentence is improperly used?
Due to our conflicting personalities, it is sometimes difficult for he and me to reach an agreement.
No error
conflicting
me
reach
he
he
In English grammar, objective case requires this sentence to read “him and me.” “he” is subjective case, as in “He gave me the flowers.”
Example Question #21 : Sat Critical Reading
Passage 1: Questions 1-7 refer to the following passage, which is adapted from Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), 1889, by Jerome K. Jerome.
There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.
We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.
It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn’t I got housemaid’s knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid’s knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.
The paragraph 3 phrase, “I have never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form,” implies that __________.
the narrator has a weak immune system
all diseases are imagined
pharmaceutical companies deliberately try to fool people into thinking they have a certain condition
the self-diagnosis is false
the self-diagnosis is false
The fact that he every advertisement convinces him of something else implies that the self-diagnoses is false. Having every single disease (perhaps from a weak immune system) is implausible. While he is “impelled” to this conclusion, the suggestion that it is deliberate on the part of the pharmaceutical companies is extreme. The conclusion that all diseases are imagined is also extreme.
Example Question #22 : Sat Critical Reading
Jill's coach told her and her teammates that the friction in the squad needed to be resolved if they wanted to have a good season.
What is the denotation of "friction" as used in this sentence?
Miscommunication
Anger
Conflict
Drama
Denotation means the literal dictionary defintion; therefore, the denotation of friction would be independent of its use in the sentence. The denotation of friction is the resistance one object encounters while making non-static contact with another.
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