Dinner with Neil

I once had dinner with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Not alone, of course. I'm not that well-connected or important. But I was one of a few astronomy and physics grad students who were lucky enough to be treated to a delicious dinner (Cornish game hen, if I recall) at the Cornell Hotel School. It was a relatively small setting, and, as I was still reasonably brash, I couldn't resist busting his balls a bit about Pluto. (Tyson, as director of the Hayden Planetarium, had recently and conspicuously demoted Pluto in the Hayden's planetary exhibit.) He responded with good humor, and, I believe, some semi-serious discussion about the reasons for it. (I might discuss this in a separate post, if there's interest, including some speculation as to the timing of the IAU decision -- after New Horizons had been launched.)

During his public talk, after the reception, he did make a great joke about Pluto -- "The real reason it got demoted? It was too small for New York! Ha ha!" He has an infectious laugh.

If memory serves, that same talk, he ventured into what then, and probably now, is controversial territory -- that scientific advances stop when an investigator self-limits, often by invoking God.

But what I remember most of all is running into Tyson and Jim Bell (our grad department chair and one of the lead researchers on the Mars Exploration Rovers mission) at the hotel bar afterwards. They were watching a baseball game.

It was interesting seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson "off". He is a presence, and a performer, and an educator. But like many, he has a stage personality and a normal personality. It wasn't a dramatic difference, but he was less jovial, and probably tired after a long day. I don't know if I was with another student, but we joined them and talked for a bit. He discussed some serious things -- about academia, about his wife and her experiences in it, careers in astronomy, etc. I think I must've confessed my unhappiness at some point.

Anyway, at some point, I think we, the grad students, realized we were intruding on their private time. They weren't, at the moment, lofty role models. They were just a couple guys drinking beer and watching a ball game.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is hated by some astronomers. Leading up to his arrival, a couple emails went around by some lower-ranking staff scientists and researchers (not professors), complaining that he wasn't a real astronomer and that he had done a crappy PhD thesis. At that point, I knew enough about the people on the email list to suspect something less than clear-eyed objective analysis in their judgment.

I encountered similar sentiments in a dinner at UCLA with a couple astronomy professors. I had become a lay person by then, but through a sequences of events, I ended up joining them. There was discussion that he hadn't, in fact, done a stellar job on his thesis, which I think had to do with galaxies -- possibly radio or UV observations. I forgot whether or not I weighed in, but given that I was a guest, and no longer an astronomer, I probably was less brash and more passive this time around.

I haven't seen Cosmos yet. I hope to get around to it. But, unlike many people I know, I never saw it growing up. I hadn't read a single Carl Sagan book before I attended Cornell, and didn't even know he had been a professor at Cornell until I showed up as a grad student. So I don't have a lot of emotional attachment to it.

Interestingly, one did get the impression that Carl Sagan himself was not particularly popular in Cornell's Astronomy department. There was a plaque and a photo. But he wasn't referred to often. No doubt some of the professors had worked in the shadow of his popular image, and that it probably was good for the department to not be anchored to the past. Still, it seemed odd, given the amount of effort made to do outreach, how little it was discussed. At this point, his absence was not deafening, but it was a discernable murmur.

(I once talked with an impressive Cornell grad alum who was active in both science policy and astro research, and one of Sagan's students. He said he had come back only once to the department, for Carl's funeral. I think his words were, "there's nothing left for me here." Perhaps an over-harsh indictment, especially given some of the amazing humans there. But that gives you a sense of the degree of alienation some of Sagan's students felt toward the rest of the department.)

There are people who decide and rank scientific research. It's generally done by peers, and is seen to be a decent system for sorting great ideas from good, and good ideas from terrible ones. It doesn't always work, and the pressures inherent may lead to a host of sins, cardinal and venal. But it's good enough, I suppose, for it to keep going. The process by which Pluto was downgraded was generally accepted within the astronomical community, even if it did arouse controversy within and outside of astronomy.

