1. Courtesy of The Real ACT booklet, 3rd edition, copyright 2011
ACT Overview
By Penny Wood
Courtesy of The Real ACT booklet, 3rd edition, copyright 2011

2. What’s in this Presentation:
Parts of the test
Types of problems
Focus skills

3. Parts of the Test English – 75 questions, 45 minutes
Reading – 40 questions, 35 minutes
Math – 60 questions, 60 minutes
Science – 40 questions, 35 minutes
Writing – 1 response, 30 minutes

4. English Test Mechanics # questions Punctuation 10 Grammar and Usage 12
Sentence Structure 18
Rhetoric
Strategy
Organization 11
Style

5. Mechanics Example Questions
1. Choose the correction for the first underlined portion.
Otherwise, this difference points to significant underlying cultural values.
F. No change
G. on
H. at
J. Omit the underlined portion
If you plug in each of the answers, you will discover that no change is the best choice.

6. Rhetoric Example Questions
May be about strategy (purpose), point of view, word connotation, and style.
Might ask about making revisions to underlined portions of essays.
May ask about organization or paragraph progression.

7. Rhetoric Example Questions
1. In the early 1900s the O’odham became acquainted with marching bands and woodwind instruments (which explains the presence of saxophones in waila).
Given all the choices are true, which one is most relevant to the focus of the paragraph?
A. NO CHANGE
B. (although fiddles were once widely used in waila bands).
C. (even though they’re now often constructed of metal).
D. (which are frequently found in jazz bands also).
Choice A would keep the phrase as is. It is the phrase that gives the best example of the main idea (a saxophone is a marching band and a woodwind instrument).

8. Summary Grammar – about 60% of total test
Rhetoric – about 40% of total test (word choice, connotation, paragraph progression, point of view, purpose, style)

9. Focus Skills Recall and Apply Grammar Rules
Teach Using Main Ideas to Help with Rhetoric Questions (key words)
Both these skills we taught with success on the Graduation Exam
Test format is a different – sometimes there is no question, only an underlined portion of a passage and choices given

10. Reading – 40 questions, 35 minutes
Reading Test
Reading – 40 questions, 35 minutes

11. Four Sections of the Reading Test
Prose
Humanities
Social Science
Natural Science

12. Social Science: This passage is adapted from Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine M. Benyus (©1997 by Janine M Benyus) If anybody’s growing biomass, it’s us. To keep our system from collapsing on itself, industrial ecologists are attempting to build a “no-waste economy.” Instead of a linear production system, which binges on virgin raw materials and spews out unusable waste, they envision a web of closed loops in which a minimum of raw materials comes in the door, and very little waste escapes. the first examples of this no-waste economy are collections of companies clustered in an ecopark and connected in a food chain, with each firm’s waste going next door to become the other firm’s raw material or fuel. In Denmark, the town of Kalundborg has the world’s most elaborate prototype of an ecopark. Four companies are co-located, and all of them are linked, dependent on one another for resources or energy. The Asnaesverket Power Company pipes some of its waste steam to power the engines of two companies: the Statoil Refinery and Novo Nordisk (a pharmaceutical plant). Another pipeline delivers the remaining waste steam to heat thirty-five hundred homes in the town, eliminating the need for oil furnaces. The power plant also delivers its cooling water, now tasty warm, to fifty-seven ponds’ worth of fish. The fish revel in the warm water, and the fish farm produces 250 tons of sea trout and turbot each year.
Waste steam from the power company is used by Novo Nordisk to heat the fermentation tanks that produce insulin and enzymes. This process in turn creates 700,000 tons of nitrogen-rich slurry a year, which used to be dumped into the fjord. Now, Novo bequeaths it free to nearby farmers--a pipeline delivers the fertilizer to the growing plants, which are in turn harvested to feed the bacteria in the fermentation tanks. Meanwhile, back at the Statoil Refinery, waste gas that used to go up a smokestack is now purified. Some is used internally as fuel, some is piped to the power company, and the rest goes to Gyproc, the wallboard maker next door. The sulfur squeezed from the gas during purification is loaded onto trucks and sent to Kemira, a company that produces sulfuric acid. The power company also squeezes sulfur from its emissions, but converts most of it to calcium sulfate (industrial gypsum), which it sells to Gyproc for wallboard.
1. According to the passage, waste emissions from the Asnaesverket Power Company are used to help produce all of the following except:
The key to this question is understanding first that you are looking for the answer that is not in the passage. Then, you just have to dig for the answers, which are underlined in the passage.
insulin
heating oil
plant fertilizer
industrial gypsum

