V4 · The Question Types
V3 taught you to build a map. This chapter is what the map is for.
There are six question types, and the most useful thing to know about them is not their names. It is that they split into two groups by where the answer lives:
| Answered from the map | Answered from the passage |
|---|---|
| Main idea | Detail |
| Function | Inference |
| Tone | Application |
The three on the left you should answer without going back. The three on the right you should never answer without going back.
Two failure modes account for most lost points in Reading Comprehension, and they are opposites.
Re-reading for a map question. A candidate is asked the primary purpose of the passage and returns to the text, scanning paragraph by paragraph for something that sounds like a purpose. That costs ninety seconds and produces a worse answer than the map would have — because the map was built from the whole passage and the scan is built from whichever sentence catches the eye.
Answering a detail question from memory. A candidate is asked what the passage says about X, remembers the gist, and picks the option that matches the gist. But the wrong answers in this format are built out of gists. They are close paraphrases with one word changed — heavily becomes entirely, some becomes most, suggests becomes demonstrates. Memory cannot catch that. Looking can.
Knowing which type you are facing tells you which failure to avoid. It is two seconds of reading the stem, and it is the highest-return habit in this chapter.
Function questions ask what a sentence or paragraph is doing, and the wrong answers describe what it says.
Take this sentence, from the passage in V3:
A stand that burned in a dry autumn recruits different species than one that burned in a wet spring.
What it says: fire seasonality affects which species colonise a site.
What it does: provides a concrete instance of the divergence claimed in the sentence before it.
Both are true. Only the second answers a function question. And the option describing what it says will be sitting there among the five, correct as a statement and wrong as an answer.
That distinction — says versus does — runs through this whole chapter, and it is why V3 asked you to write your map in verbs.
By the end you will identify the question type from the stem in two seconds, know whether to answer from your map or from the passage, and recognise the four shapes that wrong answers take: too narrow, too broad, right topic with the wrong stance, and true but about something else.
That last category is the one worth carrying: in this format, most wrong answers are not false.
We continue with the passage from V3. Your map:
| ¶ | What it does |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sets out the classical view |
| 2 | Presents contrary long-term evidence |
| 3 | Explains why the problem is structural |
| 4 | Reports the dispute, unresolved |
For much of the twentieth century, ecologists described forest development as a predictable progression toward a stable endpoint. Disturbed land was held to pass through a fixed sequence of communities — pioneer herbs, then shrubs, then shade-intolerant trees, and finally the shade-tolerant species that would persist indefinitely. This endpoint, termed the climax community, was understood to be determined by climate: two sites within the same climatic zone would converge on the same composition regardless of their starting conditions or their particular histories.
Long-term observation has not borne this out. Plots monitored for fifty years or more in the northeastern United States show trajectories that diverge rather than converge, and the divergence traces to events the classical model treated as noise. A stand that burned in a dry autumn recruits different species than one that burned in a wet spring, and the difference persists for a century. Soil disturbance from a windthrow creates conditions favouring species that would otherwise be excluded; those species, once established, alter the soil in ways that perpetuate their own advantage.
The revision this forces is not merely a matter of adding exceptions. The classical account treated the sequence as driven by properties of the species — shade tolerance, growth rate, longevity — which are stable and can be catalogued. What the long-term data suggest instead is that outcomes depend heavily on which propagules happen to be present when a site becomes available, and on the order in which they arrive. Contingency of that kind cannot be catalogued, because it is a property of a particular history rather than of a species.
Some ecologists have responded by abandoning the notion of a predictable endpoint altogether. Others maintain that convergence does occur, but over intervals longer than any study has yet run, and that the observed divergence is transient. The dispute is not readily settled: the timescales that would distinguish the two accounts exceed the working life of the observations that would have to settle them.
What the passage as a whole is doing. You recognise it from "primary purpose", "main point", "the passage is primarily concerned with", "which of the following best summarises".
The method: answer from your map before reading the options. If your four phrases are old view · contrary evidence · why it is structural · unresolved dispute, the main idea is something like long-term evidence has undermined a classical model in a way that is hard to repair, and the replacement is disputed. Then find the option closest to that.
