Point of View | The Complete SAT Course - Class 10 PDF Download

There are several narrative points of view that you should be familiar with for the SAT. Some questions may ask you to identify them directly, but other questions may test them indirectly. In such cases, recognizing the point of view can provide an effective shortcut.
A first-person narrative is written from the perspective of the narrator. Usually the word I will appear (first-person singular), but occasionally we (first-person plural) may also be used. All personal anecdotes are, by definition, written in the first person.
For example, let's return to this excerpt from Daniel Webster's speech. Notice the repeated use of the word I:

I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or as fit to hold, the helm in this combat with the political elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with fidelity, not without a sense of existing dangers, but not without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the preservation of all; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this struggle, whether the sun and the stars shall appear, or shall not appear for many days. I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union.

A third-person narrative, on the other hand, is written from an objective or impersonal perspective and describes other people or things rather than the narrator him- or herself.

For example:
Every time a car drives through a major intersection, it becomes a data point. Magnetic coils of wire lie just beneath the pavement, registering each passing car, This starts a cascade of information: Computers tally the number and speed of cars, shoot the data through underground cables to a command center and finally translate it into the colors red, yellow and green. On the seventh floor of Boston City Hall, the three colors splash like paint across a wall-sized map.

Although this passage is highly descriptive, it focuses on events, not on the narrator. Unlike the first passage, its tone is much more neutral and detached. The majority of SAT passages are written from a third-person perspective.
Second person narrations are less common than either first- or third-person narrations, but you may encounter them from time to time. They can address the reader directly by using the word you, or indirectly by giving commands. For example, the following excerpt does both of these things:

The idea is that once you have developed the ability to play an arpeggio on the piano, putt a golf ball or parallel park, attention to what you are doing leads to inaccuracies, blunders and sometimes even utter paralysis. As the great choreographer George Balanchine would say to his dancers, “Don’t think, dear; just do.” Perhaps you have experienced this destructive force yourself. Start thinking about just how to carry a full glass of water without spilling, and you’ll end up drenched. How, exactly, do you initiate a telephone conversation? Begin wondering, and before long, the recipient of your call will notice the heavy breathing and hang up. Our actions, the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty tells us, exhibit a “magical” efficacy, but when we focus on them, they degenerate into the absurd. A 13-time winner on the Professional Golfers Association Tour, Dave Hill, put it like this: “You can’t be thinking about the mechanics of the sport while you are performing.”

Noticing pronouns can also provide a very effective shortcut if you encounter questions asking you to identify where a shift occurs in the passage, To answer these questions, you must be able to recognize key places in tire development of the argument: where new or contradictory information is introduced, where important ideas appear, and where "old ideas" shift to "new ideas." You should also pay close attention to changes in point of view.

For example, we're going to take another look at this excerpt from Barbara Jordan's 1976 National Democratic Convention speech:
It was one hundred and forty-four years ago that members of the Democratic Party first met in convention to select a Presidential candidate. A lot of years passed since 1832, and during that time it would 5 have been most unusual for any national political party to ask a Barbara Jordan to deliver a keynote address. But tonight, here I am. And I feel that notwithstanding the past that my presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American Dream need not forever be 10 deferred. Now that I have this grand distinction, what in the world am I supposed to say? I could list the problems which cause people to feel cynical, angry, frustrated: problems which include lack of integrity in government; 15 the feeling that the individual no longer counts; feeling that the grand American experiment is failing or has failed. I could recite these problems, and then I could sit down and offer no solutions. But I don't choose to do that either. The citizens of America expect more. 20 We are a people in search of a national community. We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present, unemployment, inflation, but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America. We are attempting to fulfill our national 25 purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.
Q. Which choice best describes the shift that occurs in line 20?
(A) A criticism of a situation to an acknowledgement of its significance.
(B) A discussion of a problem to a description of a solution.
(C) A personal reaction to a discussion of a general concern.
(D) A presentation of a claim to a questioning of that claim.

