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Cracking the act English test

Learn effective strategies to approach the ACT English test, covering usage, mechanics, and rhetorical skills within the context of essays. Discover pacing tips, contextual analysis, connotation awareness, and answer selection techniques to improve your performance in the 45-minute, 75-question test. Understand how to handle underlined portions, note answer choice differences, and avoid common mistakes. Enhance your ability to determine the best answers, fitting them within the essay context with attention to punctuation and wording. Be mindful of two-part and interrelated questions to excel in this crucial test section.

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Cracking the act English test

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  1. Cracking the act English test How do I approach this test? From: The Real ACT Prep Guide. Iowa City: ACT, 2008. Print.

  2. What to expect • 45 Minutes • Five Passages • 75 Multiple Choice Questions • Usage/Mechanics: Punctuation, grammar and usage, sentence structure • ONLY within the context of an essay • Rhetorical Skills: Writing strategy, organization

  3. Strategy 1: Pace yourself • 75 questions in 45 minutes = 36 seconds per question • After about 1 ½ minutes of skimming through an essay, you have about 30 seconds per question • You have about nine minutes per essay with the questions included • Try to move on if you are spending too much time on an essay. • Mark questions that you are unsure about and return later • Use process of elimination

  4. Strategy 2: Look at the context before answering • Skim through the whole passage and the questions before answering • Answer questions that relate to order of sentence or order of paragraphs first • Helps you to make sure major elements of the essay are arranged logically • Be sure to read at least a sentence or two beyond the sentence with the portion being questioned. You may need this information to understand what the writer is trying to say. • For grammar questions, read at least from the start to finish of the entire sentence.

  5. Strategy 3: Be mindful of connotation Connotation: associations we have with words Many people might be surprised to learn that the American way of computing a person’s age differs from the traditional Korean way. In Korean tradition, a person is considered to be already one year old at the time of his or her birth. As a child growing up in two cultures, I found this contest a bit confusing. F. NO CHANGE G. change H. dispute J. difference

  6. Strategy 4: Look at underlined portions for a stated question The music is mainly instrumental—the bands generally consist of guitar, bass guitar, saxophones, accordion, and drums. Which of the following alternatives to the underlined portion would NOT be acceptable? • instrumental; in general, the bands • Instrumental, the bands generally • Instrumental. The bands generally • Instrumental; the bands generally

  7. Strategy 5: Note the differences in the answer choices • Many of the changes to the underlined portions or questions will involve more than one aspect of writing. • Look at each choice and pay attention to how each differs from the others.

  8. Strategy 6: Avoid making new mistakes His challenge initiated a review, of students’ rights and administrative responsibility. • No change • review, of students’ rights, • review of students’ rights • review of students’ rights, • Pay attention when the responses have similar wording. • Note the differences in punctuation—one comma can make an answer right or wrong.

  9. Strategy 7: Determine the best answer • Reread the sentence or sentences containing the underlined portion and substitute each answer choice. OR • Decide in your head how the underlined portion should best be phrased and choose the option that matches your phrasing. • If the underlined portion is correct as is, mark NO CHANGE • If you can’t decide, mark it and return to it later. Guess only after eliminating any options that you can.

  10. Strategy 8: Reread the sentence with your selected answer • Read to see if your answer “fits” within the essay • Be mindful of BOTH punctuation and wording

  11. Strategy 9: Watch for questions about the entire essay or a whole section Perhaps the celebration of New Year’s Day in Korean culture is heightened because it is thought of as everyone’s birthday party. Upon reviewing this paragraph, the writer considers deleting the preceding sentence. If the writer were to delete the sentence, the paragraph would primarily lose: • a comment on the added significance of the Korean New Year celebration. • a repetitive reminder of what happens every birthday. • a defense of the case for celebrating every birthday. • An illustration of the Korean counting system. #

  12. Strategy 10: be careful with two-part questions • Some questions for the end of a passage might as not only which option is best, but also which supporting detail is most convincing. • Read through ALL of the options and consider ALL parts of the responses.

  13. Strategy 11: Watch for interrelated questions The court remained unconvinced, therefore, that when wearing jeans would actually impair the learning process of Kevin or of his fellow class mates. A. NO CHANGE B. thus, C. moreover, D. however, A. NO CHANGE B. by wearing C. wearing D. having worn

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