Details and what a text suggests

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Difficulty: Advanced
Estimated time: 35 minutes
Practice: Central Ideas and Details question bank

What you’ll learn

Recognize a detail question: what a text says or suggests, what someone would agree with, or why a character acts as they do.
Find the lines a question points to, and put them in a few words before you read the choices.
Check every part of a choice: who does what, and which way.
Cross out choices that turn the lines around, go past the text, go too far or mix up who did what.
Go one step past the lines when a question says suggests, and no further.
Read a person's view from their own lines, and a character's feeling or reason from what they do and say.

Prerequisites

You’re ready. No earlier lesson is needed.

Why this matters on the SAT

The answer sits in a few lines

A detail question points you to part of a text and asks what it says or shows. It may ask what a team found according to the text, what the text most strongly suggests about an explorer's notebooks, what researchers would most likely agree with, or why a character acts as she does. About one Information and Ideas question in seven is one of these, and none asks for the main idea or ends in a blank to complete; those have lessons of their own. One to three sentences usually decide the answer, so the question is: what do these lines say, and what do they show?

SAT example

Engineer Laila Mensah and her team studied electrochromic windows, which darken in strong sunlight and become clear when sunlight is weak. Offices with these windows used less electricity for cooling than offices with ordinary clear windows. They also used less electricity for indoor lighting than offices with permanently tinted windows because the electrochromic windows admitted daylight when it was needed. However, when the windows were installed behind deep exterior overhangs, their effect on electricity use was small because the overhangs already blocked most direct sunlight.

According to the text, which choice best describes the team's findings about electrochromic windows?

A
They reduce cooling needs compared with clear windows but increase lighting needs compared with tinted windows.
B
They reduce both cooling and lighting needs, especially in buildings whose overhangs block most direct sunlight.
C
They reduce lighting needs compared with tinted windows, but their effect on cooling use is small.
D
They can reduce both cooling and lighting needs, but their benefits depend on a building's existing shade.

Solution to the example

Lines: less power for cooling than clear windows, and for lighting than tinted ones; little effect behind deep overhangs, which already block most direct sun.

Predict: they save on both, but help little where a building is already shaded.

Cross out: A turns the lighting result around. C gives the small effect to cooling, not to windows behind overhangs.

Check: D says the windows can reduce both cooling and lighting needs, but their benefits depend on a building's existing shade, so the answer is D.

B tempts most: it opens with the true reduce both, then especially turns the overhang line around.

“According to the text”: find the lines and put them in a few words

Every question in this lesson uses the same routine:

Find the lines the question points to, and read each sentence from its start.
Put them in a few words.
Predict: for according to, the lines in new words; for every other question, one step past them at most.
Cross out choices that turn the lines around, mix up who did what, go past the text or go too far.
Check the last choice: every part of it: who does what, and which way.

Many mistakes start at step 1. The question names a person, a thing or a result (in the opening question, the team's findings); find where the text talks about it, and read that whole sentence, not just the half with the question's words.

When a sentence points back with this or these (the opening's these windows), the sentence before it says what they are. Here's a short text of our own:

The Riverside night market

The Riverside night market opens every Friday at six in the parking lot beside the river. This summer, the organizers hung string lights over the food stalls so that shoppers could read the menus after dark. Since then, vendors say, crowds have stayed past ten.

The question: According to the text, why did the organizers hang the lights?

Note: The lines: lights over the food stalls so shoppers could read the menus after dark
Note: Predict: to help people read the menus at night

The right choice says the same idea in new words, often more general ones. On a plain question like this one, the wrong choices often say something the text never does:

Correct: Same idea: to help shoppers see the menus once it got dark
Wrong: Past the text: to draw bigger crowds to the market

Bigger crowds sound likely, and crowds did stay later, but the text gives one reason for the lights, and it's the menus. A choice can sound true, even reuse the text's words, and still go past the text. For according to, the answer is the lines in new words, and nothing more.

Now and then the SAT asks which question a study answers: find the lines that say what was compared or measured, and keep the question those lines answer.

Check your understanding:

Answer in a few words. The library moved its quiet room to the top floor so that readers would be farther from the noisy entrance. According to the text, why did the library move the quiet room?

