ACT/PSAE Reading Exam Workshop

1. ACT/PSAE Reading Exam Workshop

2. Test Administration Schedule Day 1: • ACT English 45 minutes (75 questions) • ACT Mathematics 60 minutes (60 questions) • ACT Reading 35 minutes (40 questions) • ACT Science 35 minutes (40 questions) • ACT Writing 30 minutes (one prompt question) OPTIONAL Day 2: • ISBE-Developed Science 40 minutes (45 questions) • WorkKeys Applied Mathematics 45 minutes (33 questions) • WorkKeys Reading for Information 45 minutes (33 questions)

3. How much time will you have? You'll have 35 minutes to read 4 passages and answer 40 multiple-choice questions. (8-8.5 minutes/passage + 10 questions)

4. Types of Passages • Prose Fiction (passages from short stories and novels) • Humanities (nonfiction passages with topics from arts and literature, often biographies of famous authors, artists, musicians, etc.) • Social Studies (nonfiction essays on anthropology, archaeology, biography, business, economics, education, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology) • Natural Sciences (nonfiction essays on anatomy, astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, geology, medicine, meteorology, microbiology, natural history, physiology, physics, technology, and zoology)

5. Scoring of the Reading Test The passages are grouped into two pairs for scoring: • Arts/Literature—includes Prose Fiction and Humanities • Social Studies/Sciences—includes Social Studies and Natural Sciences. You'll get a total Reading score for all 40 questions and two subscores: one for Arts/Literature and one for Social Studies/Sciences.

6. Reading Test Content & Scoring Overview • 40 questions • 4 passages • 35 minutes to finish the test Reading Content # of Questions % of Test Prose Fiction 10 25 Humanities 10 25 Social Studies 10 25 Natural Sciences 10 25 Total 40 100 Reading scores reported: • Arts/Literature (Prose Fiction, Humanities) • Social Studies/Sciences (Social Studies, Natural Sciences) • Total test score

7. The ACT is a predictable test! • The format of the test is the same from year to year. • You can change your score with practice.

8. Arts/Literature Prose Fiction Passages —tell a story about characters and about something that happens to them —ask questions about plot, character, mood, etc. Humanities Passages —describe or analyze ideas or works of art —ask you to predict how the author would most likely respond to a hypothetical argument or situation —ask you to infer or identify relationships among events, ideas, people, trends, or ways of thinking

9. Social Studies/Sciences Social Studies Passages usually present information gathered through research. —Look for names, dates, and concepts in these passages, because you may be asked about cause-and-effect relationships, comparisons, and the order of events. Natural Sciences Passages usually present a science topic and an explanation of why it is important. —Pay close attention to cause-and-effect relationships, comparisons, and sequences of events.

10. Types of Questions 1) Referring—find or use information that is clearly stated in the passage 2)Reasoning—use passage information that’s either stated or implied in the passage and use it to answer more complex questions

11. Content Categories of Reading Questions • Significant details • Main ideas • Cause-effect relationships • Author’s voice and method • Meanings of words • Generalizations • Comparative relationships • Sequence of events

12. Test-Taking Strategies • Pace yourself, but use the whole time. • Begin with the types of passages that are easiest for you. (a.k.a “Triage”) • Know the instructions. Review them the night before the exam so you don’t need to spend valuable test-time reading them. • Watch out for camouflaged answers.

13. Test-Taking Strategies • Watch out for distracters (wrong answers), which are there to break your concentration and throw you off course. • The Four-Step System Step 1: Find the lead words and phrases Step 2: Scan the passage for lead words Step 3: Skim and scribble Step 4: The Loop • Answer all the questions! Do not leave any blank.

14. Prose Fiction Passage Allen’s grandmother was readying herself to leave. She was, in fact, putting the final touches on her make-up which, as always, looked to Allen as though someone had thrown it on her face with a shovel. As Mrs. Mandale placed her newly purchased bracelet over her wrist, a looked of troubled ambivalence came over her. “Perhaps this bracelet isn’t right for me,” she said. “I won’t wear it.” Waiting now for 30 minutes, Allen tried to be tolerant. “It is right for you,” he said. “It matches your personality. Wear it.” The bracelet was a remarkable illustration of poor taste. Its colors were vulgar and the structure lacked any sign of thoughtful design. The truth is, it did match his grandmother’s personality. All that she did and enjoyed was tasteless and induced in Allen a quiet hopelessness. Allen most likely encouraged his grandmother to wear her bracelet because he: A. found it colorful and approved of its appearance. B. found its appearance pathetic and wished his grandmother to look pretty. C. was impatient with his grandmother for spending time worrying about the bracelet. D. felt the bracelet matched his grandmother’s bright personality.

