ISEE Reading Comprehension Strategies

Overall, students tend to feel like they perform the best on the ISEE Reading Comprehension section, the third portion of the test. Those who excel on the ISEE are set up for success on their private school applications, so taking the time to prepare for each section in advance is worth the effort!

The ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam, generally pronounced “i-see”) is a peer-normed, standardized test most commonly taken by students applying to middle and high school. To evaluate students’ reading and math skills, it consists of two ELA sections and two math sections:

As we mentioned above, Reading Comprehension is the third section of the ISEE exam at all levels (lower, middle, and upper), immediately following the first 5-10 minute break. Test-takers are given 35 minutes to read 6 passages and answer 6 questions per passage (so, 36 questions in total). The ISEE LL is the exception, where students are tasked with 5 passages and 5 questions per passage.

In this deep-dive into the ISEE Reading Comprehension test, we explain the types of questions you’ll encounter on the test, strategies for reading passages and working through questions, and the best ways to study for this section of this exam.

ISEE Reading Passages

The six passages on the ISEE Reading Comprehension test cover a wide variety of topics, including social studies (history, economics, sociology), the humanities (art, literature, biographies), science (medicine, meteorology, zoology), and narrative texts. (The ISEE Lower Level does not include science passages.) These passages are about 400 words in length on average and at a difficulty matching the ISEE testing level.

Each text is followed by a number of questions based on the content of the passage. These questions aren’t designed to trick you or have you think too abstractly; rather, all answers can be found within each passage. 

Types of Reading Comprehension Questions

There are six types of reading questions on the ISEE, each testing a particular ELA topic area:

1. Main Idea – Identifying the central idea or theme of a passage.
2. Supporting Ideas – Describing passage details & how they contribute to the main idea.
3. Inference – Speculating based on evidence from the passage.
4. Vocabulary in Context — Defining words in the passage using context clues.
5. Organization and Logic — Determining how the author structures ideas in the passage and for what purpose.
6. Tone, Style, and Figurative Language — Considering how the author uses literary tools to further a theme, create a particular mood, or develop a description.

Not all types of questions are present for each passage. Questions about Supporting Ideas, Inference, and Main Idea tend to be the most common. Here is a more in-depth look at these question types, including examples:

Understanding Tone, Style, and Figurative Language 

Questions about Tone, Style, and Figurative Language require students to know the common literary tools authors use, so take the time to study them ahead of time. These tools can help authors achieve their goals of informing or persuading the reader of something. 

• With tone, authors convey their attitude towards the subject of the passage through word choice (such as using words with a negative connotation to reflect their dislike of something, or words that indicate surprise to reflect how unusual or uncommon something is). 
• With style, authors influence how the reader perceives or understands what is going on in the passage by playing with sentence structure and language (such as being formal/informal). 
• Finally, with figurative language, authors can further influence the reader’s perception through abstract language that evokes emotions (as opposed to using literal language, which describes using plain and straightforward language).

Through tone, style, and figurative language, authors develop a mood: the atmosphere or ambiance of a passage that evokes a certain feeling from the reader. Consider scary stories: authors use tone to convey a fearful attitude, style to influence the reader’s perception to be more afraid, and figurative language to describe a scary creature or situation.

The “ornaments of language”, figurative language does not mean exactly what is said; instead, it helps the reader paint a mental picture using comparison and abstract descriptions. Use the following chart as a reference as you study literary tools: 

Approaching Reading Comprehension Questions

You’ll have to read six page-length passages and answer their accompanying questions on the ISEE, so having a systematic approach to these questions will help you tremendously. The passages can seem very intimidating (or boring), which can hinder your ability to properly answer every question. 

By coming in with a plan, you’ll be able to use your time effectively and cut down how much you actually need to read, thereby giving yourself the best chance to score high. 

Active Reading

To put it bluntly, the ISEE’s Reading Comprehension passages can be boring for many students—particularly for those who don’t enjoy reading. If something you’re reading is boring, your natural inclination is to not put as much effort into it; consequently, the information won’t stick with you, and you’ll be forced to read the passage again and again to comprehend it. In this scenario, you’ll spend more time reading than answering questions, which will cause you to score poorly overall.

However, there is hope! By utilizing active reading, it doesn’t matter whether a passage is interesting or not. You’ll be able to spend less time reading the passage, improving your comprehension while giving yourself more time to answer the questions.

Active reading refers to the process of taking notes and staying engaged while reading. After you finish reading the questions, utilize strategies like these to help you work through a passage:

• Make notes near the passage about the questions. (Ex. If a question asks about a simile in the passage, jotting down “simile” near the passage can help you remember to keep an eye out for them.)
• Circle or underline parts of the passage that seem important and relate to questions. (Annotating can help you stay focused and easily reference parts of the passage.)
• Draw arrows or use numbers to connect parts of the passage with questions.

While this process may seem slow at first, you will find it speeds up considerably the more you use active reading and get used to its steps. The name of the game is efficiency, and active reading will help you read more quickly and (more importantly) retain more information from a single read-through. Plus, it can limit how much of the passage you actually have to read, saving you more time for the more difficult passages.

Example: Working Through an ISEE Passage

Here’s an example of an ISEE Reading Comprehension passage and how a student could approach the questions. Notice how the student takes notes, circles parts of the passage, and connects passage ideas to questions and answer choices. Though this specific approach to active reading annotations is a great example, annotate and stay engaged in a way that makes sense to you!

Step 1: Understanding the Questions

The first thing you should be doing when you face a new ISEE passage is reading the questions—but not the answer choices. Take notes near the passage about what the passage is looking for so that you keep those topics in mind, like how the student does below.

