This drill is designed to cultivate your ability to understand and recall the key ideas of a passage to a demanding standard. Whereas when answering questions you will always refer to the passage to rigorously justify your response, this drill requires that you internalize the key ideas of the passage well enough that you can articulate them without looking back at the passage.
Follow the applicable guide below depending upon whether the assigned passage is non-fiction or fiction.
Non-fiction:
Complete the drill in two discrete parts:
- Read and Study the Passage for 5 Minutes: With pencils down (no annotations or notes), thoroughly read and study the passage for 5 minutes, carefully assessing and preparing to recall:
- Subject
- Main Idea
- Purpose
- Key Ideas
- Anatomy
- Tone
- Articulate Passage Content in Writing from Memory: Turn over or cover the passage and do not refer to it for this part of the drill. Carefully following the guidelines below for each key type of passage content, write down your articulation of the following:
- Subject - This is a noun phrase, just a handful of words like
- “Jefferson’s Inspiration for the Declaration of Independence”.
- Main Idea - This is a grammatically correct full sentence like,
- “Jefferson drew liberally from philosophical ideas of the time and his own earlier writings in drafting the Declaration of Independence.”
- The main idea is the author’s central message about the subject and includes all of the most essential ideas of the passage while excluding all other ideas and details. Please be sure to articulate this as a full grammatically correct sentence.
- Purpose - Usually to inform, persuade, or both. For example,
- “To inform the reader about Jefferson’s inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.”
- This is usually easy once you know the main idea.
- Key Ideas - At least 3 in total, and more likely 1 key idea per paragraph. The key ideas are like the tree branches to the main idea’s tree trunk; they are key support for or development of the main idea. The key ideas, in turn, are always accompanied by supporting detail, whether examples, illustrations, references to experts/studies/publications, analogies, generalizations, etcetera. What makes a passage idea important enough to be a “key idea”? Ask yourself whether a competent test author must include at least one question about this idea. Yes? It's a key idea. Key ideas are your own articulation of important points, and might or might not be verbatim phrases from the text. Some examples:
- “Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence under time pressure while war raged.”
- “Jefferson asserted that his work on the Declaration was neither wholly original nor copied from any particular source.”
- “Jefferson borrowed liberally from the ideas and language in some of his own earlier writings.”
- Anatomy - Describe briefly the organization of the passage, in terms of its paragraphs or the sections that comprise it. Describe succinctly the function of each paragraph or section in the passage as a whole. E.g.,
- “The author first presents the historical backdrop to the writing of the Declaration, then describes the actual language and brilliance of the Declaration, next describes Jefferson’s claims about the inspiration for the language of the Declaration, and finally concludes that while Jefferson didn’t plagiarize any one else’s work, he borrowed liberally from his own earlier work in writing the Declaration.”
- Tone - Describe in just a few words how the author’s choice of words, idioms, and structure sends messages about the type of writing the passage constitutes and the author’s feelings about the subject matter. E.g.,
- “Scholarly but direct tone; author is very enthusiastic and reverent about Jefferson.”
Fiction:
Complete the drill in two discrete parts:
- Read and Study the Passage for 5 Minutes: With pencils down (no annotations or notes), thoroughly read and study the passage for 5 minutes, carefully assessing and preparing to recall:
- Setting
- Characters
- Action
- Anatomy
- Tone
- Articulate Passage Content in Writing from Memory: Turn over or cover the passage and do not refer to it for this part of the drill. Carefully following the guidelines below for each key type of passage content, write down your articulation of the following:
- Setting - This is the place, time, and specific context in which the fiction passage’s action takes place. E.g.,
- “A New England liberal arts college in the mid-20th century.”
- Characters - The characters, major and minor, that populate the fiction passage, and, importantly, their roles, relationships, dialogue, and conflict. For example,
- “Mulcahey, the main character, is a professor who just got fired by the other character, Hoar, president of the college, who dislikes Mulcahey because of his public criticism.”
- Action - The sequence of events in chronological order, even to the extent represented by flashbacks and memories in the passage. For example,
- “Mulcahey criticizes the president publicly, Mulcahey receives a letter firing him, Mulcahey muses about his troubled relationship with the college president, the narrator makes additional observations about Mulcahey.”
- Sometimes there’s a lot of action; sometimes it’s limited.
- Anatomy - Describe briefly the organization of the passage, in terms of its paragraphs or the sections that comprise it. Describe succinctly the function of each paragraph or section in the passage as a whole. E.g.,
- “The passage first describes Mulcahey’s first reaction to being fired, then describes his earlier criticisms of the president, then details Mulcahey’s feelings of surprise and betrayal, and finally discusses this episode in the broader context of Mulcahey’s career and character.”
- Tone - Describe in just a few words how the author’s choice of words, idioms, and structure sends messages about the type of writing the passage constitutes and the author’s feelings about the subject matter. E.g.,
- “The author’s descriptions of Mulcahey do not explicitly describe the character's flaws, but strongly imply them based on the author’s choice of words and careful avoidance of direct characterization.”