Yet it always irked me that some scientists -- generally not the best, mind you -- felt that this meant there was a clear measure of defining science in general, value in general, and value of people to science. I couldn't shake the notion that some of these critics of Tyson couldn't handle the idea that the value system they possessed, one ingrained into them since the beginning of their careers, one in which they were completely invested, one which, to varying degrees had rewarded them, might not be universally true. Maybe it takes a level of buy-in in order to make it far enough. But it seemed... myopic, and self-defeating.

How did Tyson's success take away from theirs? How was the popularization of astronomy damaging their work? It didn't make sense, but people do tend to react badly when you question their value system, even obliquely.

I left the faith a while ago, and so I don't have anything to say specifically on astronomy. What I do know is that, looking back, I remember the tired, quiet men at that hotel bar table.

And I realize now that I'm jealous of them -- not because they are successful, respected and reknown, each in his own way. I'm jealous because they can sit down and enjoy a ball game with a friend, and put aside all the other things associated with their jobs and lives. They valued their time, and their friends.

They valued baseball.

Once, one summer, Jim Bell gave me a ride to our Astro baseball team practice. (The team name: The Big Bangers.) I was incredibly depressed at that time, and all I could think of was how grateful I would've been for a dad like Jim to take me to baseball practice. But how could someone say that? So this someone never did, until this moment, though I think he noticed a few tears.

I failed to become a scientist, not because I didn't study enough, or try hard enough. I failed because at some point I separated science from being a person, and failed to build those relationships with other human beings that make a person whole. And part of that is putting aside everything else for time with people.

I'm going to see Cosmos. But I'm going to see it because it gives me a chance to spend time with my mom, and maybe, make up a bit of that lost time.

A Valentine's Day Story

Warning: this is actually very sad. I use **** instead of the man's name because I don't want to compromise his privacy any more than I'm already doing by writing this post.


I didn't have a valentine this year. I don't think there's been a single year where I really was in love or in a relationship. There are perhaps reasons for this, but needless to say I don't commit well.

Some people, some people really do commit.

I've lived in Hacienda Heights since about 2010. I have a large, south-facing window that looks out to the street. Often, I'm home during the mornings and early afternoons; most of my tutoring happens later.

I've gotten used to seeing an ambulance in our small cul-de-sac. For as long as we've been here, three times a week, an ambulance stopped by at the house across from us. Always, two young EMTs or paramedics would casually do their paperwork, open the rear doors, and take out a stretcher. They would go into the house, and retrieve a prone, quiet woman in her sixties. The husband, a quiet, completely healthy man in his sixties, would follow in one of the two cars that always sat in the driveway. He would leave in the Lexus on the right, the white one. The one on the left, the black one; that was never used.

I learned, after a while, that he was a real estate agent. He and his wife were Japanese, as in actually from Japan, which immediately made them important in my mother's eyes. His wife had suffered a stroke many years ago. I didn't know if she could speak or not. I never went into the house. But I do know that because of the medical bills, they lost their house. They rented the one across from us.

I also learned that the other car was his wife's. He never sold it. He never used it. I don't know why. I can imagine reasons for it, but I never really spoke to him. There are some Japanese stereotypes that are true, and one of them is that you tend not to discuss personal matters with, well, anyone.

Sometimes, on weekends, I'd see a Jaguar in front -- the kind of car driven by an older, wealthy person. From my own mindset, I thought that maybe my neighbor did have someone else, that after so many years, he did have an outside relationship. Again, however, I don't know, and based on my best guess, that person was a relative of either him or his wife.

I never even knew her name. She was just always ****'s wife, at least to me.

**** always seemed cheerful and reserved. The only time my mother caught him displaying anything other than polite Japanese civility was when she caught him shouting at our cat, who was, no doubt, sneaking into his backyard to take a dump.

The ambulance stopped coming two weeks ago. ****'s wife had been moved to a skilled nursing facility, which was not a good sign. But I forgot, and didn't notice the absence of an ambulance on our street.