- Too narrow. A true statement about one paragraph, offered as the point of the whole. "Fire seasonality affects which species colonise a site" is in the passage and is not what the passage is about. This is the most common wrong answer and the most tempting, because you can point at the sentence it came from.
- Too broad. "Ecological models are often revised as evidence accumulates." True, unobjectionable, and it would fit a thousand other passages. If an option would work as the main idea of a passage you have not read, it is too broad.
- Half the passage. Captures the challenge but not the dispute, or the dispute but not what prompted it. Check your option against every paragraph in the map.
- The right topic, wrong stance. "The classical model of succession should be abandoned" — the passage reports that some ecologists say this and does not endorse it.
A correct main-idea answer should account for the last paragraph. Passages end where their point lands, and an option that ignores the ending is usually one of the four shapes above.
What the passage says about a specific thing. You recognise it from "according to the passage", "the passage states that", "the author mentions … in order to indicate that".
The method: go back and look. Always.
This is the type where memory betrays people most reliably, because the answers are close paraphrases and your recollection is approximate. The passage is on the screen; use it.
How to find the place fast. Your map tells you which paragraph. A question about what the classical account attributed the sequence to sends you to paragraph 3, where the properties are listed. Ten seconds, not a re-read.
- The nearby fact. True, in the passage, and answering a different question. Sits within a sentence or two of the right answer — which is why skimming to the right area is not enough. Read the sentence.
- The distorted paraphrase. One word changed. The passage says outcomes depend heavily on which propagules are present; an option says outcomes are determined by it. Or the passage says some ecologists have abandoned the endpoint; an option says ecologists have abandoned it.
- The plausible addition. Something the passage implies without stating, offered as a statement. That belongs to Inference, and on a Detail question it is wrong.
What follows from the passage without being stated in it. You recognise it from "can be inferred", "the passage suggests", "the author would most likely agree", "it can be concluded".
The method: find the two things in the passage that combine to give the answer, then check the answer does not go past them.
The word inference is misleading. In everyday use it means a reasonable leap; in this format it means a very short step. The correct answer is almost always something the passage says in different words, or the direct consequence of two sentences read together.
The final paragraph says the timescales needed to distinguish the two accounts exceed the working life of the necessary observations. It follows that the dispute cannot be settled by any single study currently running. That is an inference — restated, one step, nothing added.
What does not follow: that the contingency view is correct, that longer studies should be funded, that the classical model has been abandoned by most ecologists. Each requires information the passage does not supply.
For each option, ask: how many steps from the text? Zero steps is a Detail answer, which on an inference question is usually still correct enough to be the intended answer. One step is the sweet spot. Two or more steps is wrong, however sensible.
Language is your best filter here, exactly as in V2.5. Options with must, always, cannot need the passage to have said something absolute. Options with may, some, at least clear a much lower bar and are correct far more often than their tentativeness suggests.
Why a particular paragraph, sentence or example is there. You recognise it from "the function of the second paragraph is to", "the author mentions the windthrow primarily in order to", "serves to".
The method: answer with a verb, from the map, before looking at options.
Take "A stand that burned in a dry autumn recruits different species than one that burned in a wet spring."
What it says: fire seasonality affects species composition.
What it does: provides a concrete instance of the divergence claimed in the first sentence of the paragraph.
Wrong answers describe what it says. The question asks what it does.
The correct answer will use one of these:
| Verb | Meaning |
|---|---|
| illustrates | gives an instance of a general claim |
| supports | provides evidence for |
| qualifies | narrows a claim just made |
| concedes | grants a point before pushing past it |
| introduces | sets up what follows |
| contrasts | sets against something previous |
| explains | gives the mechanism for |
| anticipates | addresses an objection before it is raised |
For a whole-paragraph function question, your map is the answer already. Paragraph 3 explains why the problem is structural rather than a matter of exceptions. That phrasing, near enough, will be one of the five options.
