Introduction
Cross-Text Connections questions appear in the Craft and Structure domain, which makes up roughly 28% of the Reading and Writing section's operational questions. Every Cross-Text Connections set gives you two short passages (Text 1 and Text 2) on the same topic, then asks you to reason across them.
This note zeroes in on response-prediction questions: prompts that ask how the author or researchers from one text would most likely regard a specific claim, method, or finding introduced in the other. You are not just mapping where the two authors agree or disagree (that is the job of the sibling subtopic, Mapping Agreement and Disagreement Across Texts) — you are projecting a reaction based on each author's stated stance, evidence, or evaluative language.
On the digital SAT, response-prediction items are always four-option multiple choice with one best answer. A typical stem reads:
Based on the texts, how would the researcher(s) in Text 1 most likely respond to the claim made in Text 2?
Core Concept
A response-prediction question requires three moves:
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Pin Author 1's position. Identify the core argument, finding, or evaluative stance of the author or researchers in Text 1. Look for evaluative verbs (argues, warns, demonstrates, questions, challenges) and explicit value judgments (insufficient, promising, overlooked).
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Isolate the target in Text 2. The question stem will specify a view, method, or finding from Text 2. Locate it precisely — do not let surrounding context blur it.
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Predict the response before reading the options. Ask yourself: given what Author 1 believes, would they agree, disagree, qualify, or be indifferent to this specific element of Text 2? Forming a prediction first protects you from attractive distractors.
The correct answer must be grounded in Text 1's actual content, not in general plausibility or your personal opinion. Every word of the answer choice must be defensible by something Author 1 explicitly states or directly implies.
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