Question 186·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure

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Critics often interpret the nonlinear chapters in Mara Venn's novel "The Borrowed Ledger" as mimicking the associative movement of memory: the narrator shifts among childhood, adulthood, and old age whenever an object prompts a recollection. The chapters, however, follow the dates on which those objects were cataloged by a city archive, not the order in which the narrator encountered them. This pattern has led some scholars to argue that the novel's structure is bureaucratic rather than psychological. But the catalog dates are not simply reproduced; the narrator selectively omits entries and lingers over others. The archival sequence therefore serves as a framework that the narrator reshapes, allowing the novel to portray memory as an active negotiation with a public record.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

For a function question, identify what comes immediately before and after the underlined material. Track transition words and determine whether the sentence supports, complicates, or redirects an earlier claim. Then check whether the rest of the passage accepts the sentence's implication fully or later qualifies it.

Hints

Hint 1
Notice the transitions
Consider the relationships signaled by "however" in the underlined sentence and "But" later in the passage.
Hint 2
Read the next sentence closely
Ask what interpretation some scholars develop from the catalog dates mentioned in the underlined sentence.
Hint 3
Check the ending
Determine whether the final sentences fully accept that interpretation or place an important limitation on it.

Step-by-step

Step 1
Identify the opening interpretation
The text begins with critics' view that the nonlinear structure imitates the movement of memory.
Step 2
Trace the competing interpretation
The word "however" introduces the archival ordering as a complication. The next sentence uses this detail to present a bureaucratic interpretation, but the final sentences explain that the narrator selectively alters the archive's sequence rather than simply following it.
Step 3
Match the sentence's function
The sentence introduces a structural pattern that supports an alternative interpretation, while the ending limits that interpretation by showing how archival order and personal memory interact. Therefore, the answer is It identifies a structural pattern that motivates an alternative to the opening interpretation, which the text later qualifies.

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SAT Reading: Craft and StructureIntermediateCoreFunction of the underlined sentence: what does this sentence do?

Question 186·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure

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