Cách thức làm bài Đọc SAT: Dạng bài đọc kép (Cặp đôi câu truyện)

Bài viết hướng dẫn thí sinh phương pháp làm bài SAT Reading: Dạng bài đọc kép (Paired Passages), một trong những dạng bài dễ làm cho thí sinh cảm thấy bối rối khi cùng lúc phải xử lý quá nhiều thông tin và nhiều dạng câu hỏi.

Giới thiệu

Phần Reading, còn gọi là Evidence-Based Reading (Đọc Hiểu Dựa Vào Dẫn Chứng) trong bài thi SAT sau khi được sửa đổi vào năm 2016 sẽ kéo dài 65 phút và là phần đầu tiên mà thí sinh phải hoàn thành. Với tổng cộng 52 câu hỏi, nội dung này bao gồm 4 bài đọc đơn dài và 1 bài đọc kép gồm 2 bài ngắn hơn (dạng Paired passages). Mỗi bài đọc thường có độ dài từ 500 đến 750 từ, tương ứng với 9 hoặc 11 câu hỏi trắc nghiệm.

Các đề tài của phần thi Reading sẽ bao gồm:

• Văn học – Literature: đoạn trích từ các tác phẩm tiểu thuyết hoặc truyện ngắn của các tác giả Mỹ hoặc nước ngoài, từ thế kỷ mười tám đến thời kỳ hiện đại.

• Lịch sử và Khoa học Xã hội – History and Social Studies: thường xoay quanh các khái niệm cơ bản hoặc đoạn trích từ những bài viết mới về các đề tài xã hội – nhân văn như nhân chủng học, truyền thông, kinh tế, giáo dục, địa lý con người, luật pháp, ngôn ngữ học, chính trị học, tâm lý học, và xã hội học

• Khoa học Tự nhiên – Science: thường xoay quanh các thông tin, số liệu hoặc phát hiện mới về nghiên cứu Trái Đất, sinh học, hóa học và vật lý.

• Các văn bản Lịch sử – Founding Document or Great Global Conversation: các văn bản có tầm quan trọng về lịch sử, gắn liền với văn hoá, đấu tranh quyền lợi hoặc đời sống chính trị của Hoa Kỳ.

Trong những đề tài này, các bài đọc kép (Paired passages) thường tập trung vào các đề tài Khoa học Tự nhiên hoặc Lịch sử và Khoa học Xã hội). Bài viết này sẽ phân tích nội dung, đưa ra chiến lược giúp thí sinh hiểu rõ hơn và có cách tiếp cận hiệu quả với dạng câu hỏi Paired passages.

 Tổng quan về dạng bài Cặp Đối Sánh trong SAT Reading

• Which of the following best describes the relationship between the two passages?
  ⇒ Xác định mối quan hệ giữa 2 đoạn văn bản, thường là đối lập hoặc thể hiện những khía cạnh khác nhau của cùng một đề tài.
  

• On which of the following points would the authors of the two passages most likely disagree?

• On which of the following points would the authors of the two passages most likely agree?
  ⇒ Câu hỏi yêu cầu người đọc hiểu những điểm chung về quan điểm của 2 tác giả, từ đó suy luận ra ý kiến mà cả 2 cùng đồng tình hoặc phản đối.

• Which point is made explicitly in Passage 1, but only implicitly in Passage 2?
  ⇒ Câu hỏi yêu cầu so sánh sự khác biệt cách thức thể hiện thông tin và trình bày lập luận của 2 tác giả.

• The author of Passage 1 would most likely respond to the question in lines 84–85 of Passage 2 by claiming that …
  ⇒ Câu hỏi yêu cầu dùng quan điểm và thái độ của tác giả trong Passage 1 để nhìn nhận về một lập luận cụ thể trong Passage 2.

• The two passages differ in tone in that, in contrast to Passage 1, Passage 2 is more …
  ⇒ Câu hỏi về sự khác nhau trong thái độ của tác giả ở 2 đoạn văn.

Đề bài minh họa

Questions 1 – 8 are based on the following passages.

In Passage 1, the author describes the life and influence of blues guitarist Robert Johnson. In Passage 2, the author provides a brief history of the blues.