Like many SAT Reading questions, this one appears to be considerably more difficult than it actually is. The most important thing to understand is that the question is asking about the shift that occurs in line 20. By definition, a shift is a change from one thing to another, so to answer the question, we must look at the information before line 20 as well as line 20 itself.
If we just look at the previous paragraph as well as the paragraph that line 20 begins, we can notice that in the previous paragraph, the word I appears repeatedly, whereas the new paragraph refers to toe. The shift is from personal to general, making C) correct.
Some point-of-view questions may ask about the author or narrator's relationship to the subject of tire passage - that is, whether the author/narrator is personally involved, or whether he or she is merely an interested observer. In such cases, it is important that you notice tire pronouns that the author uses throughout the passage.
An author who is personally involved will use personal pronouns (I, we), while an author who is not directly involved will use impersonal pronouns (he, she, it, they). Most authors of science and social science passages will be informed observers - people who are strongly interested in and highly knowledgeable about their subjects, but who do not actually participate in the events/research they describe. As a result, they will often demonstrate a positive attitude toward their subjects. (Again: if they weren't interested, they wouldn't bother to write about them in the first place.)

In contrast, authors of fiction passages and historical documents may be either directly involved or knowledgeable observers.
For example, let's return to this social science passage:
Every time a car drives through a major intersection, it becomes a data point. Magnetic coils of wire lie just beneath the pavement, registering each passing car. This starts a cascade of information: Computers tally the 5 number and speed of cars, shoot the data through underground cables to a command center and finally translate it into the colors red, yellow and green. On the seventh floor of Boston City Hall, the three colors splash like paint across a wall-sized map. 10 To drivers, the color red means stop, but on the map it tells traffic engineers to leap into action. Traffic contro centers like this one- a room cluttered with computer terminals and live video feeds of urban intersections— represent the brain of a traffic system. The city’s network 15 of sensors, cables and signals are the nerves connected to the rest of the body. “Most people don't think there are eyes and ears keeping track of all this stuff,” says John De Benedictis, the center’s engineering director. But in reality, engineers literally watch our every move, 20 making subtle changes that relieve and redirect traffic. The tactics and aims of traffic management are modest but powerful. Most intersections rely on a combination of pre-set timing and computer adaptation. For example, where a busy main road intersects with 25 a quiet residential street, the traffic signal might give 70 percent of “green time” to the main road, and 30 percent to the residential road. (Green lights last between a few seconds and a couple minutes, and tend to shorten at rush hour to help the traffic move 30 continuously.) But when traffic overwhelms the pre-set timing, engineers override the system and make changes.
Q. This passage is written from the perspective of someone who is 
(A) actively involved in promoting traffic safety throughout urban areas.
(B) familiar with the activities of traffic engineers.
(C) an employee of the traffic control center in Boston City Hall.
(D) opposed to the intrusion of traffic engineers into everyday life.

This passage is descriptive or informative: it explains what traffic engineers do and how a traffic control center functions, from an outsider's perspective. The tone is neutral/positive. In addition to containing the most common description of a non-fiction writer, B) corresponds to this perspective: someone informed about a subject but not directly involved.
Both A) and C) indicate personal involvement, eliminating them. Although that is not the case for D), "opposed" is negative, and nothing in the passage suggests that the author disapproves of traffic engineers' role in everyday life. While you may be somewhat put off by the fact that traffic engineers are literally watch[ing] our every move, there is no evidence that the author feels that way, and you cannot project your own impressions onto the author.
Other point of view questions could ask about the narrator's perspective in terms of age (child vs. adult) or time. These questions tend to occur when passages discuss events that took place at different times, often earlier, or when the narrator is looking back on an event. hr such cases, you must pay attention to tense - that is, whether the passage is written in the present (is, are) or past (ions, were).
The action of a passage written hr the present is taking place as tire author describes it, while the action of a passage written in the past has already occurred. On the next page, we're going to look at air example. Pay attention to the passage's point of view and tense.

