Which statement best describes the difference between skill-based and passage-specific questions?

• A. They are identical in focus and approach.
• B. Skill-based questions target general reading or language abilities, while passage-specific questions rely on details from a given text.
• C. Skill-based questions require memorizing dates from the text.
• D. Passage-specific questions ignore the text altogether.

Answer: (B)

Skill-based questions assess general reading and language abilities that aren’t tied to a single text. They test things like understanding vocabulary in context, identifying the main idea, making inferences, or recognizing the author’s purpose. These are broad skills you can apply across many passages.

Passage-specific questions require you to use details from the given text. You must locate evidence within that particular passage—facts, dates, quotes, or events—to justify your answer.

So the statement is correct because it draws the clear distinction: skill-based questions test general abilities, while passage-specific questions rely on information from a specific text.

Think of it this way: a skill-based item might ask you to infer why the author chose a certain tone or to determine a word’s meaning from its context. A passage-specific item might ask what year something happened in the story or what a character said in a particular paragraph, which means you need to refer to that text directly.