Try it on this question: find the lines about the lamps and put them in a few words before you read the choices.

Lamps inside the sculptures

Practice problem

At the Harbor Gallery exhibition Folded Light, sculptor Mara Velez displays forms made from thin sheets of recycled plastic. Instead of shining spotlights from above, the curator has placed a small lamp inside each sculpture. As visitors walk around the forms, the internal light reveals overlapping layers and causes patterns of color to shift. The gallery also keeps the room dim so that these effects are easy to see.

According to the text, why are small lamps placed inside the sculptures?

Check who does what, and which way

The most common trap on detail questions turns the lines around: it keeps the text's people and things and flips the relation between them. So check every choice two ways: who (the right person, group or thing) and which way (up or down, helps or hurts). Here's the market text with a new second and third sentence:

The Riverside night market: two kinds of stall

The Riverside night market opens every Friday at six in the parking lot beside the river. This summer, the organizers hung string lights over the food stalls but not the craft tables. Since then, the food stalls stay busy past ten, while the craft tables draw fewer shoppers after dark.

The question: According to the text, what has changed since the lights went up?

Note: The lines: lights over the food stalls only; since then, busy food stalls and quieter craft tables
Note: Predict: the lit stalls got busier at night, and the unlit tables quieter

Correct: Right direction: The lit food stalls stay busy late, while the craft tables draw fewer shoppers.
Wrong: Turned around: The craft tables draw more shoppers after dark than before.
Wrong: Mixed up: The craft tables, under the new lights, stay busy past ten.
Wrong: Half turned around: The lit food stalls stay busy late, and the craft tables draw more shoppers too.

Turned around keeps the right parts and flips the relation: fewer becomes more. Mixed up gives a real detail to the wrong person, group or result: the lights and the late crowds belong to the food stalls. Both sound right at a glance, because they reuse the text's words. Before you keep a choice, ask who does what, and whether it's more or less.

Long choices often join two claims with “and”, “but”, “while” or “because”. Check each half against the lines: the most tempting wrong choice often gets the first half right and turns the second around, like the craft tables draw more shoppers too.

Check your understanding:

Which statement is turned around? In a test kitchen, bread made with a new flour rose higher than bread made with the old flour, but the new-flour bread went stale a day sooner. (1) The new flour made taller bread that stayed fresh longer. (2) The new flour made taller bread that went stale sooner.

In this question, two of the choices use the text's two amounts, grain and water. Put the lines in a few words, then check which way each amount moved.

Wheat that needs less water

Practice problem

In a recent field trial, agricultural scientists tested a new wheat variety developed through gene editing to tolerate drought. Unlike earlier drought-resistant strains, which often produced lower yields, the new variety maintained its grain output while requiring 40 percent less irrigation. The researchers hope this innovation will help farmers in arid regions remain profitable as climate change intensifies.

According to the text, what benefit does the new gene-edited wheat variety provide compared with previous drought-resistant strains?

“Most strongly suggests”: one step past the lines, no more

A question that asks what the text most strongly suggests or what is best supported wants something the lines show without saying it outright. Go one step: what is very likely true if the lines are true, and then stop. Here's the market text with a shorter second sentence and a new last one:

The Riverside night market: one step

The Riverside night market opens every Friday at six in the parking lot beside the river. This summer, the organizers hung string lights over the food stalls. Since then, the food vendors have stopped bringing their own lanterns.

The question: What does the text most strongly suggest about the string lights?

Note: The lines: new lights over the stalls; the vendors stopped bringing lanterns
Note: Predict: the vendors probably find the lights bright enough

Correct: One step: The vendors likely find the string lights bright enough to work by.
Wrong: Too far: The string lights are brighter than any lantern.
Wrong: Past the text: Lanterns had been banned at the market.

Too far takes the true step and keeps going: bright enough to work by isn't brighter than any lantern. Past the text brings in a reason the text never gives: nothing mentions a ban. Words like always, only, all and must often mark a choice that goes too far, and right answers often hedge: likely, may, some. The answer is usually the smallest thing the lines show.