The following passage is adapted from a novel by Willa Cather, originally published in 1918. The narrator has been sent to live with his grandparents in Nebraska.
On the afternoon of that Sunday 1 took my first long ride on my pony, under Otto's direction. After that Dude and I went twice a week to the post-office, six miles east of us, and I saved the men a good 5 deal of time by riding on errands to our neighbors. When we had to borrow anything, I was always the messenger. All the years that have passed have not dimmed my memory of that first glorious autumn. The new country 10 lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, trusting the pony to get me home again. Sometimes I followed the sunflower-bordered roads. I used to love to drift along the pale-yellow cornfields, 15 looking for the damp spots one sometimes found at their edges, where the smartweed soon turned a rich copper color and the narrow brown leaves hung curled like cocoons about the swollen joints of the stem. Sometimes I went south to visit our German neighbors and to 20 admire their catalpa grove, or to see the big elm tree that grew up out of a deep crack in the earth and had a hawk's nest in its branches. Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them 25 as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious. Sometimes I rode north to the big prairie-dog town to watch the biown earth-owls fly home in the late afternoon 30 and go down to their nests underground with the dogs. Antonia Shimerda liked to go with me, and we used to wonder a great deal about these birds of subterranean habit. We had to be on our guard there, for rattlesnakes were always lurking about. They came to pick up an easy 35 living among the dogs and owls, which were quite defenseless against them; took possession of their comfortable houses and ate the eggs and puppies. We felt sorry for the owls. It was always mournful to see them come flying home at sunset and disappear under 40 the earth. But, after all, we felt, winged things who would live like that must be rather degraded creatures. The dog-town was a long way from any pond or creek. Otto Fuchs said he had seen populous dog-towns in the desert where 45 there was no surface water for fifty miles; he insisted that some of the holes must go down to water—nearly two hundred feet, hereabouts. Antonia said she didn't believe it; that the dogs probably lapped up the dew in the early morning, like the rabbits. 50 Antonia had opinions about everything, and she was soon able to make them known. Almost every day she came running across the prairie to have her reading lesson with me. Mrs. Shimerda grumbled, but realized it was important that one member of the family should 55 learn English. When the lesson was over, we used to go up to the watermelon patch behind the garden. I split the melons with an old corn-knife, and we lifted out the hearts and ate them with the juice trickling through our fingers. The white melons we did not touch, but we 60 watched them with curiosity. They were to be picked later, when the hard frosts had set in, and put away for winter use. After weeks on the ocean, the Shimerdas were famished for fruit. The two girls would wander for miles along the edge of the cornfields, hunting for 65 ground-cherries. Antonia loved to help grandmother in the kitchen and to learn about cooking and housekeeping. She would stand beside her, watching her every movement. We were willing to believe that Mrs. Shimerda was a 70 good housewife in her own country, but she managed poorly under new conditions. I remember how horrified we were at the sour, ashy-grey bread she gave her family to eat. She mixed her dough, we discovered, in an old tin peck-measure that had been used about the 75 barn. When she took the paste out to bake it, she left smears of dough sticking to the sides of the measure, put the measure on the shelf behind the stove, and let this residue ferment. The next time she made bread, she scraped this sour stuff down into the fresh dough to 80 serve as yeast.
Q. This passage is written from the perspective of
(A) an adult recalling a memorable experience that occurred earlier in his adult life.
(B) an adult recounting a significant childhood memory.
(C) a child describing the development of a friendship.
(D) a narrator analyzing a story told to him by an acquaintance.

The key to answering this question is the line All the years that have passed has not dimmed my memory of that first glorious autumn. The narrator is looking back on an event that occurred earlier in his life. Even though he's describing what happened when he was a boy, the phrase All the years that have passed indicates he's no longer a boy at the time he's telling tire story. Which answer does that correspond to? B).
If you didn't notice that phrase and played process of elimination, you could eliminate D) immediately because the passage is written in the first person, as indicated by the repeated use of the word I.
Now we need to think carefully about the other answers. Let's start with A). Yes, the passage is told by an adult recounting a significant memory, but be careful - it's not an adult memory. The key phrase All the years that have passed (line 8) indicates that the narrator is recounting events that occurred much earlier in his life. We can also reasonably infer that the narrator was young at the time of the passage from the fact that he and Antonia were having reading lessons (lines 51-53).
To eliminate C), think about the tense in which the passage is written. All of the verbs are in the past tense (went, rode, grumbled, followed), indicating that the action took place in the past.