A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang. It's an unusual event, and I was a little concerned by who would be ringing the door on a Saturday evening. (We're not as close to our neighbors as we probably should be.) I didn't recognize **** at the door; it was dark.

He said, "Is your mother or father here?"

Still not recognizing him, I said "No", with probably some unguarded apprehension. "What can I do for you?"

He said, "Hi, I'm ****." I relaxed and went to open the security door. "No, no, it's okay." I paused.

"I just wanted to let them know that I lost my wife. Nine years."

I expressed my condolences, and opened the door. But what could I do? I couldn't give him a hug; that would be inappropriate. I awkwardly shook his hand, and he bowed. I thought about offering to attend the funeral, but was that too forward? Was it too harsh, to say the word that had the cut of finality and formality?

"I'm so sorry, ****. You have my condolences."

"Thank you. Nine years... she was like that. Would you tell them? They know."

I told him I would.

"Oh! She's going to get out!" he said, pointing to my dog, smiling.

"She'll come back," I said.

He smiled. And then he left. Still polite. Still collected.

He had been with his wife his entire adult life. They had no children. For all I know, they have no close family in the area. But "nine years", and "tell them... they know" -- they rang in my ear.

I don't even know what it would be to love someone like that. Maybe it isn't even love... maybe it's duty. But it's something so foreign to the selfish world I inhabit.

"In sickness and in health" appears in the standard wedding vows. They are perhaps the cruelest portion of the vows, for embedded within it is real terror. My neighbor and his wife lived that, for nine years. But they had good years before that. And maybe those nine years were good, in their own way, in a way that warrants our respect, not our pity.

If I think of a Dylan Thomas poem, I usually think of "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." I've been thinking about it more lately, because my father is dying. But the Thomas poem appropriate here is "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", especially the first verse:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon; 
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot; 
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; 
Though lovers be lost love shall not; 
And death shall have no dominion.

Happy Valentine's Day, **** and his late wife. Though lovers be lost, love shall not.

Failures in Secular Humanist Duty

There are times I can't help but wonder if I have failed in my Christian secular humanist duty.

I'm at Panera. There was a hunched, old white man sitting in a booth. He was bent; even walking, he bends over at almost a 90 degree angle. He reminded me of Edourad Manet's The Ragpicker. Like the subject of that painting, he was hunched over enough to obscure the face. Anonymous, old, solitary. He had a combover, oily but not filthy.

Initially, I couldn't tell if he was muttering, or praying, or having a medical episode. His mouth was moving, but I know that the occasional motion of the lips and mouth is a property of older people, especially those with dentures. He looked disheveled, but not quite homeless.

Perhaps I would've thought nothing of it, except for the possible medical angle. But I noticed he has a small suitcase with him. He also had a small backpack. If he wasn't homeless, he was some distance from home, in a restaurant, alone.

I would like to say that I approached him immediately. But I didn't. I hesitated. And then I distracted myself by working on a lesson summary.

Next to us were two middle-aged, middle-class women discussing a Christian book. They were discussing, if I recall, a story about hiring 100,000 Israelites to fight a battle. A subsequent search reveals that it's 2 Chronicles 25. And I couldn't help thinking "Pharisees!" in my head. "Here is a child of the God you believe, and you are too trapped in your false faith of personal salvation for you to live the life of service that is true faith!"

But was I any better? Why should I hold Christians to a higher standard than myself?

Eventually, I did approach him. I apologized for disturbing him.

"I'm sorry to disturb you sir. I don't know if you were praying or napping... but... is everythign alright?"

"We..."

"We... we can exchange..."

I thought he was going to say stories.

"We can switch seats in a second. I know you want to plug in your computer."

My first reaction, sadly, was to explain that there were no power outlets there. Fortunately, I caught myself and said,

"No no. I'm fine. I just... I just wanted to see if you were okay."

He replied, "I'm fine."

"Sorry for disturbing you."

