Locate, do not recall
A detail item is an open-book question. The answer is printed on the screen, and the only skill being tested is whether you can put your finger back on the right clause before you look at the choices.
Reading the choices first is what makes this question type go wrong. Four plausible sentences enter your head, and then you go back to the passage looking for confirmation rather than for the answer — and a passage of 90 words contains something that half-confirms all four.
Order of operations. (1) Read the stem and mark the subject it asks about. (2) Go back to the passage and find the clause about that subject. (3) Say the answer to yourself in your own words. (4) Only now read (A) through (D), and take the one that matches what you said.
According to the text, what distinguished the lighthouses that reduced wrecks in their districts?
- They were built taller than the other new towers.
- They produced a substantially brighter light.
- They flashed in a pattern that identified the station.
- They were constructed after the board of inquiry reported.
The stem's subject is the lighthouses that reduced wrecks — that phrase appears in the last sentence, and the answer is in the same sentence. (A) and (D) are inventions. (B) is the inference a hurried reader supplies, and the passage's whole point is that the problem was identification rather than power. Answer (C).
Sai lầm phổ biến nhất ở dạng này không phải là đọc sai, mà là không quay lại đoạn văn. Học sinh đọc xong đoạn, thấy “mình hiểu rồi”, rồi chọn theo ấn tượng. Ấn tượng thì luôn trơn tru hơn văn bản: nó đã tự lấp các chỗ hụt bằng suy đoán. Quay lại tìm đúng mệnh đề là bước không được bỏ, kể cả khi thấy chắc chắn.
The paraphrase gap
The correct choice almost never repeats the passage's wording. It restates it. Meanwhile the test puts the passage's own vocabulary into a wrong answer, because reused words feel like proof.
Passage: “the urchins had shifted from roaming and grazing to hiding in crevices
and living on drifting fragments.”
Correct choice: They changed how they fed.
Word-match distractor: They grazed on drifting kelp while roaming the crevices.
— same words, scrambled relations.
According to the text, what happened to the urchins in the bay where otters returned?
- Their numbers fell sharply within a season.
- They changed their feeding behaviour, taking drifting material instead of grazing.
- They were consumed by otters in large numbers.
- They moved out of the bay altogether.
(A) and (C) are the answer a reader supplies from general knowledge of predators; the passage denies both in the same sentence (urchin density barely fell). (D) is not stated — they sheltered, they did not leave. (B) paraphrases the divers' observation. Answer (B).
Phương án dùng lại nhiều từ của đoạn văn nhất thường là nhiễu, không phải đáp án. Đề cố tình giữ nguyên từ vựng nhưng đảo quan hệ giữa các từ đó. Đọc phương án loại này phải soi ai làm gì với cái gì, đừng soi “có bao nhiêu từ trùng”.
Three ways a wrong answer is true
(1) True of the wrong subject. The passage contrasts two things; the choice reports a
fact correctly but attaches it to the other one.
(2) True in the wrong place. The statement appears in the passage but answers a different
question than the one asked.
(3) True at the wrong strength. Some becomes all; may becomes
does; at some stage becomes always.
According to the text, which of the following is true of the north-slope orchard?
- It came into bearing two years earlier than the other orchard.
- It produced heavier crops throughout its first decade.
- It yielded more fruit over thirty years than the south-slope orchard did.
- It lost about a third of its trees to canker.
(A), (B) and (D) are each stated in the passage — about the south orchard. This is the purest form of the wrong-subject distractor: nothing in any of the three is false, and a reader working from memory will accept whichever one he happens to recall. Answer (C).
Khi đoạn văn so sánh hai đối tượng, hãy gạch chân tên đối tượng mà đề hỏi ngay trên màn hình trước khi đọc phương án. Ba trên bốn phương án của loại câu này thường là sự thật về đối tượng còn lại. Nhớ nhầm chủ thể là cách mất điểm nhanh nhất ở phần Đọc.
Quantifiers and hedges decide the answer
Small words carry the whole item: all, most, some, only, every, never, may, might, appears to, suggests, is consistent with. A choice that upgrades a hedge into a certainty is wrong even though its content came from the passage.
According to the text, the team's position on the eruption is that it
- was certainly the cause of the settlement's abandonment.
- had no measurable effect on the settlement.
- may have been one pressure among several rather than the sole cause.
- occurred more than a decade after the settlement was abandoned.
(A) is the claim the team explicitly declines. (B) overshoots in the other direction: declining to call something the cause is not denying it any role. (D) contradicts within a decade, which gives no direction and no gap larger than ten years. Answer (C).
Hai phương án cực đoan đối nhau (“chắc chắn là nguyên nhân” / “không có tác động nào”) hầu như luôn sai cả hai khi đoạn văn dùng từ dè dặt. Nhưng đừng biến điều đó thành mẹo: có những đoạn văn khẳng định dứt khoát, và khi đó đáp án cũng dứt khoát. Căn cứ luôn là từ ngữ trong đoạn, không phải hình dạng của bộ phương án.
Whose claim is it?
Passages that report a debate assign each position to a person. Detail questions then ask what one particular party said. A choice reporting the other party's view accurately is the standard trap.
According to the text, what did the site director conclude?
- The postholes formed a single roofed structure.
- The postholes were the remains of two fence lines a century apart.
- The two rows of postholes were not built at the same time.
- The original excavation report contained errors of recording.
(A) and (B) are the two readings she declined to endorse. (D) is nowhere in the text. Her own conclusion is the narrow one in the final clause. Answer (C).
EXCEPT and NOT
An EXCEPT stem inverts the work: three choices are supported and one is not. The efficient method is to tick off the supported ones in the passage rather than to argue about the odd one out.
The text indicates that the ledger records payment for each of the following EXCEPT
- a red pigment bought by weight.
- the wages of apprentices.
- canvas.
- the rent of a room.
(A), (B) and (D) are each in the list. Canvas is mentioned, which is exactly the trap — but it is mentioned as something no entry records. Being named in the passage is not the same as being paid for in the ledger. Answer (C).
Với lệnh hỏi EXCEPT, đừng đi tìm phương án sai. Hãy dò ngược: đọc từng phương án, tìm chỗ trong đoạn văn xác nhận nó, đánh dấu. Ba phương án tìm được chỗ, một phương án không — đó là đáp án. Làm ngược lại thì rất dễ chọn nhầm câu “nghe lạ tai” thay vì câu thật sự không có căn cứ.