PASSAGE 1

There is little information available about the legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson, and the information that is available is as much rumor as fact. What is undisputable, however, is Johnson’s impact on the world of rock and roll. Some consider Johnson the father of modern rock; his influence extends to artists from Muddy Waters to Led Zeppelin, from the Rolling Stones to the Allman Brothers Band. Eric Clapton, arguably the greatest living rock guitarist, has said that “Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived. […] I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson.” While the impact of Johnson’s music is evident, the genesis of his remarkable talent remains shrouded in mystery.

For Johnson, born in 1911 in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, music was a means of escape from working in the cotton fields. As a boy he worked on the farm that belonged to Noel Johnson—the man rumored to be his father. He married young, at age 17, and lost his wife a year later in childbirth. That’s when Johnson began traveling and playing the blues.

Initially Johnson played the harmonica. Later, he began playing the guitar, but apparently he was not very good. He wanted to learn, however, so he spent his time in blues bars watching the local blues legends Son House and Willie Brown. During their breaks, Johnson would go up on stage and play. House reportedly thought Johnson was so bad that he repeatedly told Johnson to get lost. Finally, one day, he did. For six months, Johnson mysteriously disappeared. No one knew what happened to him.

When Johnson returned half a year later, he was suddenly a first-rate guitarist. He began drawing crowds everywhere he played. Johnson never revealed where he had been and what he had done in those six months that he was gone. People had difficulty understanding how he had become so good in such a short time. Was it genius? Magic? Soon, rumors began circulating that he had made a deal with the devil. Legend has it that Johnson met the devil at midnight at a crossroads and sold his soul to the devil so he could play guitar.

Johnson recorded only 29 songs before his death in 1938, purportedly at the hands of a jealous husband. He was only 27 years old, yet he left an indelible mark on the music world. There are countless versions of “Walkin’ Blues,” and his song “Cross Road Blues” (later retitled “Crossroads”) has been recorded by dozens of artists, with Cream’s 1969 version of “Crossroads” being perhaps the best-known Johnson remake. Again and again, contemporary artists return to Johnson, whose songs capture the very essence of the blues, transforming our pain and suffering with the healing magic of his guitar.

PASSAGE 2

There are more than fifty types of blues music, from the famous Chicago and Memphis Blues to the less familiar Juke Joint and Acoustic Country Blues. This rich variety comes as no surprise to those who recognize the blues as a fundamental American art form. Indeed, in its resolution to name 2003 the Year of the Blues, the 107th Congress has declared that the blues is “the most influential form of American roots music.” In fact, the two most popular American musical forms—rock and roll and jazz—owe their genesis in large part (some would argue entirely) to the blues.

The blues—a neologism attributed to the American writer Washington Irving (author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) in 1807— evolved from black American folk music. Its beginnings can be traced to songs sung in the fields and around slave quarters on southern plantations, songs of pain and suffering, of injustice, of longing for a better life. A fundamental principle of the blues, however, is that the music be cathartic. Listening to the blues will drive the blues away; it is music that has the power to overcome sadness. Thus “the blues” is something of a misnomer, for the music is moving but not melancholy; it is, in fact, music born of hope, not despair.

The blues began to take shape as a musical movement in the years after emancipation, around the turn of the century when blacks were technically free but still suffered from social and economic discrimination. Its poetic and musical forms were popularized by W. C. Handy just after the turn of the century. Handy, a classical guitarist who reportedly heard the blues for the first time in a Mississippi train station, was the first to officially compose and distribute “blues” music throughout the United States, although its popularity was chiefly among blacks in the South. The movement coalesced in the late 1920s and indeed became a national craze with records by blues singers such as Bessie Smith selling in the millions.

The 1930s and 1940s saw a continued growth in the popularity of the blues as many blacks migrated north and the blues and jazz forms continued to develop, diversify, and influence each other. It was at this time that Son House, Willie Brown, and Robert Johnson played, while the next decade saw the emergence of the blues greats Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Johnny Lee Hooker.

After rock and roll exploded on the music scene in the 1950s, many rock artists began covering blues songs, thus bringing the blues to a young white audience and giving it true national and international exposure. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Cream, and others remade blues songs such as Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go” to wide popularity. People all across America—black and white, young and old, listened to songs with lyrics that were intensely honest and personal, songs that told about any number of things that give us the blues: loneliness, betrayal, unrequited love, a run of bad luck, being out of work or away from home or broke or broken hearted. It was a music perfectly suited for a nation on the brink of the Civil Rights movement—a kind of music that had the power to cross boundaries, to heal wounds, and to offer hope to a new generation of Americans.

