Whose voice is this?
The Social 9 PAT is built in sets: a few sources — speakers, cartoons, charts, headlines — then three or four questions on them. Most of those questions are not asking what you remember. They are asking who is talking, what they want you to think, and what they left out.
Why a whole test is built on sources
Almost everything you learn about a public issue reaches you through somebody: a reporter, a politician, an advertiser, a friend's post. Each was made by a person, at a particular time, for an audience, and shows you some things and not others.
That does not make sources dishonest. It means the useful question is rarely just is this true? but who is saying this, and why would they? A rancher and an oil company can describe the same field accurately and still tell two different stories.
The PAT is built on exactly this: 62% of its questions test skills, not remembered facts. Within each set the questions follow the order of the sources, and any question about the set as a whole comes last.
Where it turns up
- Election ads — Canadian election law requires election advertising to say who authorized it, so you can check whose voice it is
- Sponsored posts — Canada's Competition Bureau expects influencers to disclose when they were paid or given the product — that is what #ad means
- The newspaper — opinion columns and editorials are labelled because they argue a side; news reports are meant not to
- A courtroom — a jury weighs a witness by asking what they could actually see, and whether they have a reason to lean one way
- 1. The words, first
- 2. Five questions before the options
- 3. Fact, opinion and loaded words
- 4. Cartoons: the exaggeration is the argument
- 5. Choosing the answer: supported, not just true
- 6. What costs marks
The words, first
The idea: The PAT uses these in its questions, and a few of them — perspective, bias, qualifier — are the question.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Source | Anything that carries information or a view: a quotation, a cartoon, a chart, a headline, an ad. |
| Point of view | What one person thinks about an issue. |
| Perspective | The wider lens a view comes from: a group's history, culture, job or interests. |
| Bias | Leaning so far to one side that a source misleads. Every source has a point of view; not every source is biased. |
| Fact | A statement that can be checked, such as a date, a number or what a law says. |
| Opinion | A judgment about what is good, bad, fair or best. It can be argued, not checked. |
| Loaded words | Words that carry a judgment inside a description: “handout” instead of “benefit”. |
| Caricature | A drawing that exaggerates features to make a point. |
| Juxtaposition | Placing two things side by side so the contrast makes a point. |
| Qualifier | A word in a question — best, most strongly, most directly, most clearly — warning that more than one answer may be partly right. |
Five questions before the options
The idea: Who made it, when, for whom, why, and what is missing. Ninety seconds on these makes most of the questions easier.
Source. An invented letter to the editor of a small-town Alberta paper, from the owner of a café on Main Street: “The new highway bypass will save commuters six minutes. It will also empty Main Street. Every family business on this street will feel it. Council should ask us before it asks the engineers.”
- Who? A café owner on the street the bypass will skip. She has a stake: fewer cars, fewer customers.
- When? Before council decides, so she is trying to change a decision.
- For whom? Local readers, and council.
- Why? To persuade council to consult businesses. Her perspective is a small-business owner's.
- What is missing? The commuters' side, any safety reasons for the bypass, and evidence for “every family business”.
A stake is not the same as being wrong. It explains which facts she chose, not whether they are true. The PAT rewards noticing a point of view, not dismissing a source for having one.
Fact, opinion and loaded words
The idea: A fact is something that can be checked, not something that is true. Loaded words hide an opinion inside a description.
“The bypass will save commuters six minutes” is a factual claim: someone could time it, and it would still be a factual claim if it proved wrong. “Council should ask us first” is an opinion: no measurement could settle it.
| Neutral | From a supporter | From an opponent |
|---|---|---|
| government payment | support | handout |
| tax cut | tax relief | giveaway to the rich |
| people protesting | concerned citizens | a mob |
| lobby group | advocates | special interests |
Each row names the same thing. The word a speaker picks shows their side before they make any argument, so a question about a speaker's perspective can often be answered from one word.
Cartoons: the exaggeration is the argument
The idea: A cartoonist exaggerates on purpose. Find what is bigger, smaller or stranger than life, and you have found the claim.
Source. An invented cartoon. A smiling shopper pushes a cart piled higher than her head, labelled “Economic growth”, past a small, wilting tree labelled “Environment”, toward a sign reading “Buy 2, get 1 free”.
Labels say the cart is growth and the tree is the environment. Size carries the argument: the cart enormous, the tree small and dying. Juxtaposition links them — the growth is bought at the tree's expense — and the smile says the shopper does not notice.
Then weigh it. Heavy consumption does strain the environment, but growth also pays for things people value, including cleaning up pollution. A cartoon never shows both sides; your job is to notice which one it left out.
Choosing the answer: supported, not just true
The idea: The right answer is the one the source supports. Most wrong answers are true statements the source does not support, or claims that go further than it does.
Source. Three invented speakers on immigration. Speaker I: “A country that welcomes newcomers every year never runs short of workers, doctors or new ideas.” Speaker II: “Before we bring more people in, we need enough homes and family doctors for the people already here.” Speaker III: “Newcomers should learn that they are settling on treaty land, and what those treaties promised.”
The question: Speaker II would most likely respond to Speaker I by saying that…
- “the benefits of newcomers depend on having homes and services ready” — the best answer: it takes in everything Speaker II said.
- “Canada should stop accepting immigrants” — goes further than the source. Speaker II says before, not never.
- “newcomers should learn about the treaties” — a real view in the set, but Speaker III's.
- “Canada is short of family doctors” — hinted at, maybe true, but not a reply to Speaker I.
With a qualifier, expect more than one answer to be partly right, and choose the one that takes in more of the source. A question about all the sources together is asking what they share: here, all three expect newcomers to keep arriving.
What costs marks
The idea: Four, and the first two cause most wrong answers on source questions.
- Choosing a true statement the source does not support. The question is about the source, not the world.
- Going further than the source. “Before” is not “never”; “some” is not “all”.
- Mixing up the speakers. A real view from the wrong speaker is a favourite wrong answer.
- Calling a source biased because it has a point of view. Every source has one.