I went back to my computer, a bit ashamed and embarassed. Maybe he thought I judged him just because he was old and bent. I confess that I was shocked that his words were clear and articulate. No slur, no quavering of the voice, other than initially. Maybe I had injured his pride.

He sat there for another ten minutes, hands clasped in a sort of prayer or murmur, occasionally moving his mouth. Then he bussed his plates, then left. I bid him farewell, and he responded with a short goodbye.

I watched him go. I thought about getting up and opening the door for him. But what if that was more patronization? He managed fine.

After I saw him disappear, slowly, around a corner, I looked back at his seat. There was a dark stain on the part of the cloth backing where he had been sitting. It wasn't just  Maybe he had been there a while. Maybe he had been sweating a great deal. Maybe his clothes were filthy. I thought about touching it to determine which it would be. But then I realized how ridiculous, and possibly weird, that might be.

But I did take a picture. It wasn't just an impression on the seat.

Sometimes, we try to do the right thing. But it almost never turns out the way we think it should. Maybe if I had phrased it as a request for company, instead of an inquiry into his status. I think Mr. Rogers would've done that; he had a way of making people feel that he needed something from them. Pope Francis appears to do that as well.

And now, I realize something.

Acts of kindness are often characterized as acts from a superior to an inferior. 

Maybe we couch it in different, kinder words, but it often presumes a difference in power, ability, or resources. Even as we celebrate them, we implicitly define things like generosity and grace in a way that diminishes the recipient. That's not the intention, of course, but it's deeply entwined in our appreciation of kind acts.

Here was someone who maybe resisted that, who didn't want pity or help, and didn't need it. Even if he did, maybe the way I communicated my offer was a bit too paternalistic, and while kind and open, with a touch of sanctimony.

It's like when I was feeding the homeless. I thought I would go out and help them. But as it turns out, I didn't save them. I couldn't. I had a lot of conversations. I saw some drunken ugliness. I heard these young kids talk politics, and silently judged the guys who had boom boxes but no food. I overheard them talking about their social security checks, and spending it on either necessities or booze. I heard about how things got rougher after the shooting of a police officer at the nearby courthouse, how the police, who had been more relaxed, were now drawing their guns on the homeless.

Through it all, I don't know if I made a damn of difference in their lives. The narrative is supposed to go that they made a difference in mine. But to be honest, the only thing I learned is that it's damn hard to make a difference in anyone's life. I'm more selfish than I was before I volunteered, but that could be to age, or other things in the last ten years.

Whatever good it did me, the experience has competed with, and lost to, a host of other influences that shaped my present character.

So today, I find that I am more inarticulate than I had realized.

And judgmental. I judged those poor women sitting a couple feet away. Maybe they had already asked. Maybe they just have different personal that I, a single, young male, don't appreciate. They were simply working together on their own spiritual betterment; perhaps they didn't notice him. They weren't Pharisees. I was the Pharisee.

Who have I helped lately? At least one woman was helping the other develop as a Christian. Who had I helped lately, except for pay, or because I was asked to?

I'm still judging. The couple sitting there after he left didn't bus their plates. And I have to stop myself into weaving it into some romantic narrative about the dignity of age and/or poverty and the lack of respect of the decently off Boomers. It's not data, and it's not the point. Leave it, Ryan.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart. -2 Chron 25:2

I'm glad I spoke with him, however briefly. I gained no great insight into him. I didn't help him. And I learned that I'm a pretty flawed person.

And I did end up thinking a bit more about acts of kindness than I had expected. And maybe, next time, I'll both communicate it better, and be more mindful about what I offer, and what I ask. Even when I offer help, tangible or not, I am implicitly asking for a person's trust, a person's time, a person's courtesy.

That's a lot.

The Cornell Folder

I have a Cornell leather folder. It’s one of those interview folders sold in a student store. It was probably never meant to see such heavy use – I use it to hold my notes for tutoring. It’s a bit torn and ragged and beat up, and I suppose that’s appropriately symbolic. My time there was quite painful.

