ACT Prep: English
Welcome to the next part of your ACT prep guide. This time we tackle the English section.
In a typical English ACT question, you read a passage and then you have to answer questions about that passage.
There are two basic questions on the English section: Usage/Mechanics (like grammar and punctuation) and effective writing. About 40 of your 75 questions will test punctuation, grammar or sentence structure. The rest of the questions will cover the writer’s aims, organization and style.
So what’s the best way to proceed?
Know what you are looking for. Here are some typical mistakes you’ll be expected to spot:
- Missing subject or verb (e.g. “Most medicines ineffective” needs the verb “are”).
- Modifier errors (e.g. “The sun appeared slow in the sky” should say “the sun appeared slowly in the sky”).
- Punctuation (knowing when to use a period, a comma or semicolon).
- Subject/verb agreement (e.g. “Each of the historians spent many hours researching documents. Eventually they all reach the same conclusion.” Since it happened in the past it should be “reached”).
Pace yourself. Most test takers don’t get through all 75 questions. But you don’t have to answer every question to get a good score. For example, in order to score an 18 on the ACT English test, you’ll only need to answer about 40 questions correctly. An 18 would be about the 37th percentile, and just 5 more correct answers would bring you up to the 50th percentile!
Don’t take the hard route. Answer the easy questions first. Look for questions where you only have to read a sentence or two to answer them. You will be able to get through those quickly. Then if you have time answer the questions that require you to read a whole paragraph.
Pay attention to what’s underlined. Some questions will ask you to base your answer on some specific element there. When the text isn’t underlined, you will most likely be asked about the section as a whole.
Check your work. Always reread the section of the passage with the answer you selected to make sure it sounds right.
When all else fails…Guess. Don’t skip any questions out. In the last five minutes fill in an answer for every question. You don’t lose points for wrong answers…and maybe the odds will work in your favor!
For more tips, check out our ACT prep on the ACT reading section and check back tomorrow for more techniques.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 12:42 pm and is filed under SAT and ACT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
