I think that one of the biggest and most common traps that people fall into on SAT Critical Reading is to approach each answer choice as if it were potentially valid and then try to twist it to fit the question. The problem is that if you look hard enough, you can generally find *something* in at least two or three answers that sounds as if it could potentially be valid. And if you spend your time looking at and pondering the options rather than going back to the passage and trying to figure out *the* answer, chances are you'll just end up confused. It's also likely that you'll forget what the passage actually says and choose an answer that sounds plausible but that is fact completely unsupported by the text.
It helps to keep this in mind: the fact that five answer choices are provided does not mean that the right answer is somehow less right. Your job is to find the answer. Not the best answer, but the answer. It might not be phrased in a way you like. It may also not be the answer you were expecting. But it will be the answer. Studies have shown that multiple-choice test takers who are asked to find the "best" answer score substantially worse than those asked to find the "right" answer. You need to remember this before you start imagining circumstances outside those explicitly stated in the text, under which a given answer could be right.
If you want to see a major increase in your Critical Reading score (100+ points), your job is to learn to identify the general criteria that the correct answer must contain before you look at the answers. I cannot overstate the difference between weighing each answer choice individually and actually looking for something specific. They're two totally different games, and the latter is exponentially more effective.
In order for this technique to truly work, though, you need to learn to identify function as well as literal meaning, but once you've become accustomed to it, there's almost no way you can get the questions wrong.
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