I don’t know why I keep it. Or I do, and I am afraid of the reason. There’s something possibly pathetic about clinging to this vestige of respectability, to a past that never was as impressive as is pretended. But it’s something that I excuse by saying that it impresses parents.

A few days ago, I was at a Starbucks. I had a few minutes before a tutoring session nearby, and planned on logging on to Facebook for a few minutes. I remember thinking in the parking lot- should I bring the folder? For whatever reason, it was a question, and for whatever reason, I answered in the affirmative.

I sat down, and powered up my computer. A man nearby noticed my folder, and asked me about it.

“Cornell? Did you go there?”

I answered that yes, I had gone there as a graduate student. Thinking the conversation was over, I went back to my computer.

“What did you study?”

Reflexively, I told him “astrophysics”. And I’ve done this enough to know that when I say “astrophysics”, I intend it as a conversation-stopper. I say “astronomy” or “space science” when I wish, consciously or unconsciously, for the conversation to continue.

“What’s that?”

I explained to him that it involved studying the stars, using physics. He sounded impressed, and claimed that that was far beyond him, though he did mention that he was a civil engineer.

He asked me what I did now. It’s a sore topic; I know I’ve fallen far down the social and economic hierarchy. But I did the best I could to muster my dignity and reply that I tutor students full-time.

He returns to the topic of Cornell, and elite schools. He mentions his cousins, graduates of Stanford and Princeton, respectively. I act appropriately impressed, and perk up a bit when he mentions his high school age nephew. Maybe there’s a tutoring job here.

We talk a bit more, my interest now focused more by greed and humanity. But it wasn’t completely cynical salesmanship; I had told myself at some point earlier in the day that I needed to engage more with people, and here was an opportunity. I remember feeling like a sociopath as I was thinking these things.

We spoke more. I found out he was 48, and hadn’t worked for a couple years because of cancer. He was currently undergoing chemotherapy.

At some point, I ask him if he’s changed anything about how he lived life because of cancer. I didn’t mean the practical and routine, or lifestyle changes due to physical limitations. I didn’t mean that, and he didn’t hear that.

“My brother has always said that I had a temper. I was angry a lot. Now, I try to be more calm.”

I would’ve never guessed that this was an angry guy, though he had plenty to be angry about. He had cancer. He lost his job. He didn’t have any kids to help him. He was sitting in a coffeeshop, on a Wednesday afternoon, while others were living, working, picking up their children, and not dying of cancer.

I told him that he seemed like he had a good heart, and that he was a better person now. I don’t know if it came off as trite, or hackneyed. But it seemed to fit, and the compliment, as is customary I suppose, evoked a response that combined polite dismissal with understated hope that it was true.

I had to excuse myself. I expected that tutoring and the rest of the day would fall into place, as it should if this were an allegory. But it was a chaotic mess of difficult students and long hours on the road between appointments. Life may give you these moments, but it rarely strings them together for you. You have to fight to extract perspective.

I don’t think he would’ve spoken with me had I not had that folder. I would’ve been just another guy in business casual on his laptop.

There’s some irony here; brand-name institutions like Cornell build their reputation on exclusivity, not inclusiveness. But that itself provides us something to talk about. It gave this man an opening to talk with a stranger. For a brief moment, both of us felt less alone. 

Roosevelt illustrates the differences between France and America at the turn of the century

In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt was engaged in a speaking tour of Europe, following his Smithsonian-led, Carnegie-sponsored African safari. Roosevelt was in Berlin, speaking with Kaiser Wilhelm, when he received a telegram. President Taft asked Roosevelt to represent the United States at the funeral of the British King Edward VII. What follows is an excerpt of Roosevelt's interactions with the French minister of foreign affairs, Stephen Pichon. Below, italcized text represent Roosevelt as quoted by Edmund Morris in Colonel Roosevelt; standard text represents Morris' writing.

