← SSAT® Upper Level

Reading Comprehension

Forty questions in forty minutes on narrative and argument passages, built around the eight reading tasks the test maker publishes.

15 topics · 59 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

Telling a Narrative Passage from an Argument Passage

  1. How it worksHow does an argument announce a definite point of view inside its first two sentences?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through classifying an opening that reads: the town had every reason to refuse the railway, and it did.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't writing about history automatically an argument rather than a narrative?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes when a story smuggles an argument into one character's speech?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read this passage. The town had every reason to refuse the railway, and it did. The line would have carried 23 trains a day past the school, and the company offered nothing for the noise beyond a promise to plant hedges. Those who called the refusal backward might ask what the hedges were meant to hide. What kind of passage is this?

Building an Outline as You Read

  1. How it worksHow do claim, evidence, counterclaim and concession stack into a shape you can point at?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through outlining a three-paragraph argument that concedes a point in the middle and answers it at the end.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to that outline when 350 words of pure narrative contain no claim at all?
  4. Ties togetherHow does one outline speed up main idea, purpose and prediction questions all at the same time?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A student jots four words per paragraph on 10 passages while another rereads every word. Why does the first one finish ahead?

Task: Recognize the Main Idea

  1. How it worksHow do you build a main idea out of what each paragraph contributes rather than from the opening line?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through choosing a title for a 200-word piece arguing that city trees cut summer heat.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the most interesting sentence a writer produces usually the main idea?
  4. Worked exampleFind the main idea when three paragraphs describe failures and a fourth explains what they share.
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Read this passage. A street shaded by a full canopy can run 10 degrees cooler than the same street bare. The saving shows up twice: in the power drawn by the buildings along it, and in the number of summer afternoons on which the pavement is usable at all. Cities that treat trees as decoration are budgeting for one of these and ignoring the other. Which title fits best?

Main Idea Answers That Are Too Narrow or Too Broad

  1. How it worksHow do you size an answer choice against a text as one circle inside, around, or matching another?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through rejecting trees are good as too broad and oaks shade sidewalks as too narrow.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the longest and most detailed choice the safest main-idea answer?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens when two choices are both the right size and only their subject separates them?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
For the street-tree passage on item 16, which choice is the right size to be its main idea?

Task: Locate Details

  1. How it worksHow do you turn a question's key noun into a scanning target instead of rereading everything?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through a detail question about how many ships sailed when a text says seven set out and three turned back.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a choice that repeats a writer's exact words automatically the right detail answer?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read this passage. The fleet that left the harbour in 1875 numbered seven ships. Three turned back within a week, one of them carrying the expedition's surgeon. The remaining four reached the northern ice, where two were crushed and two wintered over and came home the following spring. How many ships reached the northern ice?

Task: Make Inferences

  1. How it worksHow do you step exactly one move past the stated facts and then stop there?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through inferring why a character hides an unopened letter in a drawer for three weeks.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the most dramatic conclusion the right inference when a smaller one is fully supported?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens when two inferences are both one step out and only one of them uses every stated fact?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Read this passage. The letter came in March. She read the name on the envelope, put it in the drawer with the bills and shut the drawer. Through April and May she opened that drawer 7 times a week and never once took the letter out. In June she moved house, and the drawer went with her, still shut. What is best inferred?

Task: Derive a Word's Meaning from Context

  1. How it worksHow do the words around a target rotate it until only one of its meanings still fits?
  2. Worked exampleFind what arresting means in: her arresting portrait stopped every visitor in the doorway.
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through the treaty was a hollow gesture, and why hollow does not mean empty inside here.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a dictionary's first definition the answer when a sentence pushes toward a rarer one?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read this passage. Her arresting portrait stopped every visitor in the doorway. People who had walked past 7 rooms of landscapes without slowing found themselves standing still in front of it, and some stayed a quarter of an hour. What does ARRESTING mean here?

