Major categories of test Act: English & reading Major categories of test
english
Usage and mechanics Punctuation (10-15% of questions) Unnecessary commas Parenthetical elements & commas Commas for ambiguity and series Apostrophes Colons & semicolons
Usage and mechanics, cont’d USAGE CONVENTIONS (15-20% OF QUESTIONS) Adjectives & adverbs Pronoun-antecedent agreement Comparative & superlative Pronouns Confusing pairs Subject-verb agreement Forming verbs Idiom Prepositions
Usage and mechanics, cont’d SENTENCE STRUCTURE & FORMATION (20-25% OF QUESTIONS) sentence structure disturbances Relative pronouns https://youtu.be/G7RgN9ijwE4 Verb tense & pronoun person Faulty coordination & subordination https://youtu.be/Hp2cbK5vO9U?list=PL9B99 BD1005632B6D Fragments & run-ons Misplaced modifiers & phrases Parallelism Participial phrases
Rhetorical skills Topic development (15-20% of questions) Accomplish purpose Identify purpose Relevance Writer’s goal
Rhetorical skills, cont’d Organization, unity, and cohesion (10-15% of questions) Introductions & conclusions Paragraph division Paragraph sequence Sentence placement Sentence sequence transitions
Rhetorical skills, cont’d Knowledge of language (15-20% of questions) Conjunctions Redundancy Style & tone Vague & clumsy writing Word choice
reading
Top five act reading categories Close reading 30-35% of questions) Paraphrase Locate Draw conclusions
Top five reading categories, cont’d Central ideas, themes & summaries (15-20% of questions) Central ideas & themes Summarize key ideas and details
Top five reading categories, cont’d Word meaning & word choice (15-20% of questions) Analyze word & phrase choices Interpret words & phrases
Top five reading categories, cont’d Purpose & point of view (10-15% of questions) Intent & purpose Point of view
Top five reading categories, cont’d Text structure (5-10% of questions) Analyze structure Function Relate to passage as a whole