Overview of SAT Aesthetics Passages:

Aesthetics passages require you to digest a discussion about an art form: dance, painting, sculpture, music, architecture or literature. Students often find these passages difficult because they tend to be less concrete and more theoretical. Think about something along the lines of trying to listen to someone talk about the use of simile and personification in The Scarlet Letter. (Insert Yawn Here.)

But these passages become much easier if you go into them with an understanding of their basic setup. The setup includes three parts:

1) a thesis
2) facts or examples to support the offered thesis
3) a conclusion

This setup often leads to a positive or negative author's attitude, as well as a primary purpose of arguing for or arguing against the main idea.

TIPS FOR AESTHETICS PASSAGES:

Tip 1
Focus narrowly on the main idea (the art form) of the passage when answering questions about aesthetics passage.

For example, an aesthetics passage discusses the architecture of a museum. Inevitably, the SAT then includes a bunch of wrong answer choices that focus on other things that you know are important for a museum.

False answer choices thus include key phrases such as "museum’s artwork", "museum's visitors", and "museum's collection". These ideas are irrelevant to the main idea, so be careful not to be fooled.

Correct answers focus only on aspects of the museum's architecture, such as design and layout.

Tip 2
Be prepared to answer several assumption and inference questions. The more abstract discussion in aesthetics passages lends itself to interpretation.
The SAT takes advantage of this situation by asking several assumption (Lesson 7) and inference questions (Lesson 8).

Tip 3
If you have any knowledge of an art form discussed in a passage, do not use it to select answers. While your knowledge of origami is valuable and may one day save the world, if you use it to answer questions from a passage, it will almost always lead to incorrect answers.

Remember that just because an answer choice is true does not make it correct. So, save your knowledge for other situations, and stick to what is written in the passage.

SAT Reading: Aesthetics Passages

Lesson Includes:

—Overview of Aesthetics Passages

—Tips for Aesthetics Passages

—SAT Reading Practice Quiz

SAT Math

SAT Writing

SAT Reading

SAT Vocabulary