Main Ideas and Command of Evidence
Find the claim, then make the text prove it
One skill, four question types
The Information and Ideas domain covers main idea, specific detail, command of evidence, and inference questions. They look different but reduce to the same move: identify the passage's one claim, then check what the text actually establishes about it. The moment you can state the claim in your own words, every question in this family becomes an accounting exercise.
Every passage in this family is built around exactly one claim. Find it, restate it in ten words or fewer, and hold every answer choice against it. Choices that talk about the right topic but the wrong claim are the test's favorite trap.
Main idea: the summary test
A main idea answer must cover the claim and its direction, not just the subject. Wrong answers fail in three predictable ways: too narrow, promoting one detail to the throne; too broad, floating above what the passage actually argues; or distorted, keeping the topic but swapping the verb, turning 'describes a debate' into 'settles a debate.'
Match the verbs. If the passage describes, the answer describes. If it questions, the answer questions. An answer that claims the author proves, refutes, or celebrates something the author merely mentions is a distortion, no matter how familiar its nouns look.
Evidence: support, weaken, illustrate
Support and weaken items give you a hypothesis and ask which new finding bears on it. Restate the hypothesis as an if-then, then pick the finding that touches the causal link itself. The trap choices are findings that are true, interesting, and completely beside the point.
For quotation items, the quote must illustrate every part of the claim: if the claim pairs weather with emotion, a quote with only weather fails.
A finding can be consistent with the passage and still be wrong, because consistent is not the same as supportive. Ask one question of every choice: does this make the specific claim more likely, less likely, or neither? Neither means eliminate, however interesting it is.
Inference questions on the digital SAT usually appear as logical completions: the passage ends mid-thought with a blank. The right ending is the conclusion the premises force, not merely permit. Run the therefore test: read the premises, say 'therefore,' and see which choice is impossible to deny if the premises are true.
This is the reading you will do for the rest of your life: a report lands on your desk and you must know what it actually shows versus what its author hopes it shows. Command of evidence is not a test skill wearing a costume. It is the core skill of every research paper, policy memo, and hiring decision you will ever touch.