Illustrate the Claim

These questions will be worded something like "Which quotation from ... most effectively illustrates the claim?". You will also notice that each answer choice has quotes around it, and before the question there is a short blurb introducing some written work, and making some claim or observation about it.

Since these questions will always be asking you to choose a quote that illustrates a claim, the first thing you need to do is identify what that claim is. In the example above, the claim is "the narrator describes Mr. Cornelius Johnson's appearance as conveying his exaggerated sense of his importance". So we're looking for a quote that shows his appearance being described in a way that shows he feels self-important.

The blurb before the question will give you some context about the work from which the quotes are drawn. It will normally give the title, the year it was published, the author, the type of work (e.g. a novel, short story, poem, play, etc.), and the might give a bit more background on the characters or setting. While not all of this information will be necessary to answer the question, it can give some extra context that might help ground yourself in the text.

Now that you've identified the claim, and read the blurb, you're ready to read each quote and use process of elimination. Ask if the quote is an example that demonstrates the claim made; if not, then cross it out. Hopefully you'll be left with just one quote that actually illustrates the claim. If you're left with more than one, then read them carefully and identify which one most obviously demonstrates the claim, and covers all aspects of it.

Sometimes there might be multiple parts to the claim. For example, "George was very smart but always eager to learn more". In this case, it's not enough to find a quote that just shows him being smart, or that just shows him being eager to learn more. You need to find a quote that shows both.

Some of the works used can be somewhat poetic, so the claim might be demonstrated through use of metaphors rather than using more direct language. So be careful not to always interpret the quotations too literally, especially if the work referenced is a poem. Many of the works are also older texts, so the language might seem more antiquated than you're used to. Try to familiarize with some older phrases (for example "thou" and "thee" mean "you" in in old English, and "thy" and thine typically mean "your").