6.2 Command of Evidence: Textual

Once you can name a passage's central idea, Information and Ideas still asks a sharper question: which piece of text actually supports a specific claim? That skill is Command of Evidence (textual). It sits in the same 12–14 operational Information and Ideas questions as central ideas, quantitative evidence, and inferences. The passage is still short. The credited response is still inside the text. The new habit is claim-first, then hunt.

This independent OpenExamPrep section helps 8th and 9th graders study textual evidence on the PSAT 8/9. OpenExamPrep is not a College Board partner and does not claim official approval, review, or exact equivalence with College Board materials.

What the question is really asking

A textual-evidence item does not ask which sentence is the most interesting, the most scientific-sounding, or the best summary of the whole passage. It asks which quotation or sentence does the support job for a claim that is already on the screen.

That claim may live in two places:

• In the question stem: Which finding best supports the student's claim that later library hours increased after-school visits?
• In the passage: The author claims that light-colored roofs can lower indoor temperatures. Which sentence provides the best support?

Either way, your first move is the same. Cover the choices. Write or whisper the claim in your own words. Then ask: what would count as support for this exact claim?

Support is not a synonym for related. A sentence about the same topic can still fail if it defines a word, states a preference, describes a different cause, or repeats the claim without adding proof.

Claim-first, then hunt

Use this four-beat loop on every textual-evidence item:

1. Isolate the claim. Strip extra clauses. Later hours increased after-school visits is a cleaner target than the library is an important place in our school community.
2. Name the kind of proof the claim needs. A cause-and-effect claim wants a before/after or comparison. A how-it-works claim wants a mechanism. A quantity claim wants a number, a count, or a measured change.
3. Hunt only for that job. Skim for the sentence that supplies the example, measurement, or mechanism you named.
4. Reject same-topic, wrong-function lines. If a sentence merely mentions libraries, roofs, or markets, it is not automatically evidence.

On Bluebook you can highlight the claim in the stem or passage before you look at choices. Highlighting the whole paragraph again is busywork. Highlight the demand of the claim.

Worked example: later library hours

Claim already in the stem: Keeping the school library open until 6 p.m. on weekdays increased student use after classes ended.

What proof does that claim need? Something that connects the later closing time to more use after school—a door count, a sign-in log, a comparison of 4–6 p.m. visits before and after the change.

Now test four kinds of sentences you will actually see:

• The library catalog lists 12,400 print books. Same topic, wrong function. That is an inventory fact. It does not speak to hours or after-school use.
• Several students said they enjoy the graphic-novel shelf. Evidence for a different claim (students like a genre), not for later hours.
• Door-count logs show 40 percent more entries between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. after the later closing time began. This is support. It matches both pieces of the claim: time of day and an increase after the policy.
• The librarian believes longer hours are a positive change. Restates a value judgment. Belief is not evidence of increased use.

Notice that the inventory sentence is not false. It would be useful for a different claim (the collection is large). Command of Evidence is a matching skill: claim A needs evidence A, not a true sentence about topic A.

Worked example: light-colored roofs (science)

(1) Roofing shingles are sold in many colors. (2) In a Phoenix neighborhood study, attics under light-colored roofs averaged 4°F cooler in July afternoons than attics under dark shingles on similar houses. (3) Shade trees also lower temperatures along sidewalks. (4) Many homeowners still choose dark roofs because they like the look.

Claim in the stem: Light-colored roofs can reduce indoor heat.

Sentence 2 is the support: it compares attic temperatures by roof color on similar houses. Sentence 1 only defines a product range. Sentence 3 supports a different claim about trees. Sentence 4 explains a preference; it does not show a temperature effect. If you hunt by topic word roof, every sentence looks tempting. If you hunt by the claim's job (temperature difference by color), only sentence 2 works.

Worked example: farmers market (social studies)

Author's claim in the passage: Adding a weekly farmers market increased downtown Saturday pedestrian traffic.

A city report line that says the market sells apples, bread, and cheese shares the topic and does the wrong job (goods, not traffic). A line about historic brick buildings is a different topic. A line about vendors driving thirty miles supports a different claim about where food comes from. A line that handheld counters recorded 1,200 more Saturday pedestrians on adjacent blocks than on the four Saturdays before the market opened matches location, day, and a before/after count. That is textual evidence, even though the numbers appear in words rather than in a graph. (Graphics belong in the next skill, Command of Evidence: Quantitative.)

Trap types for textual evidence

The related-topic trap is the twin of true-but-not-central from Central Ideas and Details. There, a true sentence failed because it was not the whole point. Here, a true sentence fails because it is not doing the support job for this claim.

A practical check: turn the claim into a because-sentence and see whether the quotation can follow because. Later hours increased after-school use because door counts rose 40 percent between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. after the change. That reads as support. Later hours increased after-school use because the catalog lists 12,400 books does not.

How to read answer choices that are quotations

Choices may be full sentences from the passage, shortened quotations, or findings that could be added to the text. Treat each choice as a tool:

• If the choice is a quotation, ask which claim it could prove if you had never seen the stem. Then compare that to the actual stem.
• If the choice is a hypothetical finding (which finding, if true), you are still matching function. The finding must be the kind of fact that would support the claim, not a random true-sounding research result.
• Longer quotations are not better. A short measured comparison often beats a long atmospheric sentence.

Do not pick a quotation because it includes a researcher name, a percent sign, or a year. Those markers often appear in wrong-function sentences too. A percent about the wrong group, the wrong time, or the wrong outcome is not support.

Pacing on grouped Reading and Writing items

Textual-evidence items tend to sit with other Information and Ideas questions and then run from more approachable to more demanding inside a module. Early items may have a claim that uses the same key words as the credited sentence. Later items may paraphrase the claim so you must match function, not repeated vocabulary. That is why claim-first matters: if you hunt for matching words, you will grab the related-topic trap.

You still have about a minute per Reading and Writing question across a 32-minute module. Spending thirty seconds restating the claim is not wasted time if it saves you from reading four long quotations without a target.

/practice/psat-89Practice questions with detailed explanations