15. Prose Fiction Sample Answer Answer=C Prose fiction requires that you “read between the lines” and draw inferences about the way the characters feel or behave. The does feels that neither the bracelet nor his grandmother are pretty or bright; he is trying “to be tolerant.”

16. Main Idea Sample Question • In the last couple of decades, Victorian houses have been enjoying a renaissance. Recent generations raised on the skim milk of modern architecture lately have acquired a taste for the butterfat and flamboyance of late 19th century design. As a result, restored Victorians have become newly conspicuous throughout the country. Old cottages and mansions left over from the previous century are being refurbished everywhere, and in some communities entire neighborhoods are aglitter with freshly painted towers, turrets, fish-scale shingles, carved wooden fancywork, and other trappings from those fabled days before the turn of the century. • Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the first • paragraph? • Many Victorian homes have recently been replaced with ones in the Renaissance style. • People all over the country have begun to appreciate and renovate Victorian homes. • Many architectural studies are being undertaken in an effort to become more familiar with the Victorian style. • Many new houses are being designed to imitate the nineteenth-century Victorian style.

17. Main Idea Sample Question Answer Answer=G This paragraph is a general introduction to the passage, and the question asks for the main idea of the paragraph. In the paragraph, there's nothing about new home construction (ruling out J) or about Victorian homes being replaced with houses in the Renaissance style (ruling out F). The paragraph doesn't mention any studies, either, which rules out H. The statement made in G is correct, and clearly the best choice for the main idea of the paragraph.

18. Cause-and-Effect Sample Question Roosevelt feared what Long might accomplish as a conventional political operator, as a rival who might unseat him from the presidency. On the eve of the election of 1936 most of the talk at Democratic headquarters concerned Long's intentions, and it was scared talk. Would Huey be a presidential candidate on a third-party ticket? Long himself had a somewhat different plan. According to the testimony of intimates, he intended to run some liberal Democrat as a third-party entry and so divide the liberal vote that the Republican candidate would win. The Republicans would be incapable of dealing with the depression, the economic system would go to pieces, and by 1940 the country would be crying for a strong leader to save it. Huey Long's plan to "so divide the liberal vote that the Republican candidate would win" hinges upon the assumption that: F. some Democrats would vote for the third-party entry. G. most Democrats would vote Republican. H. all Democrats would vote for the third-party entry. J.  most Republicans would vote for the third-party entry.

19. Cause-and-Effect Sample Question Answer Answer=F The effect here is to have the Republican candidate win a clear majority. Huey Long's plan to cause this to happen was to get some Democrats to vote for a third-party candidate, while the other Democrats voted for their party's own candidate. This would give the Republican candidate a clear majority. So the best answer is F.

20. Author's Voice and Method Sample Question Conceivably, it might have happened just as he thought it would. Just as conceivably, it might not have. Long might well have foundered on the rock of the two-party system, as other gifted political rebels before him had done. Instead of grasping the supreme success he saw as his destiny, he might have lived out his life as a frustrated and embittered secondary politician. What might have been can never be known. Fate, which has shattered the dreams of other strong men, suddenly intervened. On a warm September night in 1935 Huey Long, at the height of his power, apparently invincible, was shot down by an assassin in his capitol at Baton Rouge. According to the last paragraph, the author believes that if Huey Long would have had the chance to follow through on his plan: A. Long would have failed to become president because fate would have intervened. B. Long would have obtained even more power as a third-party candidate. C. Long may have become a Republican candidate for president. D. Long's chances for winning the presidency were about the same as his chances for losing.

21. Author’s Voice and Method Sample Question Answer Answer=D If you read this passage carefully, you can't miss what Huey Long thought about himself. But what does the author think? The author may have a different opinion of the subject than the subject has. The difference is important. It's clear that the author of this passage isn't sure about what might have happened if Huey Long had lived and been able to run for president. The author thinks the election could have gone either way, so the best answer is D.

22. Generalization Sample Question How strange that my parents didn't notice; normally, one sniffle and they were feeling my forehead. But sometime during the night we must have entered that world of mischance that parents so fear, with its history of catastrophes occurring in eye blinks when parental vigilance lapsed. The narrator considers her parents' behavior, as it is described above, to be: A.  habitually indifferent. B.  unusually lenient. C.  particularly strict. D.  unusually inattentive.

23. Generalization Sample Question Answer Answer=D The best choice is D, "unusually inattentive." The narrator suggests that her parents were usually extremely alert to her condition (ruling out A) but that for some reason they were much less careful that day (ruling out C). B is less appropriate than D: "lenient" suggests the narrator's parents were intentionally granting privileges or relaxing rules, which is clearly not the case here.