Task: Determine the Author's Purpose

  1. How it worksHow do you separate what a text says from what its writer was trying to do by saying it?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through the purpose of a paragraph that lists four failed bridge designs before naming a fifth.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't to inform the reader ever a useful purpose answer when all five choices inform?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about purpose when one paragraph is asked about instead of the whole piece?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Read this paragraph. Four designs were put forward and four abandoned: the first for cost, the second for the river's depth, the third for the sandstone of the north bank, the fourth after a model failed in 15 hours of wind testing. The fifth, a suspension design, answered all four objections at once. Why does the writer list the four?

Task: Determine the Author's Attitude and Tone

  1. How it worksHow does a single loaded word rotate a reader's whole sense of a writer's attitude?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through the attitude behind: the committee, predictably, met for six hours and decided nothing.
  3. Worked exampleFind the tone of: the invention was ingenious, tireless, and utterly useless.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a critical writer the same as an angry one when you are picking a tone word?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to a tone question when a writer uses irony and says the opposite of what is meant?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A passage on item 17 reads: The committee, predictably, met for 7 hours and decided nothing. What is the writer's attitude?

Task: Understand and Evaluate Opinions and Arguments

  1. How it worksHow do premises stack underneath a conclusion, and where does the unstated assumption sit?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through evaluating: sales rose after the new sign went up, so the sign caused the rise.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't an opinion you disagree with a weak argument, and why isn't agreeing with it evidence?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to an argument when its one example turns out to be the only case that fits?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A writer on item 17 says: sales rose 29 percent after the new sign went up, so the sign caused the rise. What is the flaw?

Task: Make Predictions

  1. How it worksHow do you extend a writer's own trend one step past the last line instead of inventing one?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through predicting what a character does next after she returns a prize she has not yet earned.
  3. Worked exampleFind what a writer would most likely say next after listing three costs of a plan and none of its gains.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't the most surprising ending the right prediction, even in a story built on surprises?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Read this passage. The medal arrived in a flat box, engraved with her name and the wrong date. She had not swum the race it was given for; the 15 lengths had been swum by the girl in the next lane, whose name the officials had misheard. That evening she walked to the club with the box under her arm. What happens next, most likely?

Reading a Poem on a Prose Test

  1. How it worksHow do you unpack a line of verse into one plain sentence before answering a main-idea question?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through reading: the harbour kept its ships the way a fist keeps coins.
  3. Going furtherWhat changes about a tone question when the tone is carried by rhythm and line breaks?
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't every image in a poem a symbol that has to stand for something bigger?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A poem on item 17 reads: the harbour kept its ships the way a fist keeps coins. What does the line say?

Humanities, Science and Social Studies Passages

  1. How it worksHow do you read an unfamiliar technical term as a placeholder defined by the sentences around it?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through a text that defines a made-up term, then asks what it means two paragraphs later.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't outside knowledge about a subject allowed to settle a reading answer?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Read this passage. Astronomers call the shell of gas thrown off by a dying star its shroud. A shroud expands for perhaps 59 thousand years, thinning as it goes, until it is too faint to see against the sky behind it. What remains at the centre is the star's exhausted core. Two paragraphs later the text refers to the shroud. What does it mean?

Main Idea and Content vs Higher Order and Interpretation

  1. How it worksHow does a main-idea-and-content question differ from a higher-order-and-interpretation one?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through sorting four question stems into the content half and the interpretation half.
  3. Going furtherWhat does a strong content half beside a weak interpretation half tell a student to drill next?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
On a practice set of 16 questions, which stem belongs to the higher-order-and-interpretation half?

Working 40 Questions in 40 Minutes

  1. How it worksHow do you budget reading time against answering time across roughly seven short texts?
  2. Worked exampleFind the per-text budget when 40 minutes has to cover 6 texts and the 40 questions on them.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't reading something twice before looking at the questions the careful approach here?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the plan when a score report shows questions not reached rather than omitted?
  5. Ties togetherHow does the quarter-point rule change what you do about a text the clock never let you reach?
Your turneasy1 of 3
The reading section gives 40 minutes for 40 questions spread across 7 texts. How many minutes may each text and its questions have?

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