The SAT Reading Test includes 52 questions of different styles, assessing your reading comprehension skills. Identifying each question’s “type” or style helps you determine what the question is asking and where to seek the answer.
This article outlines the types of SAT Reading questions along with strategies for approaching each question type.
Quick links:
What is the SAT Reading Test?
How long is the SAT Reading Test?
What is on the SAT Reading Test?
6 Types of Questions on the SAT Reading Test
Use SAT Reading Question Types for a Higher Score
What is the SAT Reading Test?
The SAT Reading Test is the first part of the SAT, testing your reading comprehension skills. It consists of five reading passages followed by multiple-choice questions.
The SAT Reading Test assesses core reading skills:
Determine a text’s main idea
Comprehend details
Find supporting evidence
Make inferences
Analyze text structure
Define vocabulary words
Identify the purpose or function of words and details
How long is the SAT Reading Test?
The SAT Reading Test has 52 multiple-choice questions and a 65-minute time limit.
The 52 questions are broken into five separate readings of 10 to 11 questions each. This means you have 1 minute and 15 seconds per question, or roughly 12 minutes and 30 seconds per passage.
What is on the SAT Reading Test?
The Reading Test has five passages: four isolated passages, and one pair of passages that share a set of questions.
SAT Reading Test passages consist of these genres:
One literary fiction passage
One or two passages from a historical US primary source–such as a famous speech or excerpt from the US Constitution
One social science passage–featuring topics like economics, psychology, or sociology
Two natural science passages–on topics like chemistry, biology, physics, and geology
6 Types of Questions on the SAT Reading Test
The SAT Reading Test includes six general question types:
Main idea
Vocabulary and meaning
Close reading and detail
"Reasonable inference"
Evidence
Structure and function
Below, we go into detail about each question type–providing examples and strategies for each one.
Main Idea Questions
Main idea questions ask you to identify the overall message (or main idea) from a particular paragraph or the passage as a whole. These questions usually involve the words “main idea” or “summary” before indicating the section they want you to analyze.
Tips to Approach
Use the section’s introduction as a mini-summary. A passage’s first paragraph usually previews its main idea. The same goes for a paragraph’s first sentence, which maps out its key purpose. When determining a passage’s main idea, look to the introductory portion first.
Focus on big ideas, not small details. The correct answer for a main idea question must pervade the entire indicated portion–not just some of it. Incorrect answers may try to trick you with a specific detail mentioned just once or twice. For question #31 above, A and C are mentioned only once in the passage, while D spreads across the whole section.
Vocabulary and Meaning Questions
Vocabulary and meaning questions ask you to determine the meaning of a particular word within the passage. These questions always use the same structure, identifying the particular word and its line number. The correct answer is the most accurate synonym for the word’s meaning.
Answering vocabulary questions correctly depends on two things: vocabulary knowledge of all the words used, and your comprehension of the context surrounding the word.
Tips to Approach
Read the word’s full sentence–and nothing more. To determine the right answer, the only context you need is the sentence itself, especially the words immediately before and after the focus word. Read the full sentence from beginning to end–anything more than that is a waste of time.
Substitute each answer, and choose the one that doesn’t change the sentence’s meaning. While all four answer options may be thesaurus synonyms for the focus word, the correct answer will substitute perfectly in this particular context. Only one answer will maintain the original sentence’s meaning, while the three incorrect answers will change the meaning in some way.
Close Reading Questions
Close reading questions ask you to identify a key detail from the passage, but they don’t indicate a particular line number or section. Instead, they use language like “The author [indicates or suggests] that…” or “In the passage…” while indicating a detail or topic that the passage mentions.
These questions require you to locate where the passage mentions the relevant details, in order to identify what the author says about it.
Tips to Approach
Find concrete evidence–don’t infer. You should be able to point to the specific line of text that proves your answer–either supporting it word-for-word or working as a direct synonym. This is important because some wrong answers will be somewhat or maybe true, but not directly supported by the text. Every question has only one correct answer–and it is always stated in the passage, never relying on an inference outside the text. If you feel like your answer is a stretch, it’s probably wrong.
“Reasonable Inference” Questions
“Reasonable inference” questions are basically the same as close-reading questions, asking you to draw a conclusion based on details mentioned in the passage. These questions include a phrase like “it can be most reasonably inferred from the passage that…” and ask you to complete the sentence.
Tips to Approach
Find concrete textual evidence–don’t infer. On the SAT Reading Test, every correct answer is supported directly by the text–never relying on subjective interpretation. Sometimes you can find the right answer written word for word in the passage, but often the correct answer option will simply paraphrase or give a synonym for the language or a detail from the author’s original language. The text will objectively support only one answer–meaning the three wrong answers–or at least some part of them–will not be supported by concrete textual evidence.
Identify and revisit the relevant section of the passage. Inference questions will mention a specific detail that the passage only addresses in one particular part–sometimes just one sentence, sometimes a paragraph or string of sentences. For inference questions, locate the portion of the passage discussing the relevant detail, and closely read the author’s language. Then choose the answer option that the author’s language supports–again, there’s only one answer supported fully by the text.
Evidence Questions
Evidence questions list four quotations from the text, asking which one “provides the best evidence” for a previous answer or a conclusion drawn from the text. Each quotation, or answer option, is typically one sentence.
Tips to Approach
Have an answer in mind. Before you revisit each answer option, consider the conclusion the question asks you to support. Recall which sections, lines, or details from the text support that conclusion. Then, as you reread each answer option in the passage, you will quickly be able to eliminate the wrong answers that come from unrelated sections or address a different topic.
Read (or at least scan) every answer option. Even if you feel confident about which is the correct answer, briefly revisit every quotation within the passage to confirm that the other options don’t support what you’re looking for.
Structure and Function Questions
Structure and function questions seek to identify the effect of particular words, phrases, or paragraphs within the text. These questions use language like “what is the effect of…” or “serves to…” to prompt thinking about how the author’s structural choices impact the audience and develop the passage’s rhetorical goals.
Tips to Approach
Consider the passage’s overall purpose and development. Structure and function questions ask you to identify how a small portion–a phrase or paragraph–helps the reader develop a larger passage. Consider the author’s overall goal in writing the passage, using the first paragraph as a clue to what this goal is. Then, consider how each paragraph develops this goal. Finally, zoom in on the target selection to determine how this small portion fits into the larger development.
Notice the tone. To determine the effect of the author’s language, notice the tone–the emotion or mood–in those particular words. How would you describe the style–lonely, happy, lighthearted, informational, confused, proud? Detecting the language’s emotional tone helps you eliminate wrong answers that clearly don’t relate.
How Identifying SAT Reading Question Types Can Help You
Identifying different types of questions on the SAT Reading Test helps you by directing you where in the passage to look for the right answer.
Each question covers a different scope, or portion, of the passage: vocabulary questions only require you to read one sentence, inference questions often require a few sentences, structure questions sometimes require a full paragraph, and main idea questions can require anywhere from a paragraph to the entire passage.
Quickly identifying the question type helps you know where in the passage to look, and how large of a chunk you should expect to consider to find the right answer.