Factual questions ask about explicit facts and details provided in the passage. Â They often contain one of the wh- question words: who, what, when, where, why, how much.
Factual questions often begin with the  phrases “According to the  passage, . . .” or “According to the author, . . .”  When you see these phrases, you know that to answer the question, all the information you need is directly stated somewhere in the passage (unlike answers for inference  questions).
To answer factual questions, you have to locate and identify the information that the question asks about. If you are not sure from your first reading where to look for specific answers, use the  following scanning techniques:
Detail questions about a passage are almost always presented in the same order that the ideas are given in the passage. In other words, the information you need to answer the first detail question will usually come near the beginning of the passage; the information for the second will follow that, and so on. Knowing this should help you locate the information you need.
Correct answers for detail questions are seldom the same, word for word, as information in the passage; they often contain synonyms and use different grammatical structures.
There are generally more factual questions–twelve to eighteen per Reading section–than any other type except (on some tests) vocabulary-in-context questions.
These questions ask you to determine which of the four choices is not given in the passage. These questions contain the words NOT, EXCEPT, or LEAST (which are always capitalized).
Scan the passage to find the answers that ARE correct or ARE mentioned in the passage. Sometimes the three distractors are clustered in one or two sentences; sometimes they are scattered throughout the passage. The correct answer, of course, is the one that does not appear.
Negative questions often take more time than other questions. So, you may want to guess and come back to these questions if you have time.
There are generally three to six negative questions per Reading section.
These questions ask you to find the location of some particular information or transition in the passage. They are easy to identify: the answers are usually line numbers. They are usually easy to answer too. Scanning questions are often the last question in a set of questions about a passage. To answer these questions, use the same techniques for scanning given in Part A about factual questions.
Sample Questions
In each Reading section, there are generally one to three scanning questions
| Mesa Verde is the center of the prehistoric Anasazi culture. It is located in the high plateau lands near Four Corners, where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona come together. This high ground is majestic but not forbidding. The climate is dry, but tiny streams trickle at the bottom of deeply cut canyons, where seeps and springs provided water for the Anasazi to irrigate their crops. Rich red soil provided fertile ground for their crops of corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton. The Anasazi domesticated the wild turkey and hunted deer, rabbits, and mountain sheep.  For a thousand years the Anasazi lived around Mesa Verde. Although the Anasazi are not related to the Navajos, no one knows what these Indians called themselves, and so they are commonly referred to by their Navajo name, Anasazi, which means “ancient ones” in the Navajo language. Around 550 A.D., early Anasazi-then a nomadic people archaeologists call the Basketmakers- began constructing permanent homes on mesa tops. In the next 300 years, the Anasazi made rapid technological advancements, including the refinement of not only basket-making but also pottery- making and weaving. This phase of development is referred to as the Early Pueblo Culture.  By the Great Pueblo Period (1100-1300 A.D.), the Anasazi population swelled to over 5,000 and the architecturally ambitious cliff dwellings came into being. The Anasazi moved from the mesa tops onto ledges on the steep canyon walls, creating two and three story dwellings. They used sandstone blocks and mud mortar. There were no doors on the first floor and people used ladders to reach the first roof. All the villages had underground chambers called kivas. Men held tribal councils there and also used them for secret religious ceremonies and clan meetings. Winding paths, ladders, and steps cut into the stone led from the valleys below to the ledges on which the villages stood. The largest settlement contained 217 rooms. One might surmise that these dwellings were built for protection, but the Anasazi had no known enemies and there is no sign of conflict.  But a bigger mystery is why the Anasazi occupied these structures such a short time. By 1300, Mesa Verde was deserted. It is conjectured that the Anasazi abandoned their settlements because of drought, overpopulation, crop failure, or some combination of these. They probably moved southward and were incorporated into the pueblo villages that the Spanish explorers encountered two hundred years later. Their descendants still live in the Southwest. |
| Dulcimers are musical instruments that basically consist of wooden boxes with strings stretched over them. In one form or another, they have been around since ancient times, probably originating with the Persian santir. Today there are two varieties: the hammered dulcimer and the Appalachian, or mountain dulcimer. The former is shaped like a trapezoid, has two or more strings, and is played with wooden mallets. It is the same instrument played in a number of Old World countries. The Appalachian dulcimer is classified by musicologists as a box zither. It is a descendant of the Pennsylvania Dutch scheitholt and the French epinette. Appalachian dulcimers are painstakingly fashioned by artisans in the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. These instruments have three or four strings and are plucked with quills or the fingers. They are shaped like teardrops or hourglasses. Heart-shaped holes in the sounding board are traditional. Most performers play the instruments while seated with the instruments in their laps, but others wear them around their necks like guitars or place them on tables in front of them. Originally used to play dance music, Appalachian dulcimers were popularized by performers such as John Jacob Niles and Jean Ritchie during the folk music revival of the 1960’s. |
| Humanitarian Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden, Maine, in 1802. At the age of 19, she established a school for girls, the Dix Mansion School, in Boston, but had to close it in 1835 due to her poor health. She wrote and published the first of many books for children in 1824. In 1841, Dix accepted an invitation to teach classes at a prison in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was deeply disturbed by the sight of mentally ill persons thrown in the jail and treated like criminals. For the next 18 months, she toured Massachusetts institutions where other mental patients were confined, and reported the shocking conditions she found to the state legislature. When improvements followed in Massachusetts, she turned her attention to the neighboring states and then to the West and South. Dix’s work was interrupted by the Civil War; she served as superintendent of women hospital nurses for the federal government. Dix saw special hospitals for the mentally ill built in some 15 states. Although her plan to obtain public land for her cause failed, she aroused concern for the problem of mental illness all over the United States as well as in Canada and Europe. Dix’s success was due to her independent and thorough research, her gentle but persistent manner, and her ability to secure the help of powerful and wealthy supporters. |