ACT Reading Prep

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ACT Reading Prep

• Clues you can use!

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Reading Test

• Four passages
• Fiction/prose (short story or excerpt)
• Social Studies-anthropology, archaeology,
  biography, business, economics, education,
  geography, history, political science,
  psychology, and sociology
• Natural Science-anatomy, astronomy, biology,
  botany, chemistry, ecology, geology, medicine,
  meteorology, microbiology, natural history,
  physiology, physics, technology, and zoology
• Humanities-memoirs and personal essays and in the
  content areas of architecture, art, dance,
  ethics, film, language, literary criticism,
  music, philosophy, radio, television, and theater
• 40 Questions-35 minutes

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Strategy

• 8 minutes per passage questions
• Focus on the first three passages
• If necessary, rush the last passage
• Watch out for distracters
• Context clues for vocab

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Good News

• Easiest test of the four to get a score bump
• Wednesday Practice days

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Types of Questions

• Literal
• You can find the answer in the text
• Inferential
• You have to use the text and your mind to find
  the right answer

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Distracters

• An answer that distracts the test taker from the
  real answer
• Represents an error in logic
• Four kinds
• Distortion
• Switch
• Unsupported Positive
• Extreme

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Distortion

• Blatantly untrue
• Distorts the meaning or intent of the passage
• May use words from the passage, but change the
  wording
• Most popular

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Switch

• A true fact/detail from passage
• Does not answer the question
• An attempt to shift your attention from the
  question that was asked

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Unsupported Positive

• Sounds really nice, but cannot be supported by
  the facts of the passage
• Attractive because it may be universally true
  (outside of the article)

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Extreme

• Answer includes extremes always, never,
  completely
• If you can think of an exception, then the
  extreme answer is wrong.
• Not all extreme answers are wrong!

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From Creative Liar

• Scientists have wrapped up a decade-long study
  of a Zion-Benton Township High School teacher,
  and the results are shocking ZBTHS students
  have been mislead by a teacher the study referred
  to as Mr. G. Scientists collected data from a
  variety of sources interviews with current and
  past students, MEL-Con paragraphs, secret video
  recordings and class notes from Mr. G.
  Overwhelmingly, the scientists have found that
  students have been repeatedly told untrue
  information, from lies about Mr. Gs involvement
  in numerous wars (Revolutionary, World War II,
  and Vietnam), to fabrications about another
  teachers alleged wooden leg. While the
  scientists have concluded that Mr. G is a
  pathological liar, they are unsure about the
  effects on gullible students. Further studies
  are to come.

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Samplelabel the four answers

• What is the main idea of the passage?
• Mr. G truly cares about good story-telling so
  that students remember the information.
• Allegedly, a teacher at ZBTHS has a wooden leg.
• History teachers are always liars.
• Mr. G was injured in several wars, which likely
  explains his propensity for lying.

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Answers

• Unsupported positive
• Switch
• Extreme
• Distortion