SAT Reading Strategy

Claim Identification on the SAT

How to Find the Spine of Any Argument

Track the author’s logic, locate evidence quickly, and sharpen your reasoning.

7 Min Read

Reading Skill

Evidence-First

5 Practice Qs

Anchor every answer in the exact line that proves it. If you cannot point to the words, it is not the answer.

Read the question, then scan for the line that directly supports a choice.
Match wording, not vibe: synonyms are fine, new ideas are not.
If two answers feel close, eliminate the one with any extra claim.

At the core of every argument is a claim. A researcher may propose that sleep deprivation impairs decision-making, or a historian may argue that economic pressures drove a political revolution; in each case, the claim is the central statement that everything else in the text exists to support. On the Digital SAT Reading and Writing section, your ability to locate that claim quickly and accurately can be the difference between a good score and a great one.

Here's the good news: claim identification is a learnable skill, not a talent you're born with. Think about everyday conversations. If a friend says, "That new pizza place is the best restaurant in town," that's a claim, it's an opinion that could be argued. But if they say, "It opened last Tuesday," that's just a fact. You already make this distinction dozens of times a day without thinking about it. The SAT simply asks you to do the same thing with more complex, academic language.

In this guide, you'll learn exactly what claim identification means, how the SAT tests it, and a repeatable five-step strategy you can use on every single passage. By the end, you'll have practiced with five SAT-style questions and built the kind of pattern recognition that makes test day feel familiar rather than stressful.

What Is Claim Identification?

When you read an SAT passage, every sentence falls into one of three categories. Learning to sort sentences into these categories is the foundation of claim identification.

The Three Buckets

Claim: The author's main argument, position, or interpretation. A claim is debatable, a reasonable person could disagree with it. Example: "Breakfast programs significantly improve student test performance."
Evidence: The data, examples, facts, or findings that support (or challenge) the claim. Example: "Students who ate breakfast scored 12% higher on standardized math assessments."
Background: Context, definitions, or historical setup that helps the reader understand the topic but doesn't argue a position. Example: "School breakfast programs were first introduced in the United States in 1966."

Notice the difference: the evidence is a finding, a piece of data. The claim is the interpretation built on top of that finding. This distinction trips up more students than almost anything else on the SAT, so let's address it directly.

The Topic Trap: An answer choice that accurately describes the subject of the passage but doesn't capture the author's argument. It sounds relevant but says nothing debatable.
The Evidence Trap: An answer choice that restates a specific finding, example, or piece of data from the passage. It's true, it's in the text, but it's a supporting detail, not the overarching claim.
The Too Broad Trap: An answer choice that makes a sweeping generalization that goes beyond what the passage actually argues. The passage might claim that one type of coral is resilient, but the trap says all marine organisms are resilient.
The Too Narrow Trap: An answer choice that captures only one part of the argument, ignoring the rest. It's accurate but incomplete, like describing an elephant by talking only about its trunk.

Think of a passage as a body. The claim is the spine, the central structure that holds everything else together. Every piece of evidence, every example, every concession connects back to the spine. Your job is to find it. Here's how.

The Five-Step Process

Read the question first. Confirm it's asking for the main claim (not a detail, not the purpose). This takes two seconds and prevents you from solving the wrong problem.
Read the passage actively. As you read, mentally tag each sentence: Is this a claim, evidence, or background? Pay special attention to the first and last sentences, claims frequently appear there, though not always.
Look for signal words. Authors often introduce claims with language like argues, suggests, concludes, proposes, contends, maintains, or the study demonstrates that. These are signposts pointing directly at the spine.
Formulate the claim in your own words before looking at the answer choices. Even a rough mental paraphrase ("The author thinks breakfast programs help test scores") protects you from being seduced by well-written wrong answers.
Eliminate using trap types. Match each answer choice against your paraphrase. If it's just a topic description, it's a Topic Trap. If it restates data, it's an Evidence Trap. If it's too sweeping or too limited, eliminate it.

Metacognitive Checkpoint

Before you commit to an answer, run these three self-check questions:

Could a reasonable person disagree with this statement? If yes, it could be a claim. If no, it's probably a fact or background.
Does the rest of the passage support this statement? If most of the evidence points back to it, you've likely found the spine.
Is this the whole argument, or just a piece of it? If it's only a piece, the answer might be too narrow.

Timing guidance: Aim to spend roughly 60 seconds on a claim identification question, about 30 seconds reading and tagging, 10 seconds forming your paraphrase, and 20 seconds evaluating answer choices. With practice, this becomes faster and more automatic.

