ACT Reading
Overview
35 minutes to work through 4 passages of 40 questions
One dual passage
Types of passages
Prose fiction (literary narrative) --(excerpts from novels, short stories, historical fiction)
Social science (biography, business, economics, government, geography, sociology, psychology, etc.)
Humanities (architecture, art, dance, language, literary criticism, music, television, etc.)
Natural science (biology, medicine, technology, physics, etc.)
800-850 words, each passage has 10 questions
Skills
Implied meanings
Determine main ideas
Locate and interpret significant details
Understand the sequence of events
Make comparisons between two things
See cause/effect relationships
Recognize meaning in context of words, phrases, and statements
Draw conclusions or generalizations
Analyze the authorś voice/style
Literature: setting, atmosphere, relationship between characters, plot, dialogue, characterś thoughts and emotions, point of view
Social science: more informative or persuasive, clear topic sentences, claim,
Humanities: memoirs, personal essays, criticisms, reviews, magazine articles
Natural science: more technical descriptions, more linear organization, clear topic sentences, transitions, expository or persuasive
Question Stems
XXX most likely encourages XXX to wear XX because he XXX
According to the passage, XXX contributed to XXX by XXX
The author believes that XXX is XXX.
In the passage, the phrase, XXX, refers to XXX.
Which of the following best represents a general trend associated with XXX?
According to the passage, XXX is characterized by XXX
According to the passage, XXX differs from XXX in that:
Information in the paragraph makes clear that the author beliefs that:
Based on the information in XX paragraph, the author implies that:
When the author uses the phrase XXX, he most nearly means that XXX that
Which of the following most accurately summarizes how the passage characterizes XXX on XXX?
The main idea of the passage is that:
How does the author directly support her claim?
Which of the following questions is NOT answered by information given in the passage?
Which of the following statements is LEAST supported by the passage?
A similarity between the two passages is that they both…
The details in lines XX-XX primarily serve to suggest that: