Question type
"Function of the underlined sentence" questions on the SAT
These questions ask what an underlined sentence does in the text: introduces a puzzle, gives an example, presents a view the author then challenges, or qualifies a claim. Read the sentences before and after it, name its role in a few words, and pick the choice that names that role. Choices that paraphrase what it says are the trap.
A short text has one sentence or phrase underlined, and the question asks for its function in the text as a whole.
College Board's question bank has 66 of these, and about a third are rated Hard.
- 66 in College Board's question bank, 35% rated Hard
- 67 practice questions of this type
Why students miss it
Choosing a summary. A choice can describe the underlined sentence's content accurately and still be wrong, because the question asks for its role.
Describing a neighbouring sentence. The role of the sentence after it, such as "presents the researchers' finding", is a common distractor.
Missing the turn. An underlined earlier view is usually there to be overturned, which the next sentence's "however" reveals.
How to spot it
- An underlined sentence or phrase in the passage.
- "Which choice best describes the function of the underlined ..."
The method
Name the role first
Read the whole text, then decide what job the underlined part does before looking at the choices.
- A question followed by an explanation
- it raises a puzzle the text answers.
- "Researchers once assumed ..." then "however"
- it presents a view the text corrects.
- A specific case after a general claim
- it gives an example.
- A limit on the main claim
- it qualifies it.
Two real questions
From the 1500prep bank, the way the app shows them. Answer first, then open the explanation.
Mussels cling to rocks with byssal threads, thin fibers that must withstand the relentless force of breaking waves. Researchers once assumed that these threads were uniformly stiff, much like a steel cable anchoring a buoy to the ocean floor. A team of biologists, however, discovered that each thread is rigid near the rock but soft and extensible near the animal's body. This gradient, they argue, allows the thread to absorb sudden jolts gradually, preventing the concentration of stress that would otherwise snap a fiber of uniform stiffness in a storm.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?
Show the answer and explanationThe answer: It describes an earlier view of the threads that the biologists' finding shows to be inaccurate.
Seventeenth-century European observers logged comets with a diligence that still surprises historians, often recording positions nightly for weeks. Why, then, do their catalogues disagree so sharply about the same objects? Astronomer Paulo Reis compared forty such records and found that discrepancies clustered among observers who worked from printed star charts rather than from instruments of their own. The charts, copied and recopied, carried errors that each observer faithfully transmitted, mistaking a flaw in the paper for a measurement of the sky.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined question in the text as a whole?
Show the answer and explanationThe answer: It raises a puzzle about the records that the rest of the text then accounts for.
Questions students ask
How do you answer function questions on the SAT?
Decide what the underlined part does in the text, such as raising a question, giving an example or presenting a view the author rejects, before you read the choices. Then choose the one that names that role.
Why are the wrong answers so convincing?
Because many of them accurately describe what the sentence says, or what another sentence does. The question asks about the underlined part's role, which only one choice names.
Practise this type until it is automatic
Five more function-of-a-sentence questions, checked instantly, with every wrong choice explained. Free, no card.