Practice Claim Identification with SAT-Style Questions

Note: The passages below are original, SAT-style constructions for practice; any names or details are fictionalized.

Now let's put the strategy to work. These five questions progress from straightforward to more challenging, spanning the kinds of passages you'll encounter on the real SAT. For each one, try to identify the spine before looking at the answer choices.

Question 1

Passage

A team of researchers at a large midwestern university studied the effects of school breakfast programs on academic performance. After tracking over 2,000 elementary students across three school years, the researchers concluded that students who consistently participated in breakfast programs scored significantly higher on standardized reading and math assessments than their peers who did not participate, even after controlling for household income and parental education levels.

easy

Which choice best states the main claim of the text?

Question 2

Passage

For decades, marine biologists assumed that rising ocean temperatures would uniformly devastate coral reef ecosystems. However, recent fieldwork in the western Pacific has revealed that several species of Acropora coral have developed novel thermal tolerance mechanisms, suggesting that certain coral populations possess a greater capacity for adaptation than previously recognized. These findings have prompted researchers to reconsider blanket predictions about reef collapse.

easy

Which choice best describes the main claim presented in the text?

Question 3

Passage

Literary scholars have long celebrated the Harlem Renaissance primarily as an artistic and cultural movement, emphasizing its contributions to poetry, music, and visual art. Historian Davarian Baldwin contends that this framing overlooks a crucial dimension of the era: the Harlem Renaissance was equally a political movement in which Black intellectuals used cultural production as a deliberate strategy for advancing civil rights and challenging systemic racial inequality. Baldwin points to the editorial choices of magazines like The Crisis and Opportunity, which consistently paired literary content with political commentary and calls to action.

medium

Based on the text, Baldwin's central claim is that

Question 4

Passage

A 2023 neuroimaging study at the University of British Columbia tracked 48 participants through an eight-week mindfulness meditation program. Brain scans conducted before and after the program revealed increased gray matter density in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the amygdala during stress-response tasks. Lead researcher Dr. Anaya Sharma argues that these results demonstrate that mindfulness practices produce measurable structural and functional changes in the brain, challenging the long-held view that such practices offer only subjective psychological benefits.

medium

Which choice best states the main claim of the text?

Question 5

Passage

Gross domestic product has served as the dominant measure of national economic health since the mid-twentieth century, and economists widely acknowledge its effectiveness at capturing the total monetary value of goods and services produced within a country. However, economic theorist Amara Okafor argues that GDP is fundamentally inadequate as a sole indicator of societal well-being because it fails to account for income inequality, environmental degradation, and unpaid domestic labor, factors that directly shape the quality of life experienced by a nation's citizens. Okafor concedes that GDP remains useful for certain macroeconomic comparisons but maintains that policymakers who rely on it exclusively risk making decisions that optimize for growth while ignoring the distribution of that growth's benefits.

medium

Which choice best describes the main claim Okafor presents in the text?

Key Takeaways for Claim Identification

A claim is a debatable position, not a fact or topic. Before you commit to an answer, ask yourself: Could a reasonable person disagree with this statement?
Evidence supports the claim, it is not the claim itself. When you spot a specific finding or data point in an answer choice, ask: Is this the argument, or is this the proof?
Signal words are your best friends. Words like argues, contends, suggests, maintains, concludes, and proposes frequently introduce the claim. Ask yourself: Where does the author shift from describing to arguing?
Scope matters. The correct answer matches the exact scope of the author's argument, not broader, not narrower. Ask: Does this answer capture the whole spine, or just one vertebra?

Conclusion: The Core Rule for Claim Identification

Claim identification is one of the most valuable reading skills you can build, not just for the SAT, but for every argument you'll encounter in college and beyond. Once you can reliably find the spine of a passage, everything else becomes easier. Evidence evaluation? You need to know what the evidence is supporting. Analyzing reasoning? You need to know what conclusion the reasoning leads to. Spotting counterarguments? You need to know what position is being challenged.

Every one of those advanced skills depends on this foundational one. The strategy you practiced here, reading actively, tagging sentences, looking for signal words, forming your own paraphrase, and eliminating by trap type, will serve you on every passage the SAT puts in front of you.

Keep practicing, and remember:

The claim is the spine of the passage. Find the spine, and the rest of the argument falls into place.

About the Instructor

Thomas Meli

Founder, Deep Test Prep

"Viewing the SAT as a transformative rite of passage, my approach builds self-awareness, sharpens critical thinking, and fosters a love of learning that supports students far beyond test day."

With over 20 years of teaching and 500+ hours of training in compassionate communication, Thomas uses scientifically proven methods to help students target and achieve their SAT goals.