ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage!

1. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! • You’ll raise your ACT score if you learn to: • Recognize camouflage, then • See through it • Each of the following slides comes from an ACT-type passage. • I want you to: • *Read each one • *Think carefully about what it means • *With that meaning in mind consider the meaning of each answer choice • *Determine which one constitutes the author’s statements, camouflaged

2. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! • Let’s try this! • The human condition is unequal, distributing its gifts and penalties according to a wildly haphazard scheme. A person is not what he deserves to be but simply what he is. • Remember… • …think carefully about what this means • …with that meaning in mind consider the meaning of each answer choice • …determine which one constitutes the author’s statements, camouflaged

3. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! The human condition is unequal, distributing its gifts and penalties according to a wildly haphazard scheme. A person is not what he deserves to be but simply what he is. What does the author say? Life’s pleasures and hardships are not given out fairly – according to what people deserve. Instead, they’re random. In other words, you don’t get what you deserve. You just get what you get. With that in mind, look at the answer options and see which one makes the same statement in a different way…

4. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! The human condition is unequal, distributing its gifts and penalties according to a wildly haphazard scheme. A person is not what he deserves to be but simply what he is. According to the passage, it is true that the human condition: is a precious gift and should not be treated haphazardly. (In other words – life is valuable and people shouldn’t be careless with it) does not allocate (camouflage for “distributing”) its burdens and benefits (camouflage for “gifts and penalties”) according to merit(camouflage for “deserves”) will become more predictable as human beings learn to appreciate it (People who appreciate life will find it doesn’t have many surprises) is sometimes unjust due to fundamental aspects of human nature (Human nature is the cause of life’s unfairness)

5. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! • The human condition is unequal, distributing its gifts and penalties according to a wildly haphazard scheme. A person is not what he deserves to be but simply what he is. • Remember… • …determine which answer constitutes the author’s statements, camouflaged • According to the passage, it is true that the human condition: • is a precious gift and should not be treated haphazardly. • does not allocate its burdens and benefits according to merit • will become more predictable as human beings learn to appreciate it • is sometimes unjust due to fundamental aspects of human nature

6. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! • Poverty, deformity, illness, loss, weakness, and mistreatment impose themselves relentlessly on individual lives. That circumstance begs the historian to ask why humans have for the most part accepted the situation so peaceably. • 13. The passage indicates that persistent poverty and illness: • A. are caused partially by humanity’s overriding concern with acceptance and peace. • B. are due in some part to a faulty understanding of history. • C. should make historians question the role of the individual in human affairs. • D. should provoke historical inquiry into humanity’s willingness to tolerate adversity.

7. ACT Reading See Through the Camouflage! • Religious belief allows the unlucky, on some very important level, to treat their misery as insignificant in the grand scheme of things, for they look to something higher: the approval of their god and the faith that they will not in the end be forsaken. • 14. The passage states that religious belief helps people by: • F. allowing them to accept the idea that they have been forsaken • G. providing them with faith that they will overcome their difficulties • H. diminishing the importance they might place on their day-to-day pain. • J. emphasizing that spiritual strength is more significant than luck

8. ACT Reading SUMMARY • There are always 4 passages and 40 questions on the ACT Reading test. The passages are always in this order: prose fiction; social science; humanities; and natural science • Spend the first minute of the test determining which passage will be hardest for you – this is the one to leave until last. Playing to your strengths early in the test will gain you the most points. • Be aware of camouflaged answers. ACT test writers rarely use a direct quote from the passage in the correct answer. • Remember to guess your Letter of the Day if there are questions that you can’t answer or don’t get to in time.

9. Works Cited: Martz, Geoff, and Melissa Hendrix. Cracking the ACT: With DVD. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.