Step 2: Answer Questions that Don’t Require Reading

Some questions (typically ones about vocabulary or figurative language) can be answered without reading the passage. Before you start reading, make sure to solve those questions.

Step 3: Read with the Questions in Mind

Since you wrote down notes about the questions near the passage, you’re prepared to read through the passage while knowing what you’ll be looking for. 

Since you’re allowed to write all over the ISEE test booklet, make use of this and underline important words, circle sections that answer questions, and/or draw arrows connecting sentences and answer choices. Annotating the passage will help you stay concentrated and make sure that textual evidence supports your answer choices. (Make sure to double-check your responses using your notes on the passage!)

Here’s how a student used active reading to work through the questions above:

Question 1: 

• “Nightmarish Spiders” works for the first part of the passage, but not the passage as a whole. The author is using this imagery as a contrast against how much he likes the jumping spider.
• “Jumping Spiders – Welcome!” captures the overall scope of the passage.
• “Danger! Brown Recluse” only works for the last few sentences of the passage.
• “Leaping Monstrosities” the author loves jumping spiders (as opposed to other, non-jumping spiders), so this title does not work at all.

Question 2:

• The author thinks webs are inefficient compared to how the jumping spider hunts, so the first answer choice does not work.
• The author praises how efficiently the jumping spider hunts insects and other prey, which he calls “disgusting pests.” This means that B is incorrect.
• While C seems correct, you must remember that the author likes jumping spiders, which are also arachnids, so they would not flee at the sight of all arachnids, but rather only specific ones (like the Brown Recluse).
• The author states Brown Recluses are dangerous to humans and celebrates the fact that jumping spiders are a predator of the Brown Recluse. If the author celebrates the killing of a Brown Recluse, he would easily celebrate the Brown Recluses’ extermination.

Question 3: If you don’t know the definition of the word, use the context of the passage and the strategies you know for defining words to decipher the word.

• Alleviate means “to make pain or hardship more bearable or less severe,” which is pretty much the same thing as mitigate.
• Mitigate means “to make something less harsh, severe, or violent,” which is pretty much the same thing as alleviate.
• Provoke means “to be the cause or occasion of an emotion or response,” meaning spiders incite the author to feel terror. This matches the author’s attitude towards spiders at that point of the passage.
• Suppress means “to put an end to something or overpower something,” meaning seeing a spider would stop his fear, which is the opposite of what the author is stating.

How to Study for ISEE Reading Comprehension

The most effective ways to prepare for the ISEE Reading Comprehension are to study using practice tests and read for fun in your free time!

Study ISEE Practice Questions

Like you should do for all future tests, study using questions designed for the exam. By practicing with questions that resemble what you’ll encounter on the ISEE Reading Comprehension section, you’ll become comfortable with solving those types of problems. Use the active reading strategies we’ve described above as you practice, and you’ll remember what to do come test day.

In addition to regularly practicing with test-specific questions, you should take at least one benchmark for your ISEE ahead of test day. Not only will this help you gauge your current skills and see how much you need to improve, but taking multiple practice exams is proven to improve test-taking performance. 

Read with Purpose in your Free Time

This tip will improve your reading and writing skills as a whole while keeping you entertained: reading for fun! If you read more in your free time, your brain will become accustomed to focusing on a text and comprehending what’s read.

If you’re having trouble concentrating on a book or struggle to start reading, you may need to try a different read. One of the reasons many students become reluctant readers is that they aren’t interested in any of the books they’ve tried. Read articles or books about your interests, check out popular novels of different genres from the library, and find suggestions online or from friends. 

Reading Recommendations from Piqosity:

• Fantasy Books to Read This Summer (Grades 3-12) 
• Books by Black Authors for Each Grade Level
• Books to Improve Vocabulary Acquisition
• Spooky Stories that Teach About Literature

Most importantly: challenge yourself by reading at a level matching or slightly higher than your own, and make sure you are reading with intention. That is, engage with the text using active reading strategies to help you stay focused while practicing the skills you’ll need for the ISEE Reading Comprehension. 

On an ISEE test, a passage’s questions will guide your active reading. When you read in your free time, there aren’t any questions to guide you in that way; instead, use some of these active reading strategies when you read for fun:

• Define new words you come across.
• After you finish a chapter, try summarizing what happened before moving on.
• Predict what will happen next.
• Annotate your book (by highlighting, writing small comments, or using sticky notes/flags).
• Generate questions based on what confuses or interests you.
• Make inferences based on characterization and the author’s tone.

Personalized Online ISEE Prep

Use these ISEE Reading Comprehension strategies to map out your study plan for this section of the test! Remember that taking practice tests before your ISEE test day (and retaking it once you learn from your first attempt) will grant you the most opportunities to learn from your mistakes and give a strong performance. If you’re looking for ISEE reading comprehension practice to help you utilize the strategies we talked about above, consider Piqosity’s ISEE courses!

Along with our full-length ELA and Math online courses for grades 6-11, we offer market-leading ISEE prep courses for all levels of the exam. Each course includes detailed topic lessons, hundreds of questions, and 12 full-length practice tests, together with personalized practice software that identifies your weaknesses and helps you study effectively. Sign up for an account and you can take a No-Cost Mini Diagnostic ISEE test—no credit card required!

More Educational Resources by Piqosity: 

• What is Tested on the ISEE Lower, Middle, and Upper Levels?
• The Student’s Role in the Private School Admissions Process
• Books to Increase Vocabulary for Each Grade Level
• What is a Good Score on the ISEE?
• How to Motivate Students for Standardized Tests