Most Reading mistakes are over-inferences — answer choices that go further than the passage actually supports. The right answer is usually the one you can defend with a direct quote.
Placement threshold
250+ typically places you into college-level English. Accuplacer is scored 200–300 per subtest — your college publishes its own cutoffs.
Passage Echo — answer restates a sentence verbatim but misses what the question actually asked
Over-Inference — leap from the passage to a reasonable but unsupported conclusion
Partial Truth — true for one paragraph, not the whole passage
Study tip
Before looking at the answer choices, answer the question in your own words. Then pick the choice closest to yours.