i loved writing the SAT

摘要

When I was an English teacher, I got familiar with standardized tests, and in the mid-'90s, I joined the industry and started writing questions. Today, I supervise the people who supervise the writers. But I still love picking apart a good reading passage, whether it's from classic American literature, historical documents, or contemporary novels. To find a reading-comprehension excerpt, you look for a nugget that's easy enough for high schoolers to understand but complex enough that you can mine it for a variety of questions and difficulty levels. For a passage about, say, a balloonist, you might ask how the narrator's attitude shifts, or how in line 50, "bearing" most nearly means_.