Some Tips for Handling Literary Passages on the SAT

Literary passages are among the biggest wild cards on the SAT. Unlike the more straightforward analytical passages, which are pretty much guaranteed to have been written in the past twenty years and which feature a predictably dry academic style, prose fiction passages can be taken from a book published less than a decade ago (e.g. Jumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, which is by the way a phenomenal book that you should absolutely read if you get the chance) or from one published a couple of centuries ago. There's no way to know which one you'll get on a particular test, and it probably isn't worth it to try to predict (although if anyone's done an analysis, I'd certainly be interested to know).

The major thing to remember with literary passages is that even though they don't really have a main point, they do revolve around one essential scenario that you must have a general understanding of in order to answer many of the questions. Typically, the more complex the language in the passage, the broader the questions.

Practically speaking, that means your goal is to get the gist of the action and not sweat the details. If you don't understand exactly what a particular turn of phrase is intended to mean, it's usually not so important as long as you can keep the big picture in mind.

If you're not sure what's going on the first time you read a passage through, don't panic! Panic is your enemy; it leads you to believe that you know less than you actually do. Just ask yourself the following questions:

-Who are the characters?
-Where are they?
-What are they talking about/what is the author describing?
-Do they want the same thing or different things?
-Is there a conflict?
-Do they like each other? Why or why not?

The answers to those questions should be sufficient information to get you to the "point." Do not try to answer them from memory. If you're not 100% sure, go back to the text and check it out. Actually, even if you think you are 100% sure, go back to the text and check it out anyway.

On the other hand, passages written in more lucid, contemporary language tend to contain more "detail" questions, so in addition to the above, you need to pay particular attention to any words not used in their normal way (often in quotes or italicized) and to any major literary devices (such as metaphors or personification) that the author uses. Try to notice these as you read through the passage, and try to figure out why the author is using them before you look at the questions. But remember: your goal is never to interpret. As soon as you go outside the bounds of what's explicitly being said, it's all over.

Regardless of what sort of book the passage comes from, though, you still want to make sure to take note of the major transitions. They're still giving you the relationships between ideas, and so they're still important.