24. Comparative Relationships Sample Question But Pluto furnished a surprise. Pluto and Charon are so close to twins in size and so close together that gravity induces a bulge in Pluto. The bulge is great enough that Pluto is tidally coupled to Charon just as Charon is tidally coupled to Pluto. Thus, Pluto always shows the same face to Charon just as Charon always shows the same face to Pluto. It is the only example of mutual tidal coupling in the solar system. The result is that for an astronaut standing on Pluto, Charon is either always visible or never visible. The shadows we see on Charon reveal an uneven, cratered landscape. Like Pluto, Charon is light gray, although somewhat darker and more even in color than Pluto, as was known from measurements made from Earth using the Pluto-Charon eclipses. The very slightly reddish brown hue of Pluto is missing from Charon or at least from Charon's Pluto-facing side, that is the only side we get to see from the surface of Pluto. Missing too from Charon is the methane frost which partially covers Pluto. With Charon's smaller mass and therefore weaker gravity, whatever methane ice there was at the surface has evaporated. Perhaps this in part explains why Charon is less reflective. The escaping methane has exposed frozen water to view. The passage asserts that one feature of Pluto that is lacking on Charon is: A.  escaping methane. C. a cratered landscape. B.  noticeable gravity. D.  methane frost.

25. Comparative Relationships Sample Question Answer Answer=D This question requires that you understand the differences between Pluto and its moon, Charon. Because so much of the passage compares the two, you'll have to read closely to find the answer. The information supporting the best answer, D, is in italics; the information ruling out the other choices is sprinkled throughout the two paragraphs.

26. Meaning of Words Sample Question He went to Washington with the conviction that his destiny would lead him to the presidency, just as from youth he planned step by step the career that would lead him to the highest office. He entered the Senate as a liberal Democrat, a supporter of men and measures to curb big business. In 1932 he advocated that his party nominate as its presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt. Long stumped vigorously for Roosevelt in the campaign, and after the latter's election there was a brief period when it seemed that the two were going to make an unusually effective combination, the Eastern and the Southern liberals working together for liberal reform. That possibility evaporated almost immediately. He realized that Roosevelt was a man who had a will fully as strong as his own and who was also just as great a politician. Returning from an interview with Roosevelt, he said to a close friend: "I found a man as smart as I am. I don't know if I can travel with him.” As it is used in the passage, the word stumped most nearly means: F. cleared. G. baffled. H. campaigned. J. trimmed.

27. Meaning of Words Sample Question Answer Answer=H If you were a contestant on a quiz show and you couldn't figure out an answer, the host might say that the question "stumped" you. That's the same definition as in answer G, "baffled." But that would be the wrong answer here, because in this passage about the politician Huey Long, the best answer is clearly H, "campaigned.“ Note that, generally, meaning of words questions contain line number references to make it easier for you to find the word, phrase, or clause being asked about.

28. Sequence of Events Sample Question What Kenny meant was the Ghirlandaio painting, which he'd heard about from me. It had required astonishing bravery to approach him in the schoolyard, to speak to him for so long, but that was minor compared with the courage it took to mention the unmentionable—that is, Miss Haley's nose. I don't recall how I'd phrased it, how precisely I'd made it clear that there existed a work of art with a nose like our sixth-grade teacher's. It had left us both feeling quite short of breath, as if we'd been running and had gotten our second wind and were capable of anything. And in that light-headed state I offered to take him to see it. It would be easy, I said—I knew the museum so well we could sneak off and get back before anyone noticed. The passage suggests that the narrator was first introduced to the Ghirlandaio painting: A.  in a classroom art lesson given by Miss Haley. B.  in an art book presented to her by her parents. C.  on a previous visit to the art museum. D.  on the museum trip with Kenny and her classmates.

29. Sequence of Events Sample Question Answer=C To determine the best answer to this question, you need to find the most reasonable conclusion based on the details in the paragraph. A is unlikely given that the narrator's classmate Kenny heard about the Ghirlandaio painting from the narrator, not from Miss Haley. The paragraph doesn't support B.D is incorrect because the narrator describes the nose in the painting to Kenny before the museum trip, which indicates she was already familiar with the work of art. C, on the other hand, is well supported by the paragraph: the narrator tells Kenny about the painting and assures him that with her extensive knowledge of the museum, they will be able to sneak off to see the painting without anyone missing them.

30. Last but not least… Take practice tests. Practice!!! Practice!!! Practice!!!