Worked examples
Two examples
Example 1
A passage written for this example
According to the passage, how often can the fans replace all the air in the tunnel?A. Every 84 secondsThe Holland Tunnel, which opened under the Hudson River in November 1927, solved a problem that no tunnel had faced before: the exhaust from cars and trucks. Its chief engineer, Clifford Holland, died in 1924, before the work was finished. Cars and trucks give off carbon monoxide, a poison gas, and in a long tunnel it could build up to deadly levels. The engineers built four ventilation buildings with 84 large fans. The fans push fresh air in below the roadway and pull the bad air out above it, and they can replace all the air in the tunnel every 90 seconds.
B. Every 90 seconds
C. Every hour
D. The passage does not say.
- “According to the passage” is a rule: the answer must be in the passage. Your job is to find the sentence that holds it.
- The question is about the fans and the air. Look for those words. The last sentence has both: the fans “can replace all the air in the tunnel every 90 seconds.”
- A borrows a number from the passage, but 84 is the number of fans, not seconds. Numbers that appear in the passage for something else are a common trap.
- C is not in the passage. D is wrong, because the passage does say.
Answer: B
Example 2
A passage written for this example
According to the passage, why did the French effort to build a canal fail?A. The United States stopped the work in 1904.The Panama Canal opened on August 15, 1914. Before it, a ship sailing from New York to San Francisco had to go all the way around Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. The canal cut nearly 8,000 miles off that trip. A French company had tried to build a canal in Panama in the 1880s and failed, defeated by poor planning and by diseases carried by mosquitoes. The United States took over the work in 1904 and finished it ten years later.
B. The French company ran out of money.
C. Poor planning, and diseases carried by mosquitoes
D. Ships could already sail around Cape Horn.
- Find the sentence about the French. It is sentence 4: they “failed, defeated by poor planning and by diseases carried by mosquitoes.” That is C, in the passage’s own words.
- A twists the passage. It says the United States took over the work in 1904, after the French had failed. It never says the United States stopped them.
- B is true in history: the French company did go bankrupt. But the passage never says it, and the question says “according to the passage.” A true fact that is not in the passage is a trap.
- D uses a detail from sentence 2, about the long trip before the canal. The passage never gives it as a reason for the French failure.
Answer: C
Where this is taught: Skills Quiz 1, Reading a passage: First, the idea · Skills Quiz 1: the worked example · Skills Diagnostic, Part 1
In your Kaplan book: Unit 3, Chapter 1, Lesson 1: Determine Central Idea and Draw Conclusions · Map of the Terrain, topic 1: Reading a passage
The drill
Ten questions
How many:
Read what is in the box first. Then tap your answer; a few questions ask you to choose words from a drop-down instead, the way the GED test does. Press Check my answers at the bottom.Read what is in the box first. Circle your answer; where there are brackets, circle the choice that fits. The answer key, with the reasoning, is on the last page.