"Police-crime. Police deal with crime."

"Lawyers-law books. Lawyers use law books, but police don't use crime." "Doctors-heart patient. Doctors deal with a heart patient, and police deal with crime. They both work on a problem, so this could be an analogy."

"Dentists-tooth decay. Dentists try to stop -- they fight tooth decay, and police fight crime. Tooth decay and crime are bad. This answer is better than doctors-heart patient. A heart patient isn't bad. His heart disease is bad. Doctors don't fight a heart patient."

"The last choice is lawyers-client. Lawyers don't try to stop or eliminate a client."

"Answer c forms the best analogy."

Students are also asked to write sentences showing how the pair of words they select for an answer parallels the initial pair in the analogy. Again they are shown a sample think-aloud response:

Writing Relationship Sentences

He wrote: Police fight crime. Dentists fight tooth decay.

Students are told that writing relationship sentences is not always easy, that even professional writers report they often encounter difficulty when they first try to express an idea in writing and may have to think for a while before satisfactory wording comes to mind; and that even after they have written a sentence, they often reread it and see a smoother or more effective way to communicate their meaning, so they cross out part or all of their first sentence and write a revised version. Students are shown samples of revision, such as this thinkaloud response from a problem solver who chose answer c for the analogy:

Writing Process

"I have to write about relationship sentences. Let's see -- a stork is said to bring babies. But that is just a myth. Santa is a mythical person that brings toys. And the stork is a mythical creature that brings babies. I can write that."

He wrote: 1. A stork is a mythical creature that brings babies. 2. Santa is a mythical creature that brings gifts.

"Wait. A stork isn't a mythical creature. Santa is mythical, but a stork is real. It is a myth that the stork brings babies. And it is a myth that Santa brings toys. I'll write that."

He wrote: 1. According to myth, storks bring babies. 2. According to myth, Santa brings toys.

Through the strong, albeit temporary, motivation to score well on the SAT, students mold skills to use for analyzing and expressing relationships in writing, skills which are building blocks for broad literacy. Other analytical writing tasks also have inquiry characteristics. Text reconstruction, for example, smacks of inquiry because students examine information and discuss arranging it into written form.