[At a wake prior to the funeral, Pichon] got me aside and asked me in French, as he did not speak English, what colored coat my coachman had worn that evening. I told him that I did not know; whereupon he answered that his coachman had a black coat. I nodded and said Yes, I thought mine had a black coat also. He responded with much violence that this was an outrage, a slight upon the two great republics, as all the Royalties' coachmen wore red coats, and that he would at once make a protest on behalf of us both. I told him to hold on, that he must not make any protests on my behalf, that I did not care what kind of coat my coachman wore, and would be perfectly willing to see him wear a green coat with yellow splashes--"un plaetot vert avec des tauches jaunes" being my effort at idiomatic rendering of the idea, for I speak French, I am sorry to say, as if it were a non-Aryan tongue, without tense or gender, although with agglutinative vividness and fluency. My incautious incursion into levity in a foreign tongue met appropriate punishment, for I spent the next fifteen minutes in eradicating from Pichon's mind the belief that I was demanding these colors as my livery.

[The next day, at the funeral procession]

Friday, 20 May 1910, was a day so beautiful that all London seemed to want to be outdoors and see the procession scheduled to depart from Buckingham Palace at 9:30 A.M. Hours before the first drumbeat sounded, a mass of humanity blocked every approach to the parade route along the Mall to Westmisnter Hall. There was little noise and less movement as the crowd waited under a cloudless sky. Green Park was at its greenest. The air, washed clean by rain overnight, was sweet and warm, alive with birdsong.

Rosevelt arrived early in the palace yard, where horses and coaches were lining up, and was again accosted by a furious Stephen Pichon. The Duke of Norfolk had decreed that because of their lack of royal uniforms, they could not ride with the mounted mourners. Instead, they were to share a dress landau. Pichon noted, in a voice shaking with rage, that it would be eighth in a sequence of twelve, behind a carriage packed with Chinese imperials of uncertain gender. Not only that, it was a closed conveyance, whereas some royal ladies up front had been assigned "glass coaches."

The landau struck Roosevelt as luxurious all the same, and he admitted afterward, in describing the funeral, that he had never heard of glass coaches "excepting in connection with Cinderella." But Pichon could not be calmed down:

He continued that "ces Chinois" were put ahead of us. To this I answered that any people dressed as gorgeously as "ces Chinois" ought to go ahead of us; but he responded that it was not a laughing matter. Then he hadded that "ce Perse" had been put in with us, pointing out a Persian prince of the blood royal, a deprecatory, inoffensive-looking Levantine of Parisian education, who was obviously ill at ease, but whom Pichon insisted upon regarding as someone who wanted to be offensive. At this moment our coach drove up, and Pichon bounced into it. I suppose he had gotten in to take the right-hand rear seet, to which I was totally indifferent.... But Pichon was scrupulous in giving me precedence, although I had no idea whether I was entitled to it or not. He sat on the left rear seat himself, stretched his arm across the right seat and motioned me to get it so that "ce Perse" should not himself take the place of honor! Accordingly I got in, and the unfortunate Persian followed, looking about as unaggressive as a rabbit in a cage with two boa constrictors.

[...]

Roosevelt sat well back, with the strange reticence that sometimes overcame him on ceremonial occasions, avoiding eye contact with the crowd. There was no indicating that he was being subjected to a further Gallic tirade:

Pichon's feelings overcame him.... He pointed out the fact that we were following "toutes ces petites royautes," even "le roi du Portugal." I then spoke to him seriously, and said that in my judgment France and the United States were so important that it was of no earthly consequence whether their representatives went before or behind the representatives of utterly insignificant little nations like Portgal, and that I thought it was a great mistake to make a fuss about it, because it showed a lack of self-confidence. He shook his head, and said that in Europe they regarded these things as of real importance, and that if I would not join him in a protest he would make one on his own account. I answered that I very earnestly hoped that he would not make a row at a funeral (my French failed me at this point, and I tried alternately "funeraille" and "pompe funebre"), that it would be sure to have a bad effect.