Check your understanding:

Which statement goes too far? By Friday, the school’s lost-and-found box was overflowing with water bottles. This suggests that (1) many water bottles had been left behind. (2) students don’t care about their belongings.

In this question, find the lines that say why López relied on the notebooks, then go one step, no further.

An explorer’s field notebooks

Practice problem

In a recent article in Historical Botany, Marta López explains how she relied on a set of 1870s field notebooks kept by the explorer-botanist Elias Thorne. Many of Thorne’s pressed plant specimens have since been lost from museum collections, so López used his meticulous sketches and marginal notes to reconstruct the historical ranges of several orchid species. López points out that Thorne colored his diagrams while still in the field—an uncommon practice at the time, when most explorers waited until they were back in their studios.

What does the text most strongly suggest about Thorne’s field notebooks?

“Would most likely agree”: find the person’s own lines

Some questions ask what a person or a team would most likely agree with. The text rarely states that view outright; it gives what they found or said, sometimes after someone else's view (some ecologists have proposed, most projections). Find the person's own lines, keep them apart from anyone else's, then go one step. Here's the market text with two views:

The Riverside night market: two views

The Riverside night market opens every Friday at six in the parking lot beside the river. This summer, the organizers hung string lights over the food stalls. Some vendors called the lights a waste of money, but Sam Ortiz, who runs the dumpling stall, says they brought shoppers back after dark.

The question: Ortiz would most likely agree with which statement?

Note: Other vendors: the lights were a waste of money
Note: Ortiz: the lights brought shoppers back after dark
Note: Predict: the lights were worth having

Correct: His view: The lights were worth what they cost.
Wrong: Mixed up: The lights were a waste of money.
Wrong: Too far: The lights doubled every stall's sales.

The text's “but” sets his view against the other vendors': lights that brought shoppers back weren't wasted. The second statement is a real view from the text, given to the wrong person: mixed up. Before you judge the choices, sort out whose lines are whose.

In this question, other people's view comes first, then the team's findings, which have two halves. Put each half in a few words before you read the choices.

Seedlings from warmer regions

Practice problem

As warming exposes forests to increasingly dry conditions, some ecologists have proposed assisted gene flow: planting seeds from warm, dry regions in forests whose local trees may be poorly adapted to future climates. Most projections of the strategy's effects, however, emphasize mature trees. Leila Duarte and colleagues instead compared seedlings from warm, dry regions with local seedlings. During continuous water shortages, the warm-region seedlings retained more leaves and survived longer. But when water alternated between scarcity and brief abundance, those seedlings resumed growth more slowly after rain and accumulated less biomass than local seedlings did—a potentially important limitation because seedling growth strongly influences forest establishment.

Based on the text, Duarte and colleagues would most likely agree with which statement about assisted gene flow?

Characters: read the feeling or reason from what they do and say

Some texts come from a story, sometimes an older novel, and the question asks what a character feels or wants, or why they act as they do. The story rarely names it. Read what the character does and says, then predict the one reason or feeling that fits all of it. Here's the market text as a story:

The Riverside night market: a story

The Riverside night market opens every Friday at six in the parking lot beside the river. Near closing, Sam Ortiz looked at his last tray of dumplings, then at the long line, and began packing four to an order instead of six. The last customer got the tray's last four.

The question: Why does Ortiz pack fewer dumplings in each order?

Note: He does: looks from his last tray to the long line, then packs four instead of six
Note: In the end: the last customer gets the tray's last four
Note: Predict: so that everyone in line gets some

Correct: Fits the whole scene: He wants everyone in line to get some dumplings.
Wrong: Fits one line only: He wants to save some dumplings for tomorrow.

Saving some fits the smaller orders, but the tray ends up empty, so it can't be his reason. The right answer fits everything the scene shows, not just one line. A tempting wrong choice often starts from a true line and gives the character a reason the rest of the scene rules out.

Check your understanding:

What does Lena feel? Lena read the acceptance letter twice, then ran down the hall to show her father.

In this question, put what Mara does in order, from when the drums grow louder to when they fade, and find the one reason that fits all of it.

A clock shop at festival time

Practice problem

The following text is from a short story. Mara is managing her uncle’s clock shop during the town’s annual festival.