Which new case fits the principle the passage describes. You recognise it from "which of the following is most analogous", "which of the following would be an example of", "the author's argument would most likely apply to".
The method: state the principle in your own words first, stripped of the passage's subject matter. Then check which option instantiates it.
The principle in our passage's third paragraph, stripped: outcomes depend on the accidental order of events rather than on the fixed properties of the participants, and early accidents entrench themselves.
An option about keyboard layouts, or about which city became a financial centre, or about which of two competing standards a market settles on, could instantiate that exactly. An option about a different forest process might not instantiate it at all.
This is the type where candidates get distracted by topic. The correct answer is usually about something entirely unrelated to forests, and the wrong answers are often about forests.
- Matching the topic instead of the structure. Choosing the ecology option because the passage was about ecology.
- Matching half the principle. The passage's principle has two parts — contingent order and self-reinforcement. An option with the first and not the second is incomplete, and incomplete is wrong.
How the author regards the material. You recognise it from "the author's attitude … can best be described as", "the tone of the passage is". V3.4 covers where stance is visible; here is what to do with it.
The register of this format is measured. Passages are written by people trained to hedge, and the vocabulary of the correct answer reflects that:
| Usually right | Usually wrong |
|---|---|
| qualified, measured, cautious | enthusiastic, dismissive |
| sceptical, guarded | contemptuous, hostile |
| appreciative but critical | indifferent, apathetic |
| neutral, expository | outraged, alarmed |
Strong emotion is almost never correct. Neither is total indifference — an author who bothered to write four paragraphs is not indifferent.
"Qualified admiration" requires both qualification and admiration. Check each half separately — candidates check the first word and accept the option.
The author asserts the classical model has not been borne out — that is not neutral. But paragraph 4 reports two camps without joining either, and the closing sentence doubts the dispute is resolvable. So: convinced on the negative claim, uncommitted on the positive one, sceptical about resolution.
An option saying "critical of the classical model but non-committal about its replacement" fits. One saying "dismissive of traditional ecology" is too strong. One saying "neutral" misses the assertion in paragraph 2.
Every error this chapter has described, in one place. Note that the first two are opposites: going back when you should not, and not going back when you must. Knowing which type you are on decides both.
For each passage, build the map before you look at the questions. On a wide screen the passage stays pinned while you work through its four items; on a narrow one it sits above them.
Attempts to date the divergence of related languages have long relied on the rate at which core vocabulary is replaced. The method, developed in the mid-twentieth century, assumes that a list of basic meanings — body parts, numerals, kinship terms — is replaced at a roughly constant rate across languages and periods, so that the proportion of shared forms between two languages yields an estimate of how long ago they separated.
The assumption has been attacked from two directions. The first objection is empirical: where divergence dates are independently known from written records, the method's estimates are frequently wrong, and wrong by large margins in both directions. Icelandic has retained core vocabulary at a rate far above the assumed constant; several Polynesian languages have shed it far faster. The second objection is structural. Replacement rates are not a property of vocabulary but of the communities that speak it, and communities in prolonged contact with unrelated languages replace core terms at rates bearing no relation to those of isolated communities.
Defenders of the method have generally conceded the first objection while resisting the second. Deviations from the constant, on their account, are noise that averages out across many language pairs, so that estimates for a family as a whole remain serviceable even where individual pairs are unreliable. Critics reply that this defence assumes the deviations are random, and that the contact effect is precisely a case in which they are not: languages in a contact zone will all deviate in the same direction, and averaging will not recover the underlying rate.
Neither camp disputes the underlying data. What separates them is a judgement about whether a systematic bias of unknown size can be tolerated in a method whose output is a number.
The map: ¶1 the method, ¶2 two objections, ¶3 defence and rejoinder, ¶4 what separates the camps. That is a dispute being described, and the final paragraph names precisely what it turns on.
A is too narrow — that is the first objection, one part of one paragraph. B is a detail from ¶2 offered as the whole. D is never claimed; written records appear only as a check on the method. E is not in the passage at all. Note the V4.1 test: A, B and D all fail to account for the last paragraph.