A Franco-American accord (Persia abstaining) was reached before the landau made its first stop at Parliament Square. Pichon agreed to wait and see where he was seated later in the day, at lunch in Windsor Castle, before making his placement a casus belli that might prevent France's attendance at the future coronation of George V.

-Colonel Roosevelt, p. 65-66

SAT Critical Reading Guidelines - in progress

Note: this is a draft, and will be updated. But as I know some people are taking the test in a couple days, this might be a helpful last-minute refresher.


SAT Critical Reading Guidelines
By Ryan Yamada

General Critical Reading test-taking strategies:

1. Take Notes.

You might want to consider taking notes as you read a passage. It might help clarify the main idea, secondary ideas, tone, type of passage, and narrator perspective (omniscient, objective, subjective). In addition to reducing the load on your short-term memory, it may help you think more critically and actively engage with the passage.

2. Use Cross-Consistency (carefully).

Occasionally, you have enough similar questions in a problem that you can check for cross-consistency. As mentioned, this is potentially very dangerous and can backfire. Still, if you're reasonably sure on two questions and struggle with a third, you might be able to help clarify the answer to the third.

3. Use line references.

By identifying the line references before you read, you may improve your focus. Be advised, however, that you should start focusing somewhat before the line reference starts.

4. Depend only upon what is written.

Leave outside knowledge, your emotional response, and your moral judgment at the door. They will not help you with the passage. Everything you need is written, and excessive internal commentary as you read can cloud your judgment and cause you to miss key bits of information/language.

Main Idea Questions:

1. Read the introduction to the passage.

Sometimes this gives a major clue as to the main idea.

2. Read the first paragraph or two carefully.

The main idea will definitely appear in the first 1-2 paragraphs. The first paragraph might be introductory, which can lead to a confusing impression of what the main idea is. It’s better to continue reading carefully through the second, just to be sure.

3. Take notes for each paragraph.

This is a general tool, but it does help with the main idea. As you read the passage, your notes will indicate the content of each paragraph. Find the common thread, and you have the main idea.


Secondary Idea Questions:

1. Use the main idea as a partial guide, but do so carefully.

The secondary idea will be connected with the main idea. But it won’t be the same as the main idea. In fact, the secondary idea might make a point seemingly opposed to the main idea (especially for an informative essay discussing two sides to an issue). Even so, the main idea might give you a clue as to whether or not you’re on the right track.

2. Don’t confuse main idea and secondary idea questions.

Main idea questions cover the entire passage. Secondary ideas cover a specific paragraph or line references (usually a few lines long). The secondary idea has to address the specific reference/paragraph, regardless of what the broader passage is saying.

If this sounds similar to (1), that’s because it is, But it’s doubly important.

3. Pay attention to all the sentences in a paragraph.

Sometimes, you will be given two plausible answers. The better answer will often hinge upon a single sentence or phrase. It helps not to project your own emotion, experiences or motivations into the answer – everything you need will be there, in the paragraph.


Vocabulary or phrase in context:

1. Break apart the sentence.

Pay careful attention to conjunctions and conjunction-like phrases like “…, as is” (which indicates that the information following  is distinct from the material preceding it). This gives you a clue as to the structure of the sentence, and therefore a clue as to whether the word or phrase in context applies to the entire sentence or just a part.

2. The correct answer is usually a secondary definition.

It makes little sense to create a context question for which the correct answer is the obvious definition. Usually, it’s a secondary definition. Occasionally, the word is being used as a metaphor for something else.

3. Read the lines preceding the reference.

Sometimes you will be given the phrase or word in the problem statement, which makes it look like you don’t have to go back and read it in the actual passage. BIG MISTAKE! You need to go back, and read prior to the line reference. Depending on time, start from either the beginning of the paragraph or at least 1-2 sentences before the reference. Sometimes, the definition will be given to you in the preceding lines.

4. Use roots.

Although 1-3 should get you the answer, you can use roots if you have no idea what a word means. As with sentence completion, sometimes roots can help you distill the meaning of a word in context. But this probably won’t help much, as the word is probably being used with a secondary definition in mind.