Mara placed the OPEN sign in the window, but whenever the distant drums grew louder, she turned the sign face down and shut the door. She enjoyed the festival music; the problem was what the pounding rhythm did inside the shop. During the previous year’s parade, a shelf clock had vibrated toward the edge and fallen before anyone noticed. Now, as each band passed, Mara moved among the display cases, steadying the tallest clocks with both hands. Once the drums faded, she opened the door, restored the sign, and welcomed the customers waiting outside.

Which choice best explains why Mara repeatedly turns the sign face down?

Example: a choice that goes one step too far

In this question, the text gives a common reading, then a finding that pushes against it. Put both in a few words, then find the choice that goes one step and stops.

Worked example

Volcanologists often treat the detection of sharp, high-frequency seismic tremor at a volcano as evidence that magma is moving close to the surface, since layers of rock typically dampen high-frequency waves over long distances.

However, a team modeling how seismic waves travel through a volcano found that networks of narrow fractures can sometimes act like waveguides: they can channel high-frequency energy upward with less loss. In the team’s simulations, sensors recorded a strong high-frequency tremor even when the modeled magma remained deep below the surface.

Based on the text, which choice best describes what the team’s findings suggest about using high-frequency tremor to infer magma depth?

A
High-frequency tremor should be interpreted cautiously because structures within the volcano can transmit the signal even when magma is still deep.
B
High-frequency tremor still generally points to shallow magma, since fracture “waveguides” only slightly reduce the usual damping of high frequencies.
C
High-frequency tremor indicates that internal fracture patterns, rather than magma depth, are primarily responsible for whether the tremor is detected.
D
High-frequency tremor implies that the surrounding rock is so transparent to high-frequency waves that shallow magma is unlikely to be present.

Step 1

Find the lines the question points to

The question asks what the team’s findings suggest about using high-frequency tremor to infer magma depth, so you need the common reading of the tremor as well as the findings. The common reading: a sharp, high-frequency tremor is evidence that magma is moving close to the surface, since layers of rock typically dampen high-frequency waves over long distances.

Step 2

Put the lines in a few words and predict

Then the turn, “However”: narrow fractures can sometimes act like waveguides and carry the high frequencies up with less loss, and in the simulations a strong tremor showed up even when the modeled magma remained deep below the surface.

Note: Common reading: high-frequency tremor means shallow magma
Note: Finding: fractures can sometimes carry it up from deep magma
Note: Predict: the tremor doesn't always mean shallow magma, so read it with care

Step 3

Cross out what goes too far or past the text

C is the most tempting, because it's built from the finding's own idea: fractures matter. But fractures can sometimes carry the signal, and C makes them primarily responsible, dropping magma depth altogether: too far.

D turns the first line around: rock typically dampens these waves, so it isn't so transparent. And nothing makes shallow magma unlikely, so D goes too far as well.

B keeps the common reading and shrinks the finding with only slightly reduce, which the text never says: past the text. B, C and D go.

Step 4

Check the last choice

A says the tremor should be interpreted cautiously because structures within the volcano can transmit the signal even when magma is still deep. That's the finding, one step on: if deep magma can give the signal, the signal on its own can't prove the magma is shallow. Who does what checks out too: the fractures carry the signal, and the magma stays deep. The answer is A.

Example: keep each result with its setting

In this question, the text reports three settings and four measurements, and two of the wrong choices pin a real result on the wrong setting or measurement. Sort the lines into a small table first.

Worked example

In 2021, following a high-severity wildfire in a montane forest, researchers established 40 plots and planted equal numbers of native pine seedlings in three microhabitats within each plot: beside decaying logs, in partial shade under small shrubs, and in open sun. After twelve months, survival was 62% beside logs, 43% in partial shade, and 18% in open sun; mean height growth did not differ significantly across microhabitats. Summer soil moisture was consistently higher beside logs than in the other two settings, while soil nutrient levels were similar across microhabitats.

Which choice about seedling performance in this study is best supported by the text?

A
Partial shade under shrubs improved first-year survival compared with open sun because shrubs kept soils moister.
B
Because soil moisture was highest beside logs, seedlings there also showed the greatest height growth.
C
Since soil nutrient levels were similar across microhabitats, survival rates should have been similar across microhabitats.
D
Proximity to decaying logs improved first-year survival relative to open-sun conditions in the study plots.

