There are four sections in the reading test with passages from the humanities, natural sciences, social studies, and literary fiction. Usually these sections each have one long passage, but occasionally you might also encounter one with two short passages. All of the passages are prose, so there is no need to interpret poetry or other extensively sub-textual works. According to the ACT, you're expected to use your reading and reasoning skills to:
The reading section asks you 40 questions in 35 minutes. These questions might test your understanding of what was directly stated in the passage or what various lines implied. There are 6 main types of reading questions you'll encounter:
One of the biggest struggles students face is completing all of the questions in the time provided. It's best to be efficient and have a strategy. You may want to consider the following:
- determine main ideas
- locate and interpret significant details (sometimes the question will refer you to a specific line, but other times you'll have to track down the detail yourself)
- understand sequences of events
- make comparisons (you'll especially see these questions if you have two short passages instead of one longer passage)
- comprehend cause-effect relationships
- determine the meaning of words, phrases, and statements in context (these are usually straightforward, but you should understand how they function in context)
- draw generalizations
- analyze the author's or narrator's voice and method
The reading section asks you 40 questions in 35 minutes. These questions might test your understanding of what was directly stated in the passage or what various lines implied. There are 6 main types of reading questions you'll encounter:
- Main idea - the main point or theme of the passage.
- Detail - usually refers directly to a line in the text and asks what it means or how it functions.
- Vocabulary - vocabulary words are usually straightforward, but they might be used in an unusual way in context.
- Development - how ideas are arranged within the passage.
- Implied ideas - these are inference questions. While this might seem subjective, there will only be one unambiguously correct answer.
- Voice - the author's or narrator's tone, style, attitude, or perspective.
One of the biggest struggles students face is completing all of the questions in the time provided. It's best to be efficient and have a strategy. You may want to consider the following:
STRATEGY FOR THE READING TEST:
Step 1: Read the introduction to the passage.
The introduction will tell you where the passage is from and who the author is. Right away you can gain a sense of the passage's context, which is helpful for understanding its main purpose. This has the effect of mentally "priming the pump" or getting your brain ready to take in a specific kind of information or make connections quickly. In effect, it foreshadows the passage. In an excerpt taken from a textbook called Introduction to Psychology, for example, you can infer that the writing will most likely be informational, academic, objective, and explanatory.
Be cautious, however, about making too many assumptions before you start reading - instead, use the introduction to inform you, while remaining open-minded about the passage's content and meaning.
Step 2: Read the questions first, then skim/read the passage as necessary.
Reading the questions first gives you a sense of what content you're looking for, and you can read with a discerning eye. This saves time, and, as you only have just over 50 seconds per question, time is important. If questions refer to any specific lines within the passage, then make a mark on the passage next to that line so you'll know to pay attention to it when you read. As for the main point or general purpose questions, circle those and leave them for last, when you've had time to read the passage, process it, and pick it apart with some other, more detail-oriented questions.
In this example, questions 31, 33, and 39 are circled, because they ask about main ideas and main purposes. Question 33 is just asking about the purpose of a paragraph, so a mark has been made by Paragraph 4 and noting "main purpose." Specific line references have been marked and underlined, as well as the important points of each question. This helps indicate things you should be on the lookout for while skimming for information about "female eels' pupils" and "larvae found by Schmidt."
Step 3: Answer the questions.
In general, it's helpful to answer the detail and line specific questions first and leave the general purpose questions for the end. It's also helpful to come up with your own answer to a question before looking at the four answer choices. The supplied choices might confuse you by all sounding plausible. If you have a sense of what the correct answer is right off the bat, then you can look for it in the answer choices.
If you're not sure about the answer after reading the answer choices, you should try to use the process of elimination to locate the right answer. While the ACT might word questions like they're open to interpretation, they are not. There is only ever one 100% correct answer choice. If you find yourself overthinking or over-rationalizing an answer choice, it's probably not the correct one. Wordings like the following are designed to make you start over-thinking:
- The author would most likely agree with . . .
- In line 15, 'intense' most nearly means . . .
This sample ACT question, for example, tries to sound open to interpretation, but it has really only one correct answer:
Which of the following most nearly paraphrases Helen Hunt Jackson's statement to Emily Dickinson that "it is wrong to the day you live in, that you will not sing aloud" (lines 35-36)?
A. It is morally reprehensible of you not to let other poets read your work.
B. It is unacceptable for you to continue writing; you should become a singer.
C. It is stingy and wrong of you not to read out loud to those who like your work.
D. It is unfair to this age that you do not share your poetry with the world.
The answer here is D, based on other information from the passage to which it refers, as well as the line itself: "it is wrong to the day you live in." The "day you live in" is reflected in "this age" in answer D. While A and C seem plausible, they don't incorporate this reference to the age, time, or era of the day.
The process of elimination may help you narrow down your answer choices until you hone in on the correct one, or, if necessary, make your best guess.
Step 4: Be efficient in managing your time.
Rather than going back and forth between your test booklet and bubble sheet, it can save time to answer the questions in your test booklet and then transfer them to the bubble sheet. Do this in chunks after you complete the set of questions about each passage. Make sure to keep an eye on time, though - don't run out of time with answers in your test booklet that you haven't marked on the answer sheet.
