1.3 SAT Critical Reading - Positive and Negative

Positive and negative:  This technique may be the most useful for eliminating answer choices that are incorrect in the sentence completion section, and it's a rather simple idea.  It is no mystery that the SAT test maker, especially within questions ranked 1 to 3, leaves clues behind for the suitable word that will fit into the blank. 

Example Problem

Let's consider an easy example, not one likely to appear on the exam, but clear enough to illustrate the technique: 

The king was benevolent, magnanimous, and _________________. 

Given the nature of the two first words "benevolent" and "magnanimous," we may place a "+" symbol on top of each word as an indication that these words represent a positive meaning.  Logic suggests that the next word to fit the blank must also be positive, and so we may place a "+" within this blank.  Without a doubt, the test maker will place words that have negative meanings, and often you may spot these meanings simply by understanding root words and prefixes.  For example, you may find a word beginning with the word "de" without knowing its meaning, but since you know that typically words that begin with "de" are usually negative, you may cancel this choice out.  Looking for words that are the opposite (antonyms) will help to eliminate choices to make your chances for accuracy more probable. 

After the process of elimination occurs, you may often times boil your answer choices down to two choices.  It is much easier to choose between two choices than five!  Practice the discipline of reducing the question into positive and negative and you will undeniably accentuate your ability to weed out answer choices that cannot be true.  For the mathematically inclined, this approach is a great way to develop a more precise and exact technique with language. 

You will find though that this technique, realistically, does have its limits.  First, the underlying assumption is that your vocabulary is strong enough to reduce words to positive and negative.  Second, the more difficult questions are what I call "neutral" questions, or questions that do not have enough clues to simplify into a positive or negative.  In this case, you will have to search each answer choice quickly to check the accuracy.  However, for many of the SAT questions that you will receive, you will find that reducing language to positive and negative in order to help with process of elimination is a really useful technique.