SAT® · Reading and Writing: Craft and Structure
Definition-then-Example and the Case in Point
When a text makes a claim and then follows it with "a case in point" or a cited study, that second sentence isn't arguing anything new — it's there to illustrate, measure, or limit the claim that came before it.
Some questions ask you to name the job a sentence is doing, not what it says. A phrase like a case in point is a signpost: it tells you the sentence it introduces will not make a claim of its own. It will serve the claim already sitting above it, usually by giving one concrete instance of it. Read the first sentence first. That's where the actual point lives. Everything after the signpost exists to back that point up.
This matters most when the general claim is hedged. If a sentence says sleeping on a problem helps, and should not be overstated, the next sentence — often a study with numbers — isn't there to prove the claim or knock it down. It's there to size it: to show exactly how modest the effect is. Spotting a hedge word like modest, slight, or should not be overstated tells you the example coming next is a measuring stick, not new evidence for a bigger claim.
Length fools people. An example can run three times longer than the claim it supports and still just be an example. A detailed case — a ranking system, a study, a found photograph — can fill most of a passage's words while the real point sits in one short sentence at the start. The question is never which sentence is longer. It's which sentence the other one works for. This skill sits next to structure questions asking you to see a passage's whole shape: claim, then support, then sometimes a turn or a limit.
Key terms
- case in point
- A signal phrase marking the sentence that follows as one concrete instance of the claim just stated.
- hedge
- A phrase like should not be overstated that limits how strong a claim is meant to be taken.
- function question
- A question asking what job a sentence does in a passage, not what it means on its own.
- supporting example
- A sentence that illustrates or measures a claim rather than asserting a new one.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does an example sentence serve the general claim above it rather than making a claim of its own?
- Worked exampleWalk me through what a study cited right after 'we should not overstate this effect' is there to do.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a detailed example the main point of a text merely because it takes up most of the words?
Check yourself
End of topic.