Cross-text connections

Two texts, one question: what would the second author say about the first?

2 min read

You get two short passages, Text 1 and Text 2, and a question about the relationship between them — usually what the author of Text 2 would say about a specific claim in Text 1.

These are among the slowest questions in the section. Budget 100–120 seconds and take them; they're worth full attention.

The method

  1. Read Text 1. Write down its claim in four words. Literally in the annotation box, or just fix it in your head as a phrase. "Tool use requires teaching."
  2. Read Text 2. Write down its claim in four words. "Tool use appears spontaneously."
  3. Name the relationship before reading the choices. There are only a few available:
    • Direct disagreement — Text 2 says Text 1's claim is wrong.
    • Qualification — Text 2 accepts it but limits when it applies. This is the most common and the most missed.
    • Extension — Text 2 agrees and goes further.
    • Different question — Text 2 isn't addressing Text 1's claim at all, and the answer is about what it would say.
    • Same evidence, different reading — both cite the same finding, disagree about what it shows.
  4. Then read the choices, and find the one that matches the relationship you named.

Why qualification is the trap

Test writers love it because most students read "not full agreement" as "disagreement". A qualifying second text sounds oppositional — it's full of however, only when, in certain conditions — but it doesn't say the first author is wrong. It says the first author is right in a narrower range than they claimed.

If Text 2 contains a condition (when, unless, provided that, in cases where), suspect qualification.

Reading the stem exactly

These stems are precise, and the precision is load-bearing:

  • "Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1?" → only the underlined claim. Not the passage.
  • "Which choice best describes the relationship between the two texts?" → the whole relationship.
  • "The author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 would most likely agree that..." → find common ground, which may be a smaller claim than either passage's main point.

Answering the wrong one of these three is the single most common way to miss a cross-text question you understood perfectly.

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