Step 1

Find the lines the question points to

The question asks what's best supported by the text about how the seedlings did, so start with the two results: survival was 62% beside logs, 43% in partial shade, and 18% in open sun, while mean height growth did not differ significantly across microhabitats. Two soil measurements follow.

Step 2

Put the lines in a small table

Summer soil moisture was consistently higher beside logs than in the other two settings, while soil nutrient levels were similar across microhabitats. With three settings and four measurements, a table keeps each result with its setting:

Setting	Survival	Height growth	Soil moisture	Nutrients
Beside logs	62%	no difference	higher	similar
Partial shade	43%	no difference	lower than logs	similar
Open sun	18%	no difference	lower than logs	similar

Predict: survival was best by the logs and worst in open sun; growth didn't differ; only the soil by the logs was moister.

Step 3

Cross out choices that don’t match the table

A is the most tempting, because its first half is true: shade beat open sun, 43% to 18%. But its reason, because shrubs kept soils moister, takes the moisture result from the logs' row and gives it to the shrubs: mixed up. The text never compares the soil under shrubs with the soil in open sun.

B moves the logs' edge from the survival column to height growth, which did not differ: mixed up too.

C says survival should have been similar, but the survival column runs from 62% down to 18%. A, B and C go.

Step 4

Check the last choice

D says proximity to decaying logs improved first-year survival relative to open-sun conditions: the logs' row against the open-sun row, in the survival column, 62% against 18%, in the right direction. The answer is D.

Practice problems

These questions mix the cases, so on each one, find the lines the question points to, put them in a few words and predict before you read the choices.

Bees on rooftop gardens

Practice problem

Urban ecologist Marcus Lee and colleagues studied rooftop gardens planted with native wildflowers. They found that gardens containing several flower species attracted more kinds of wild bees than gardens containing only one flower species. In a separate project, Amina Rahman and colleagues showed that leaving small patches of bare soil in rooftop gardens provided nesting sites for certain bees. Because most previous studies examined food and nesting resources separately, Lee and Rahman later designed an experiment that varied both flower diversity and the amount of bare soil.

According to the text, what did Lee and colleagues find in their initial study?

A merchant’s damaged diary

Practice problem

In a recent journal article, historian Miguel Alvarez recounts how he reconstructed the daily life of a seventeenth-century merchant named Elena Ruiz. The only surviving copy of Ruiz’s personal diary is missing several pages and is stained with water damage, rendering many passages unreadable. To fill these gaps, Alvarez compared the diary with business ledgers kept by Ruiz’s trading partners and with municipal tax records. Alvarez notes that a complete printed transcription of the diary has never been published, so he created a digital edition that marks every uncertain word and missing line.

What does the text most strongly suggest about the diary kept by Elena Ruiz?

A narrator who corrects herself

Practice problem

Some reviewers of Mira Dalen’s novella "The Glass Ledger" describe its first-person narrator as unreliable because she repeatedly interrupts her own story to revise a detail: a door was open, no, it was ajar; a letter arrived on Tuesday, or perhaps Wednesday. Yet the narrator does not present these revisions as lapses to be excused. Instead, she draws attention to them with a brisk, almost demonstrative confidence, as if practicing the narrative in front of an unseen listener. By making revision so conspicuous, the novella invites readers to attend less to what “really” happened than to the narrator’s insistence on controlling how the past will be received.

What does the text most strongly suggest about the narrator’s self-corrections in "The Glass Ledger"?

Finish the lesson

8 practice examples left

Finish the remaining questions correctly to complete this lesson.

Quick recap

Find the lines: read each sentence the question points to from its start, and the one before it when it points back with this or these.
According to: the answer is the lines in new words; anything the text never says goes past the text.
Who does what, which way: cross out choices that turn the lines around or are mixed up (a real detail or view given to the wrong person).
One step at most: for suggests or a person's view, go one step past the lines, no further; a character's reason must fit the whole scene.
Every question: find the lines, put them in a few words, predict, cross out, then check every part of the last choice: who does what, and which way.

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