In this question, we need to start by figuring out what “the problem presented in the passage” actually is. We see that it’s “the difficulty . . . in narrating personal experience in one language when one has lived in another.” This must be the “problem . . . in the passage,” because “difficulty” in line 6 is the only word that matches up with “problem” from the question.
So we’re looking for an example of somebody narrating in one language after living in another language.
(A) doesn’t work because it doesn’t even mention narrating things.
(B) doesn’t work because it’s talking about an assumption—like (A), it doesn’t even mention narrating personal events.
(C) doesn’t work for a few reasons; perhaps the easiest to spot is that it’s not talking about multiple languages.
(D) is correct because it talks about somebody trying to “articulate” things in “English,” even though he is “Russian.” So we have the idea of multiple languages, and we have the idea of articulation to match the text’s reference to narration.
(E) doesn’t work because the answer choice doesn’t indicate which languages the journalist might be working in; it also doesn’t say which language(s) she would be writing in. Even if we assume she would write in Japanese for the Japanese audience and in English for the American audience, as many students do assume, that wouldn’t parallel the text, because the text is talking about living in one language and then writing in another.
Page 764, Question 11
Here we have another great example of a question that test-takers often miss because they read it as though they were in a classroom discussion.
The correct answer is (E) because the cited text talks about women “exerting influence on political events” by doing the tasks mentioned in the question, and (E) says those tasks are “examples of political activities.”
Many students incorrectly choose (A), (C), or (D), because these choices are fairly close to the text and would probably be decent interpretations of the text. But we have to remember not to interpret the text at all when we’re working on the SAT. So (A) fails because the text doesn’t specifically say whether those activities “altered the course” of anything. (C) is wrong because the text doesn’t say that women were unable to do anything besides those activities. (D) is wrong because the text doesn’t say whether those activities directly affected households or not.
Page 767, Question 21
This is another question in which we have to look carefully at the text and find the answer choice that parallels the situation described in the text. With a question like this, the key thing to do is to read really carefully, as always.
The phrase “essential lessons” in the text is referring to what “young animals may be learning” in the previous line, which is “the limits of their strength and how to control themselves among others.” So we need an answer choice that reflects this.
(A) doesn’t work because, among other things, it doesn’t specifically indicate that the class is “young.”
(B) is correct because it incorporates the idea of being “young” and the idea of being on a team, which would necessarily involve being around others.
(C) doesn’t work because it doesn’t specifically mention the idea of the child being around other children.
(D) doesn’t work because it doesn’t say that the bear is a “young animal.”
(E) doesn’t work because it doesn’t mention the idea of the kitten being around other animals.
Page 783, Question 15
Students often miss this question, along with many others about these two passages, because they make assumptions about what the author means, instead of reading carefully.
The relevant text says that “both the . . . inner voice . . . and the . . . literary or stylistic voice are . . . sexed.”
(A) is wrong because the text never mentions the idea of “stylistic problems” being created for the “writer.”
(B) is wrong because the author never mentions a preference on the part of the reader. A lot of students mistakenly choose this answer because they think it would make sense that people would prefer a writer of their own gender, but the text never says anything about a preference.
(C) doesn’t work because the text doesn’t mention romantic love.
(D) is correct because it restates exactly what appears in the text. The text says that the “stylistic voice” is “sexed.” The word “voice” can refer to a writer’s specific way of expressing himself, so the phrase “stylistic voice” in the text means exactly the same thing as “use of language” in the answer choice. If something is “sexed,” it means that it has typical characteristics of one gender, so saying that the “stylistic voice” is “sexed” is the same thing as saying that the “use of language” is “shape[d]” by “gender.”