Using This Book to Prepare for the SAT

The lessons in Critical Thinking Skills Success that relate directly to the skills you need to successfully complete the Critical Reading section are:

■ Lessons 1 and 3: Inference. These lessons cover how to take in information, and understand what it suggests, but does not say outright. When you infer, you draw conclusions based on evidence.

■ Lesson 9: Persuasion Techniques. Some questions will ask you to evaluate arguments. Understanding how persuasion works, and being able to identify rhetorical devices used in persuasive writing, will help you to correctly answer these types of questions.

■ Lessons 12 and 14: Deductive and Inductive Reasoning. These lessons teach the design of logical arguments. They will both help you recognize such arguments, and show you how to make them yourself.

■ Lessons 13,15, and 16: Logical Fallacies. Knowing the terminology of fallacies, and how they work, will help you identify and describe weak or invalid arguments with accuracy.

■ Lesson 17: Judgment Calls. This lesson also teaches about inference. When you have some evidence, but not enough to come to a clear-cut decision, you will need to make a judgment about the answer.

Roadblocks to Critical Reading Question Success

1. Using prior information. Every answer comes from a reading selection, whether it appears directly or can be inferred. If you have prior knowledge of the subject, don't use it. Adding information, even if it makes sense to you to do so, can lead you to the wrong answer.

2. Choosing an answer just because it is true. There may be a couple of true answers, but only one will answer the question best.

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The Art Of Cold Reading

The Art Of Cold Reading


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