There are many tricky genres of question on the SAT and ACT—problems that it’s really hard to answer correctly unless you’ve learned, and repeatedly practiced, a strategy ahead of time. Among those genres, few question types trip up more students than the “Big Picture” question. That’s why I make it a priority to teach my one-on-one test prep clients how to navigate this question quickly and correctly—a strategy I’m going to share with you right here, right now!
ARTICLE CONTENTS
What is a “Big Picture” question on the SAT and ACT?
Let’s take a look at what these questions have looked like on past ACT and SAT Reading sections. What do they all have in common?:
“The central claim of the passage is that…”
“The author’s attitude towards the subject of the passage can best be described as…”
“The purpose of the passage is to…”
“The passage as a whole can primarily be characterized as…”
“The author uses the word ‘we’ throughout the passage in order to…”
“Which choice best describes what happens in the passage?”
“Which choice best describes the developmental pattern of the passage?”
Have a guess about the shared theme here? Each of these “Big Picture” questions asks about the passage as a whole. There are no specific line numbers you can refer to to help you out. Instead, each Q calls upon your global understanding of what the passage is about, what the main idea is, what the author thinks of it, what the overall structure is, and what the principal rhetorical devices employed by the author are.
In that last sentence I used terms like “main,” “general,” “principal”—terms that ask you to zoom out and take a birds-eye view.
In this blog post, I’m first going to explain what most OTHER test prep companies and even highly respected books will advise you to do. Then, though, I’m going to show you a better way to approach these questions—a way that has worked far better for my students when they actually sit down to take the test. It’s like an episode of “Kristina Ruins Everything,” but one where I ruin it, THEN repair it!
Common strategies for Big-Picture reading problems
1) Create a title for the passage.
The core strategy here is to craft a headline for the passage as if you were placing it on the front page of a newspaper (well, back when people still read newspapers, that is).
What’s the drawback? Well, this may serve as an EXCELLENT drill for study/prep times when you want to hone your “main idea” skills for 30 minutes (or more), this hack is NOT time-effective when you’re taking the test itself! You have only 13 minutes per passage on the SAT and 8 minutes 45 seconds for each passage on the ACT. YOU JUST DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME to comb through the passage carefully and write a headline.
2) Pick the broadest/vaguest answer.
The premise here is that “general” questions should have “general” answers. So theoretically all you have to do is to eliminate any answers that are too detailed, and you’ll seamlessly arrive at your answer.
Except…that’s all only partially true. Sure, the answer to a “main idea” question should ideally be an answer choice broad enough to contain the details of the body paragraphs. BUT the test writers (especially the SAT writers) are usually too crafty to include only one of those—meaning you could still be left with two or more valid-seeming answers if you use only this method! Womp-womp.
3) What’s the topic/subject that the passage is talking about? Pick the answer choice THAT includes that topic.
Ok, we’re getting warmer now. However, this is still just another hasty “tips-and-tricks”-style technique to bypass actually understanding what the passage is about! Next.
4) Spend hours upon hours with your tutor dissecting the “topic” vs. “central claim” vs. “main idea” vs. “general structure” vs. “purpose” vs. “author’s attitude” vs. “author’s tone.”
If you’re studying for an AP Literature or AP Composition exam, then, be my guest!
I’m the first to agree: these are great skills to have. And if you’ve practiced these long-term skills and have a handle on them, you WILL be able to handle “Big Picture” questions with more ease and speed than if you haven’t. But the reality is: you don’t have a whole year to analyze literature greats just so you can ace those 3 to 7 “Big Picture” questions. That’s just not a time efficient approach to your standardized test prep plan!
4) Read the introductory and concluding paragraphs.
When in absolute doubt, these are the exact places I would go! Hurrah! That said, we can do better than emergency measures, can’t we?
So those are the tactics you may already be familiar with.
They appear in your test prep books/websites, your study guides, and the approaches of many tutors and test-prep professionals. Now take my hand, because I’m going to walk you through an approach you have NOT seen before…but one that’s going to transport you to the right answer faster than a magic carpet.
The fastest way to answer “Big Picture” questions
My method is counterintuitive, in some ways. But this I promise you: for about 90% of my students, it works wonders…AND saves them hours upon hours of prep time.
First, let me ask you: where do “Big Picture” questions usually spring up? As in, when are they being asked in relation to the other questions about a given passage?
(Cue “Jeopardy” music….)
I’ll take “what is the first question to be asked about a passage” for $800, Alex!
Yup, when the ACT and the SAT include “Big Picture” questions, they usually appear in the first question or two of your long list of 10-11 questions attached to a given passage. And if you’re like all of my students when I first meet them, you’ll attempt to answer them first, as well.
Enter Kristina’s crucial intervention! Ask yourself: is it efficient to try and answer a question concerning the entire passage when you’ve only just read the passage for the first (and hopefully only) time…and might still be struggling to digest what your eyes and brain just took in?
Yeah, nope. Not very efficient at all. Because in order to answer the big-picture question first, you’ll need to return to the passage, reread paragraphs of it (if not, the whole thing!), waste valuable time…only to STILL risk getting the answer wrong. Oh yeah, and then you’ve still got 9 more questions to answer for that passage.
So here’s your secret advantage over all the other kids taking the test: you’re NOT going to waste another moment poring back over that passage. Instead, you’re going to answer the “Big Picture” question last.
Here’s what this practice looks like in action:
You’ll read your passage however you read a passage (I’ve created three main strategies for the SAT and four main strategies for the ACT for doing so, out of which I guarantee that at least one will “click” for you).
Then you answer the questions in whichever way you’ve worked on answering questions (in my private tutoring sessions, I come up with a bespoke system for each student as to what order he/she should answer the rest of the Qs in). For our purposes here, what’s important is that you NOT answer any “Big Picture” questions until you’ve completed all others!
Finally, answer any “Big Picture” question—LAST!
Here’s why it works:
Instead of spending additional time processing what the passage is about in order to answer this question type separately, you’re killing two birds with one stone. You’re processing and digesting what the passage is about…by working through and answering the other 8-9 questions! After you’ve worked through those, you will have a MUCH more in-depth knowledge of the passage as a whole. Now, when you go back to answer the “Big Picture” questions, you probably won’t need to refer back to the passage at all! The answer will likely seem quite apparent as soon as you read it. Woo-hoo!
An added bonus: you didn’t have to spend 5-10 tutoring sessions on rewiring your brain for how you interpret material you read. You can save those more nuanced literature conversations for Honors English class when your class is discussing the theme of “freedom in The Scarlet Letter.”
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So that’s the technique that works for my students! And I’m certain it will work for you, too.
