Detail questions require exact retrieval; relationship questions require connecting retrieved facts without changing their roles. Names, dates and quantities matter, but so do baselines and sequence. A remembered fact answers the question only when it belongs to the requested comparison or moment.
Reason through the task
Underline the stem’s boundary: before an event, according to a speaker, compared with a stated alternative, or because of a particular condition. Return to the nearby sentences and resolve pronouns before choosing. For relationships, say whether one fact causes, contrasts with, illustrates or limits another. Do not convert an association into a cause merely because two facts appear together. Preserve the author’s wording about uncertainty and the direction of any numerical difference.
Worked example and a tempting error
Original example: a proposed route saves sixty minutes compared with the old road. A safer variation adds eight minutes to the proposal. Asked how much longer the variation is than the proposal, answer eight minutes. Fifty-two minutes is its saving relative to the old road; sixty-eight minutes confuses a saving with an added duration. The numbers are not difficult, but each belongs to a different baseline. Naming that baseline prevents an apparently relevant calculation from answering the wrong question.
Try a different case
Transfer: a technician first hears a rattle, then suspects a damaged wheel, then finds a loose screw. Asked what actually caused the noise, choose the screw. The suspected wheel belongs to an earlier explanation, not the final discovery. Asked what the rattle did in the investigation, say it signaled a problem; it neither diagnosed the cause nor repaired it. Different stems make different facts useful.