The Writing Passages: Revision and Composition Questions

Two of the five passages are drafts

Roughly half the section presents a student draft rather than a published text, and asks you to improve it. These questions look easier than the reading questions and are lost more often, because students answer them by ear.

Every one of them names a goal in the question stem. The goal is the entire question. "Which choice best supports the claim in the previous sentence" and "which choice best introduces the paragraph" have different correct answers on the same four options.

The recurring stems

• Add or delete a sentence — "the writer is considering adding the following sentence… should the writer make this addition?" The answer hinges on relevance to the paragraph's claim, never on whether the sentence is interesting or true.
• Best evidence — which detail supports the stated claim. Look for a match in scope: a claim about cost is not supported by a detail about popularity.
• Best transition — read the sentence before and after and name the logical relation first (addition, contrast, cause, concession), then find the connective that expresses it. Never choose the transition that sounds most academic.
• Revise the thesis — the winner is the one the rest of the draft actually delivers, not the most ambitious one.
• Combine sentences — the correct version subordinates the less important idea rather than joining with "and".
• Reorder or relocate — move a sentence so that pronouns and references point to something already introduced.

The three rules that decide most of them

1. Relevance beats truth. A true, well-written sentence that does not serve the paragraph's claim must be cut.
2. Specific beats general, when the goal is support.
3. The draft's own purpose governs. You are improving this essay, not writing a better one of your own.