1. In Passage 1, the author’s main goal is to

1. solve the mystery of the genesis of Johnson’s talent.

2. provide a detailed description of Johnson’s music and style.

3. provide a brief overview of Johnson’s life and influence.

4. prove that Johnson should be recognized as the greatest blues musician who ever lived.

2. The information provided in the passage suggests that Johnson

1. really did make a deal with the devil.

2. was determined to become a great guitarist, whatever the cost.

3. wasn’t as talented as we have been led to believe.

4. disappeared because he had a breakdown.

3. The word ‘neologism’ in Passage 2 means

1. a new word or use of a word.

2. a grassroots musical form.

3. a fictional character or fictitious setting.

4. the origin or source of something.

4. In Passage 2, the sentence ‘People all across America—black and white, young and old, listened to songs with lyrics that were intensely honest and personal, songs that told about any number of things that give us the blues: loneliness, betrayal, unrequited love, a run of bad luck, being out of work or away from home or broke or broken hearted’, the author is

1. defining blues music.

2. identifying the origin of the blues.

3. describing the lyrics of a famous blues song.

4. explaining why blues remakes were so popular.

5. In the last paragraph of Passage 2, the author suggests that

1. the blues should be recognized as more important and complex musical form than rock and roll.

2. the golden age of rock and roll owes much to the popularity of blues cover songs.

3. music has always been a means for people to deal with intense emotions and difficulties.

4. a shared interest in the blues may have helped blacks and whites better understand each other and ease racial tensions.

6. Both authors would agree on all of the following points EXCEPT

1. listening to the blues is cathartic.

2. Robert Johnson is the best blues guitarist from the 1930s and 1940s.

3. the blues are an important part of American history.

4. “Crossroads” is one of the most well-known blues songs.

7. The passages differ in tone and style in that

1. Passage 1 is intended for a general audience while Passage 2 is intended for readers with a musical background.

2. Passage 1 is far more argumentative than Passage 2.

3. Passage 1 is often speculative while Passage 2 is factual and assertive.

4. Passage 1 is more formal than Passage 2, which is quite casual.

6. Which of the following best describes the relationship between these two passages?

1. specific: general

2. argument: support

3. fiction: nonfiction

4. first: second

Source: 501 Critical Reading Questions

Phương pháp thực hiện bài SAT Reading dạng Cặp Đối Sánh

Dạng Paired Passages thường bao gồm một vài câu hỏi dành riêng cho Passage 1 và Passage 2 bên cạnh các câu hỏi so sánh, đối chiếu cả 2 Passage. Như vậy, thí sinh có thể làm trước các câu hỏi này để hiểu rõ hơn các nội dung chính trong từng Passage. Trong Đề bài minh hoạ, câu hỏi 1 và 2 dành riêng cho nội dung trong Passage 1.

Ngoài ra, trong khi đọc Passage 1 và trả lời các câu hỏi, thí sinh có thể dành thời gian ghi chú thật nhanh các điểm sau:

• Ý trọng tâm (Central Idea) và Mục đích (Purpose): thường thể hiện trong đoạn văn đầu hoặc cuối của Passage

• Cấu trúc (Structure): thường nằm trong hệ thống từ nối.

• Giọng điệu (Tone) và Thái độ (Attitude) của tác giả: thường thể hiện qua cách sử dụng ngôn ngữ.

Các khía cạnh này thường là đối tượng so sánh giữa 2 Passages nên việc tìm hiểu riêng cho mỗi đoạn sẽ giúp thí sinh chủ động và không bị áp đảo trước số lượng chữ quá nhiều nếu đọc cùng một lúc 2 Passages.

Bước 2: Đọc và trả lời các câu hỏi liên quan đến Passage 2 như một bài đọc đơn.

Trong phần Mô Tả Bài Đọc, câu hỏi 3, 4 và 5 được dành riêng cho nội dung trong Đoạn văn 2.

Bước 3: Đọc và trả lời các câu hỏi liên quan đến cả hai Đoạn văn.

Sau khi trả lời các câu hỏi riêng cho mỗi Đoạn văn và ghi chú nhanh về ý chính, mục tiêu, cấu trúc và giọng điệu cũng như thái độ của tác giả, thí sinh có thể giải quyết các câu hỏi so sánh 2 Đoạn văn với nhau.

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