SAT Reading & Writing Question Types

The Digital SAT Reading & Writing section tests eleven distinct question types spread across four content domains. Craft and Structure leads at about 28% of questions, followed closely by Standard English Conventions at 26% and Information and Ideas at 26%, with Expression of Ideas rounding out the section at 20%. Each guide below covers a specific question type with strategies and practice questions.

Information and Ideas

~26%

Comprehension-focused questions that ask you to locate, interpret, evaluate, and integrate information from literary and informational texts — including texts paired with quantitative data.

Central Ideas & Details
Identify the main idea of a passage or locate specific details that support it. These questions reward close reading and precise paraphrasing.
Inferences
Draw logical conclusions that are strongly supported — but not explicitly stated — by the passage. Fill in a missing sentence that completes the author's reasoning.
Command of Evidence — Textual
Select the quotation or sentence from a passage that most effectively supports, weakens, or illustrates a given claim.
Command of Evidence — Quantitative
Use data from a table, graph, or chart to complete or support a written argument. Pairs reading comprehension with data literacy.

Craft and Structure

~28%

Questions about how passages are built: word choice, organization, rhetorical purpose, and the relationships between paired texts.

Words in Context
Determine the meaning of a word or phrase as it is used in the passage, or choose the word that best completes a sentence given the context.
Text Structure & Purpose
Identify the main purpose of a passage or analyze its overall structure — how the pieces fit together to build the author's argument.
Cross-Text Connections
Compare two short paired passages on a related topic. Determine how one author would respond to the other's claims, methods, or evidence.

Expression of Ideas

~20%

Questions about revising text to accomplish specific rhetorical goals — choosing the sentence that best introduces, transitions, or synthesizes information.

Rhetorical Synthesis
Given a bulleted list of notes, choose the sentence that most effectively uses that information to accomplish a stated rhetorical goal.
Transitions
Select the transition word or phrase that most logically connects two sentences — contrast, cause-and-effect, emphasis, example, and more.

Standard English Conventions

~26%

Grammar and mechanics: sentence structure, punctuation, agreement, verb tenses, and the rules that govern Standard Written English.

Boundaries
Punctuation and sentence boundaries: commas, semicolons, colons, dashes, and apostrophes. The single most frequently tested skill in the section.
Form, Structure & Sense
Subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, verb tense and form, modifier placement, and parallel structure within sentences.