SAT Command of Evidence Questions
Which piece of evidence genuinely backs a claim. Some versions quote the text, others hand you a chart and ask which finding supports the researcher's conclusion.
In short
- Command of Evidence is part of Information and Ideas, about 26% of the scored Reading and Writing questions: 12 to 14 on every test.
- Information and Ideas questions come second in every Reading and Writing module, after Craft and Structure, grouped by topic from easiest to hardest.
- Outside knowledge is the trap Rivie's practice tests set most often in Command of Evidence questions.
Common traps
Most common first, from Rivie's ten practice tests.
Outside knowledge
The wrong choice is true in the world but not stated or implied by the passage. SAT R&W only cares what the passage itself supports.
The usual mistake: You bring in what you already know about the topic, and pick the answer that matches your prior, not the passage's evidence.
Naming without explaining
Rhetorical-purpose questions: the wrong choice correctly names what the author is doing (e.g. 'cites a study') but misses why, the function inside the argument.
The usual mistake: You stop at identifying the surface action ('a quote!') and don't ask what work the quote is doing for the larger claim.
Method as evidence
The wrong choice presents the methodology of a study (what researchers did) as if it were the conclusion (what they found).
The usual mistake: You see a sentence about the experiment and accept it as the answer, missing that the question asked what the experiment showed, not how it was run.
Assumption vs. evidence
The wrong choice cites something as evidence the author provides, but it's actually an assumption the author makes without support.
The usual mistake: You see a claim in the passage and accept it as evidence; you miss that the question wants what's stated explicitly versus what's quietly presupposed.
Try a question
From Rivie's practice tests. Pick an answer to see why it is right or wrong.
A psychologist hypothesized that elementary students who took a three-minute stretching break between two reading tests would score higher on the second test than students who remained seated. To support the hypothesis, the psychologist would most need to show a difference between the two groups on the second test.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support the hypothesis?
Video lessons
Free on YouTube, picked for this topic.