Skills That Carry Over: One Skill, Many SAT Question Types

A comma skill from grammar shortens long reading sentences

Which choice punctuates this sentence correctly?

The bridge completed in 1932 after six years of work still carries most of the city’s traffic.

Which choice punctuates this sentence correctly?

This sentence comes from a reading passage, not a grammar question.

Tap each non-essential phrase to remove it, and read the sentence that’s left.

Corals in the northern Red Sea, which live in some of the warmest seawater on Earth, have bleached less during recent heat waves than corals in many other regions, a pattern that has drawn researchers from around the world.

This sentence comes from a reading passage, not a grammar question.

Tap each non-essential phrase to remove it, and read the sentence that’s left.

0 of 2 removed

Test-style question

The Great Library of Alexandria, founded in the third century BCE under the Ptolemaic kings and said to have held hundreds of thousands of scrolls, declined gradually over several centuries, according to many historians, rather than vanishing in a single catastrophic fire.

According to the text, what do many historians say about the Great Library of Alexandria?

TakeawaySkill 1 of 4

On a reading question, how does crossing out non-essential phrases help you?

Crossing out the non-essential phrase between a pair of commas blank.

Transition words from grammar mark where a reading passage brings in a contrasting view

Which transition belongs in the blank?

Many people assume that octopuses live short, solitary lives, meeting one another only to mate.

____ some species gather in dense groups, sharing dens and signaling to one another.

Which transition belongs in the blank?

Which word separates what the companies planned from what actually happened? Tap it.

Early telephone companies marketed their service mainly to businesses. They eventually found, though, that households used the telephone most for long conversations with friends and family, a use the companies had not planned for.

Which word separates what the companies planned from what actually happened? Tap it.

Test-style question

For more than a century, many European mapmakers drew California as an island, copying one another’s charts, even though an expedition in 1539 had sailed to the northern end of the Gulf of California and found that the gulf was closed.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

TakeawaySkill 2 of 4

How does knowing transition words help you find a passage’s main point?

Transition words blank.

Rewriting and backsolving each work on several kinds of math question

The formula $d = rt$ relates distance, rate, and time.

Which equation gives $t$ in terms of $d$ and $r$ ?

distance = rate × time

The formula $d = rt$ relates distance, rate, and time.

Which equation gives $t$ in terms of $d$ and $r$ ?

One way to answer is to put each choice into the equation.

If $3x + 7 = 31$ , what is the value of $x$ ?

3x + 7 = 31

One way to answer is to put each choice into the equation.

If $3x + 7 = 31$ , what is the value of $x$ ?

Test-style question

The formula $P = 2l + 2w$ gives the perimeter $P$ of a rectangle with length $l$ and width $w$ .Which equation gives $w$ in terms of $P$ and $l$ ?

TakeawaySkill 3 of 4

Why does practicing one rewrite help on more than one math question type?

Solving a formula for one letter, or trying each answer choice, works blank.

Ask what else a skill will help you answer

Which of these questions would crossing out a non-essential phrase help you answer? Pick every one.

The bridge, completed in 1932 after six years of work, still carries most of the city’s traffic.

Which of these questions would crossing out a non-essential phrase help you answer? Pick every one.

You’ve practiced solving a formula for one letter.

Which of these questions would that help you answer? Pick every one.

distance = rate × time, so time = distance ÷ rate

You’ve practiced solving a formula for one letter.

Which of these questions would that help you answer? Pick every one.

Test-style question

A bike-rental shop on the city’s waterfront, which opened in 2015 and now rents out more than 300 bikes on a busy summer weekend, charges a 6-dollar base fee plus 4 dollars for each hour of rental.If a rider paid 26 dollars in all, for how many hours did the rider rent a bike?

TakeawaySkill 4 of 4

What should you ask yourself after you practice a skill?

After practicing a skill, ask blank.

Mixed practice: skills that carry over

According to the text, what has the Hubble Space Telescope done?

The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990 and repaired by astronauts five times during missions that kept it working far beyond its planned lifetime, has measured how fast the universe is expanding more precisely than any instrument before it.

According to the text, what has the Hubble Space Telescope done?

Test-style question

The lighthouse keeper, who had not spoken to another person since the supply boat left in October and who had begun, by midwinter, to talk aloud to the gulls, was surprised to find, when the boat finally returned in March, that he did not want to leave the island.

Based on the text, what surprises the keeper?

Test-style question

Many plants in dry regions store water in thick trunks or stems. a single large baobab tree can hold tens of thousands of liters of water in its trunk.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Test-style question

The area $A$ of a triangle with base $b$ and height $h$ is $A = \dfrac{1}{2}bh$ .Which equation gives $h$ in terms of $A$ and $b$ ?

Test-style question

A school buys 4 boxes of markers and 6 single markers, 54 markers in all.How many markers are in each box?

Your mixed practice results

Answer the 4 questions before this one, and each one’s result shows here.

1The lighthouse keeper, who had not…Not answered yetOpen question 1
2Many plants in dry regions store…Not answered yetOpen question 2
3The area $A$ of a triangle…Not answered yetOpen question 3
4A school buys 4 boxes of…Not answered yetOpen question 4

Each question used a skill you first met on a different kind of question.

Practice: Answer each question with a skill from another kind of question

Some of these are reading questions a grammar skill opens up, and some are grammar questions that reading answers. Before you pick, ask yourself which skill you’re reaching for.

8questions · about 10 min at test pace

Concept practiceeasy

Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar, a collection of nineteen stone instruments built in the early 1700s for the ruler Jai Singh II and still used to read the time from the shadows they cast, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010.

According to the text, what happened to the Jantar Mantar in 2010?

Concept practicemedium

The collection of handwritten letters, which the museum acquired from a family in Lisbon after years of negotiation, now on display in the main gallery.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Concept practicemedium

Florence Price, the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra composed her Symphony in E Minor in 1932.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Concept practiceeasy

For most of the twentieth century, animated feature films were drawn by hand, one frame at a time. In the 1990s, however, studios began building entire films from computer models, and by 2010 hand-drawn features had nearly disappeared from the major studios’ release lists.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Concept practiceeasy

Glaciers are often pictured as creeping forward slowly and steadily, a few meters a year. some glaciers advance several kilometers in a single season and then nearly stop for years.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Concept practicemedium

Many people assume that babies begin to pick up the sounds of their parents’ language only once they start to babble. Recordings of newborns’ cries, however, suggest otherwise: infants born to French-speaking parents tend to cry with rising melodies, while those born to German-speaking parents tend to cry with falling ones, patterns that match the two languages.

Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

Concept practiceeasy

Snow leopards are rarely seen, even by researchers who have studied them for years. much of what is known about the cats comes from camera traps and from the tracks they leave in the snow.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Concept practiceeasy

The architect who designed the city’s new public library, a building since praised for reading rooms full of natural light, had never designed a public building before.

According to the text, what is true of the architect?

End of the lesson

Answer the 8 practice questions to see which skills to practice again

Your skills from this lesson

Skill 1: Shorten long reading sentences with a comma skill
Skill 2: Find a passage’s main point after its transition word
Skill 3: Answer several math question types with one rewrite or by backsolving
Skill 4: Ask which other questions a skill will help with

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