13. relocating their operations to a common geographic area in Europe
Although Kalndborg is a cozy co-location, industries need not be geographically close to operate in a food web as long as they are connected by a mutual desire to use waste. Already, some companies are designing their processes so that any waste that falls on the production-room floor is valuable and can be used by someone else. In this game of “designed offal,” a process with lots of waste, as long as it’s “wanted waste,” may be better than one with a small amount of waste that must be landfilled or burned. As author Daniel Chiras says, more companies are recognizing that “technologies”that produce by-products society cannot absorb are essentially failed technologies.”
So far, we’ve talked about recycling within a circle of companies. But what happens when a product leaves the manufacturer and passes to the consumer and finally to the trash can? Right now, a product visits one of two fates at the end of its useful life. It can be buried in a landfill or incinerated, or it can be recaptured through recycling or reuse.
Traditionally, manufacturers haven’t had to worry about what happens to a product after it leaves their gates. But that is starting to change, thanks to laws now in the wings in Europe (and headed for the United States) that will require companies to take back their durable goods such as refrigerators, washers, and cars at the end of their useful lives. In Germany, the take-back laws start with the initial sale. Companies must take back all their packaging or hire middlemen to do the recycling. Take-back laws mean that manufacturers who have been saying, “This product can be recycled,” must now say, “We recycle our products and packaging.”
When the onus shifts in this way, it’s suddenly in the company’s best interest to design a product that will either last a long time or come apart easily for recycling or reuse. Refrigerators and cars will be assembled using easy-open snaps instead of glued-together joints, and for recyclability, each part will be made of one material instead of twenty. Even simple things, like the snack bags for potato chips, will be streamlined. Today’s bags, which have nine thin layers made of seven different materials, will not doubt be replaced by one material that can preserve freshness and can easily be remade into a new bag.
8. According to the passage, the common element for companies that want to be part of a food web is their mutual interest in:
relocating their operations to a common geographic area in Europe
providing industrial waste to private homes and farming operations
eliminating the need for raw materials
using industrial waste as raw materials
Once again, use your clue words to help you find the answer. In the paragraph above, it is clear that the waste of one company should be used by another company “someone else.”

14. Reading Summary In Sample Passages, test questions were about:
Overall Main Idea 10%
Supporting Details with Key Words - 40%
Supporting Details or Main Idea with Inference (where you had to figure out word meaning or add info not directly stated) - 50%
Items with key words that lead to answers is about 75% overall

15. Focus Skill Use Key Words that match/lead the reader to answers
“Read and Dig” Strategy. Read questions first then look for answer
Very similar to skills and strategies used for graduation exam
Difference is the reading level is higher and passages are longer

16. Math – 60 questions, 60 minutes
Math Test
Math – 60 questions, 60 minutes

17. Types of Questions Basic Math What is 4% of 1000? A. 4 B. 4.4 C. 40
D. 44
E. 440

18. Types of Questions Basic Elementary Algebra
For all x, (x+ 4)(x-5) =
A. x2-20
B. x2-x-20
C. 2x-1
D. 2x2-1
E. 2x2-x+20v
Using the foil method, solve.
Front
Outer
Inner
Last
x2 -5x + 4x -20
x2– x-20

19. Types of Questions Intermediate Algebra
If x+y=1, and x-y=1, then y=?
A. -1
B. 0
C. ½
D. 1
E. 2
One of the easiest ways to solve this systems of equations problem is to plug in answers and solve for x until the same value for x is found. The only answer that results in x=1 for both equations. So the answer is B. Y has to be 0 to get the same result.

20. Types of Questions Use the formula y1-y2 X1-x2 7- (-3) -2-3 10 -5 =-2
Coordinate Geometry
What is the slope of the line containing the points (-2, 7) and (3, -3)?
F. 4
G. ¼
H. 0
J. -1/2
K. -2
Use the formula
y1-y2
X1-x2
7- (-3)
-2-3 10 -5
=-2

21. Types of Questions
Plane Geometry
If the measure of an angle is 37 ½ degrees, what is the measure of its supplement?
A. 52 ½
B. 62 ½
C. 127 ½
D. 142 ½
E. Cannot be determined from the information given
Knowing the definition of supplemental angles adding to 180 will help you find the correct answer. Take 180 and subtract it from 37 ½. The answer is thus 142 ½.