Inference Questions:

1. Read like a third-grader.

If the inference cites a specific line, then read that line like a third-grader, paying close attention to subtleties of language (usually simple words).

2. Use only what is in the passage.

Make certain that you are not projecting your own feelings/background/knowledge into a passage/inference question. You have everything you need on the page.

3. Distinguish between author’s intent and any characters in the passage.

Similarly, It is particularly important for certain inference problems (and other problem types) to distinguish between what the character is feeling/thinking and what the author is thinking/feeling. Some answers that seem plausible actually confuse the two. 

4. Tone and main idea can help.

If you understand the main idea and tone, then it might help you with an inference question. That’s because main idea and tone give you a sense of the author’s intent, and therefore what devices/points the author might be trying to make, albeit indirectly.


Passage Comparison:

1. Treat this initially as two single passage sections.

Read passage 1, then do passage 1 questions. Do the same for passage 2 and its questions. Then answer the comparison questions. The reasons are obvious: this way, you don’t get the information from one passage confused with the other for questions specific to a single passage.

2. Take notes as you read.

You should be doing this for the longer single passages anyway. But this becomes doubly important for double passage problems. Your notes will help you quickly identify information that you might need, and in the correct passage, that would otherwise take a complete re-reading to discover.

3. Pay careful attention to the degree implied by verbs and adjectives when comparing passages.

Problems that have possible answer choices like “Passage 1… while Passage 2…” are potentially quite challenging. Often, the answer has to do with the degree to which it applies. There’s a difference between “cites” and “focuses”, and so pay careful attention. (In some wrong answers, the threshold is just too high.)

4. The entire answer has to be correct.

This is true for all questions. But it applies in particular to passage comparison. You can eliminate incorrect answers by realizing that they are making an incorrect statement for passage 1. Then eliminate more by eliminating those that incorrectly characterize passage 2. If you’re lucky, you’ll be left with one correct answer. If not, then use what you know about each passage to choose the best answer.

Tone Questions:

1. Tone is generally consistent with passage type and main idea.

Informative = objective, interested, appreciative (neutral to moderately positive/negative)
Argumentative = subjective, passionate, wry (stronger emotions)
Narrative = can be anything, pretty much.

2. Make sure you distinguish between author’s tone and a character’s emotions.

The characters could be undergoing intense emotions. But the author may choose to convey that in a very objective tone. Make certain you don’t conflate the two. Also, obviously, make sure you don’t project your own emotional response into the tone of the article.

Structure Questions:

1. Similarity questions

There are questions that ask for an example that “resembles” or “is most similar to” a cited example. These problems can be tricky, because they require you to (1) understand the reference, (2) understand the key relationships/properties of the reference, and (3) determine the answer choice that possesses all of the key relationships/properties in the original reference. Usually there will be two properties to identify.

Here’s how you solve these.

(a) Break apart the original reference into parts (probably two).

(b) Identify the relationships or key ideas in the parts.

(c) Check each answer choice and see if it conforms to both parts.

In some ways, this is like a double-blank sentence completion problem, except that you’re after the concepts and relationships embedded in the line reference. In some ways, this is the spiritual descendent of the “analogy” questions that plagued SAT students until sometime around 2005.

2. Identifying the purpose of a specific device

You should know about rhetorical devices: comparison, exaggeration, contrast, examples, etc. Each of these can be used to strengthen or develop an argument, analysis, or a narrative.

To solve these, you need to understand the connection between the line reference and the surrounding text (and, sometimes, the overall passage). This means figuring out why the author uses a specific piece of language.

Remember: why, not what. Do not confuse what is literally being said with its purpose.

3. Additional information that would strengthen an argument

To solve these questions, you need to make certain that you understand what the argument is. There should be only one answer choice that works. You can disregard the others because they will not relate to the specific argument being made in a paragraph, or because the form of the evidence is wrong. What do I mean by form? If the article is an informative scientific article, an opinion piece will not effectively support the argument.