Two moves in one paragraph: the defenders concede one objection and resist the other, then critics answer. The correct function answer names both, because a paragraph containing a reply and a counter-reply is not doing only one of them.
A misdescribes it — ¶3 is not further evidence, it is argument about the evidence already given. B is wrong on the count: two positions, not three. C is not in the passage. E takes the defenders' claim as the author's.
The second objection is that contact makes replacement rates deviate systematically. The defence is that deviations average out. If every language in a family is in contact with the same unrelated language, every deviation runs the same direction and averaging recovers nothing — the defence fails completely.
D is the opposite: more pairs is what the defence relies on. A concerns the first objection, not the second. C and E are details with no bearing on the mechanism.
The defenders' position requires that deviations be random. A survey finding deviations in both directions with no regional pattern is exactly that evidence — and note that "no regional pattern" is what rules out the contact effect, which is regional by nature.
B explains one deviation without addressing randomness. C changes the method rather than defending it. D is a fresh instance of the first objection, which the defenders already conceded. E strengthens the critics.
The reputation of a concert hall rests on qualities that resist measurement. Musicians and listeners describe halls as warm, or clear, or lacking in intimacy, and their judgements show substantial agreement — the same handful of nineteenth-century halls appear near the top of nearly every ranking. Yet the acoustic parameters engineers can measure predict those judgements only weakly.
Reverberation time, the interval over which a sound decays, was for decades the parameter of choice, and it is genuinely informative: halls with very short or very long reverberation are reliably disliked. Within the range that most halls occupy, however, it discriminates poorly. Two halls with nearly identical reverberation times can be ranked at opposite ends of a listener survey.
Attention has since shifted to the pattern of early reflections — sound reaching a listener within the first eighty milliseconds after the direct sound, having bounced once from a nearby surface. Halls that are narrow and rectangular deliver these reflections from the side walls; halls that are wide, or fan-shaped, deliver them from above or not at all. The celebrated nineteenth-century halls are almost without exception narrow rectangles, a shape chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with acoustics and everything to do with the cost of roofing a wide span.
This account explains the rankings better than reverberation alone, but it does not settle the matter. Lateral reflection can be measured, and halls built to maximise it have not consistently earned the reputations their measurements predicted. Something in the listener's judgement is not yet captured, and the halls that embody it were built by architects who had no theory at all.
The shape here is phenomenon, successive explanations, remaining gap. ¶2 shows reverberation is informative but insufficient; ¶3 offers a better account; ¶4 says it still does not close the case. C is the only option covering that arc.
A is ¶2 alone. B is not claimed — the old halls rank highly, which is not the same as a verdict on modern ones. D overstates ¶3 and ignores ¶4. E contradicts ¶1, which reports substantial agreement among listeners.
Straight from the text: "a shape chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with acoustics and everything to do with the cost of roofing a wide span."
A is directly contradicted by the same sentence and by the last line of the passage. C, D and E are plausible-sounding and absent. This is the type where memory fails: the gist is "narrow halls sound better", and the question asks why they were built narrow — a different thing, and one the passage answers explicitly.
The paragraph opens "but it does not settle the matter" and closes by saying something in the judgement is not yet captured. That is a concession of limits.
A is wrong: it names a gap without proposing a parameter to fill it. B reverses the direction. C reads a criticism into a sentence that says the opposite — the architects had no theory and got it right. D contradicts ¶1.
Two words, both must fit. Acceptance: ¶4 says the account explains the rankings better than reverberation alone. Qualified by an acknowledged gap: the same paragraph says it does not settle the matter.
A ignores the qualification. B and E are too negative — the author credits the account with a real improvement. C ignores the endorsement in ¶4 and the evaluative language throughout.
Three types are answered from your map without going back; three require going back and should never be answered without it. Know which one you are looking at before you read a single option.
V5 is Sentence Correction — the one Verbal format that is not about argument or comprehension at all, and the one where knowing what to check, in what order, does most of the work.