Accuplacer reading questions, walked through

There are only a handful of question types on the Accuplacer reading section. Once you can name the type of question you're looking at, half of your answer is already chosen. Below are the ones that come up most, with a note on how to attack each.

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Passage types

Literary narrative, a short story excerpt, often 19th-century prose.
Historical / social, an argumentative essay on a political or historical topic.
Natural science, an explanatory passage with a technical claim.
Paired passages, two short passages you're asked to compare.

Question stems you'll see repeatedly

"The primary purpose of the passage is…", go to the last paragraph first.
"The author most likely believes that…", attitude, not fact.
"In line X, the word Y most nearly means…", always re-read the sentence in context.
"Which choice best supports the answer to the previous question?", the two are graded as a pair.

Strategy on the day

Read the passage in full before touching questions. If you skim, you'll answer three fast questions and then spend eight minutes on the fourth trying to reconstruct the argument you skipped. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Keep exploring

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