Quick Help: Common strategy terms

• Analyze: Divide an event, idea, or theory into its component elements, and examine each one in turn.

  Analyze Milton Friedman’s theory of permanent income.

• Compare and/or contrast: Demonstrate similarities or dissimilarities between two or more events or topics.

  Compare the portrayal of women in Beloved with that in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

• Define: Identify and state the essential traits or characteristics of something, differentiating it clearly from other things.

  Define osmosis.

• Describe: Tell about an event, person, or process in detail, creating a clear and vivid image of it.

  Describe the dress of a medieval knight.

• Evaluate: Assess the value or significance of the topic.

  Evaluate the contributions of jazz musicians to American music.

• Explain: Make a topic as clear and understandable as possible by offering reasons, examples, and so on.

  Explain the functioning of the circulatory system.

• Summarize: State the major points concisely and comprehensively. (7d)

  Summarize the major arguments against using animals in laboratory research.