22. Summary Basic Math: 50% of Problems Algebra Problems – 25%
Geometry Problems: 15%
Algebra with Trigonometry Problems: 10%

23. Focus Skills Basic Math Skills (multiply, divide, percentages, etc)
Know Formulas (Distance, Pythagorean Theorem, Area, etc)
“Eric the Red Tutor” has a great page of formulas for the ACT Test (Google)
Different from grad exam in that geometry and trig are tested (only about 25% of test)

24. Science – 40 questions, 35 minutes

25. Types of Questions Reading and analyzing charts and tables
Making estimates using data from one or two tables or charts
Determining a missing piece of information to answer a question

26. 1. Students used 2 methods to calculate D, a car’s total stopping distance; D is the distance a car travels form the time a driver first reacts to an emergency until the car comes to a complete stop. In Method 1, R is the distance a car travels during a driver’s assumed reaction time of 0.75 seconds, and B is the average distance traveled once the brakes are applied. Method 2 assumes that D=initial speech in ft/sec x 2 sec. Table 1 lists R, B, and D for various initial speeds, where D was computed using both methods. Figure 1 contains graphs of D versus initial speed for Method 1 and Method 2.
Table 1 and Figure 1 adapted from Edwin F. Meyer III, Multiple Care Pileups and the Two-Second Rule. Copyright 1994 by The American Association of Physics Teachers.
1. Compared to R at an initial speed of 20 mi/hr, R at an initial speed of 80 mi/hr is
1/4 as great
1/2 as great
2 times as great
4 times as great
Most science questions ask you to use a table to answer the question. First, find initial speeds of 20 and 80 on the table. Then, look at R for both values. You can then see that 88 is 4 times greater than 22.

27. 7. According to Figure 4, the chain with the Y0 = 20 cm will have a fall time on the Moon of 2.0 sec if L is approximately
75 cm
94 cm
113 cm
135 cm
The first thing to do is find the 2.0 sec line that is closest to the Moon + marks. After this, the question asks the amount for L. The amount of L = 120 for about 2.4 seconds. The amount thus for 120 at 2 sec will be less than The closest estimate is 113 cm.

28. 10. The acceleration due to gravity on the surface at the planet Neptune is approximately 11.7 miles/sec2. Based on Figure 3, a chain’s fall time, calculated for Neptune’s surface and a given Y0 would be
less than its fall time at Jupiter’s surface
greater than its fall time at Jupiter’s surface, and less than its fall time at Earth’s surface
greater than its fall time at Earth’s surface, and less than its fall time at the Moon’s surface
D. greater than its fall time at the Moon’s surface
In order to answer this question, information from Table 1 is very useful. In fact, when answering any of these questions refer to all the info to help you. If Neptune’s acceleration is 11.7 miles per second, then it is between Earth and Jupiter’s acceleration. So, this tells us that on Figure 3, Neptune’s plots would be between Earth and Jupiter.

29. Summary
On Sample Tests 40% of the questions could be answered simply by reading the graphs
30% of questions were answered by making estimates based on the graphs
10% of questions were determined using extra information by looking at the graph
20% of questions required looking at two graphs or two pictures for the answer

30. Focus Skills Skills used in this practice test: Reading Tables
Forming Estimates based on the Tables
Finding missing information

31. Writing
1 Essay – 30 Minutes

32. Content of the Writing Test
Express judgments by taking a position on the issue
Maintain a focus on the topic
Develop a position by using logical reasoning and by supporting your ideas
Organize ideas in a logical way
Use language clearly and effectively according to Standard English conventions
30 Minutes to Write

33. Scores
The essay is scored holistically on a 1 – 6 scale with 6 being the highest score
*6 – Effective skill in response, few if any errors, good command of language
5 – Competent skill in response, organization is clear and logical, no distracting errors
4 – Adequate skill in response, focus is maintained, transitions may be simple, some distracting errors
*3 – Developing skill in response, limited development of ideas, focus may not be maintained, distracting errors may impede understanding
2 – Inconsistent or weak skill, repetition, minimal intro and conclusion, errors are frequent
*1 – Little or no skill, no understanding, few reasons, no logic, significant errors

34. Focus Skills Writing with organization and with clarity
Writing with few grammatical errors
Very similar to writing assessment except more emphasis on grammar

35. Summation
Experience from grad exam is applicable to preparing for the ACT
Only a few additional skills needed in addition to reading at a higher level
Test format is a little different – ACT website has a practice question each day