Finding the Key Words

The strategy of finding certain “give-away” words does not only apply to adjectives in questions about emotions or attitude. Many questions about specific details will have key words that hold the “key” to finding the right part of the passage to look in for the answer.

Rather than answering based on your memory of the passage, you always want to have support for your answer choice rooted in a specific part of the passage. To gain that support, it follows that you have to identify which part of the passage to look in. While reading back over the entire passage may be the most foolproof method of finding that important part of the passage, it definitely is not the most time economical method of finding that part of the passage.

A better route is to find key words in the question or answer choices that are likely to stand out in the passage and will enable you to quickly narrow your search down. These key words will be nouns or verbs in the question or answer choices. Once you’ve identified possible key words, then you should scan through the passage quickly looking for either those key words to be repeated in the passage, or their synonyms to appear in the passage. Once you find a particular part of the passage that either has the exact key word repeated or a synonym of the key word, you have probably identified the particular part of the passage that will contain the support or justification that you need to correctly answer the question and will allow you to be confident in your answer choice selection.

One warning that should be made here is that often question writers may use the exact same word or wording in their answer choices that are used in the passage, but have done so in such a way as to mislead you. So, simply because a particular word or phrase appears in an answer choice and also appears exactly the same in a passage does not make that answer choice correct. Be sure that you reread the answer choice and consider the context that it is in, to ensure that you are not misled by a cheap trick.

In conclusion, always try to connect the question to the right words in the passage that will allow you to save time in finding the right part of the passage to look in for the answer and will give you the key to the correct answer choice.