If you're struggling with timing, you might consider starting with the passages you feel most confident about, whether it's humanities, natural sciences, social studies, or literary fiction, and answering those questions first. In this way, the answers you're most likely to get correct get on the answer sheet first (even if they're later on the test). However, don't let a time saver become a time waster! This strategy is only worth it if you can go straight to your preferred passage and get working, but not if you have to spend a lot of time looking over the passages to arrange them in order from easiest to hardest.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS:
READ THE PASSAGE AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS:
What Methods Do Andean Farmers Use?
Public debate around climate change and its effects on agriculture tends to focus on the large-scale industrial farms of the North. Farmers who work on a small scale and use traditional methods have largely been ignored. However, as the world slowly comes to terms with the threat of climate change, Native farming traditions will warrant greater attention.
In the industrial model of agriculture, one or two crop varieties are grown over vast areas. Instead of trying to use local resources of soil and water optimally and sustainably, the natural environment is all but ignored and uniform growing conditions are fabricated through large-scale irrigation and the intensive use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. For example, a handful of basically similar potato varieties, all of which require nearly identical soil conditions, temperature, rainfall, and growing seasons, account for almost all global production. When these global crops are no longer suited to the environment in which they are grown, when their resistance to disease and pests begins to fail, or the climate itself changes, the best way to rejuvenate the breeding stock will be to introduce new genetic material from the vast diversity of crop varieties still maintained by indigenous peoples.
In contrast to the industrial model, Andean potatoes and other Andean crops such as squash and beans grown by Quechuan farmers exhibit extraordinary genetic diversity, driven by the need to adapt crops to the extraordinary climatic diversity of the region. Along the two axes of latitude and altitude, the Andes encompasses fully two-thirds of all possible combinations of climate and geography found on Earth. The Andean potato has been adapted to every environment except the depth of the rainforest or the frozen peaks of the mountains. Today, facing the likelihood of major disruptions to the climatic conditions for agriculture worldwide, indigenous farmers provide a dramatic example of crop adaptation in an increasingly extreme environment. More importantly, Native farmers have also safe guarded the crop diversity essential for the future adaptations.
Adapted from Craig Benjamin, “The Machu Picchu Model: Climate Change and Agricultural Diversity.”
© 1999 by Craig Benjamin.
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?
2. In the second paragraph, the information about potato-growing practices in the
industrial model of agriculture serves to:
3. The passage states that which of the following is true of the small number of potato varieties that account for most of the potatoes produced on Earth currently?
4. As it is used in the passage, the underlined word "fabricated" most nearly means:
What Methods Do Andean Farmers Use?
Public debate around climate change and its effects on agriculture tends to focus on the large-scale industrial farms of the North. Farmers who work on a small scale and use traditional methods have largely been ignored. However, as the world slowly comes to terms with the threat of climate change, Native farming traditions will warrant greater attention.
In the industrial model of agriculture, one or two crop varieties are grown over vast areas. Instead of trying to use local resources of soil and water optimally and sustainably, the natural environment is all but ignored and uniform growing conditions are fabricated through large-scale irrigation and the intensive use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. For example, a handful of basically similar potato varieties, all of which require nearly identical soil conditions, temperature, rainfall, and growing seasons, account for almost all global production. When these global crops are no longer suited to the environment in which they are grown, when their resistance to disease and pests begins to fail, or the climate itself changes, the best way to rejuvenate the breeding stock will be to introduce new genetic material from the vast diversity of crop varieties still maintained by indigenous peoples.
In contrast to the industrial model, Andean potatoes and other Andean crops such as squash and beans grown by Quechuan farmers exhibit extraordinary genetic diversity, driven by the need to adapt crops to the extraordinary climatic diversity of the region. Along the two axes of latitude and altitude, the Andes encompasses fully two-thirds of all possible combinations of climate and geography found on Earth. The Andean potato has been adapted to every environment except the depth of the rainforest or the frozen peaks of the mountains. Today, facing the likelihood of major disruptions to the climatic conditions for agriculture worldwide, indigenous farmers provide a dramatic example of crop adaptation in an increasingly extreme environment. More importantly, Native farmers have also safe guarded the crop diversity essential for the future adaptations.
Adapted from Craig Benjamin, “The Machu Picchu Model: Climate Change and Agricultural Diversity.”
© 1999 by Craig Benjamin.
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?
- A Attention to Native farming practices will lead to greater awareness of the threat of climate change.
- B Popularity of small-scale farming in the North will lead to greater attention to Native farming practices.
- C Global demand for food will lead to increasing efficiency of large-scale farming in the North.
- D It will be worthwhile to include a greater focus on Native farming practices in the debate concerning climate change.
- E Despite potential climate change, public debate will have little effect on industrial farming practices.
2. In the second paragraph, the information about potato-growing practices in the
industrial model of agriculture serves to:
- A give an example of a potential problem that Native farming practices could help to alleviate.
- B show the likely global consequences of a possible food shortage caused by industrial farming practices.
- C show how pests and disease are less effectively resisted by crops grown in the industrial farming model.
- D give an example of how public debate has had little effect on the agricultural practices of the North.
- E give an example of how Native farming practices and industrial farming practicesderive from different climatic conditions.
3. The passage states that which of the following is true of the small number of potato varieties that account for most of the potatoes produced on Earth currently?
- A They are grown in the Andean region.
- B They all require very similar soil and climate conditions.
- C They are no longer suited to their environment.
- D They are based on genetic material from crops developed by indigenous peoples.
- E They make optimal use of available soil and water resources.
4. As it is used in the passage, the underlined word "fabricated" most nearly means:
- A woven.
- B falsely stated.
- C fully clothed.
- D manufactured.
- E unwrapped.