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ACT Reading: Strategies for Improving Your Score
- 1. 1 POINTS ACT Test Prep Reading Slides
- 3. Test Structure – Reading 3
- 4. Test Structure – Reading Passages 4 passages with 10 questions each (1 of which is Compare and Contrast) Total of 40 questions (four answer choices each) 3
- 5. Test Structure – Reading Passages 4 passages with 10 questions each (1 of which is Compare and Contrast) Total of 40 questions (four answer choices each) Time 35 minutes to complete 3
- 6. Test Structure – Reading Passages 4 passages with 10 questions each (1 of which is Compare and Contrast) Total of 40 questions (four answer choices each) Time 35 minutes to complete Question Types 1. Key Ideas & Details (55-60%) 2. Craft & Structure (25-30%) 3. Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (13-18%) 3
- 7. How do I improve on the Reading Section of the ACT? 4
- 8. You Can Improve – 3 Ways! Regular Reading • Incorporate reading into your daily habits. Strategies • Pick some of our strategies and stick with them! Practice, Practice, Practice • Take as many practice reading sections as you can. 5
- 9. Your success in the Reading Section Our Jobs: • Introduce approaches • Make recommendations • Facilitate practicing • Allow you to choose Your Jobs: • Experiment with strategies • Use patience and practice • Pick a strategy • PRACTICE! No One Strategy Works for Everyone Joint Effort 6
- 10. Approach the test understanding that the goal of the ACT test writers is to test your critical thinking abilities. They aren’t trying to trick you. There will ALWAYS be a specific piece of text that points you to your answer. FIND IT! General Mindset 7
- 11. Each question is equal in value. Points are scored while answering, not while reading. • There is no rule that says you have to go in numerical order by question. Key POINTS to Remember 8
- 12. Table of Contents 9 I. Timing II. Reading the Passage III. Compare and Contrast Passages IV. Reading/Answering the Questions V. Types of Questions
- 13. Mental awareness of time is key! 35 minutes for test 8 minutes – Prose Fiction/Literary Narrative 8 minutes – Social Science 8 minutes – Humanities 8 minutes – Natural Sciences 3 minutes – Flex When you start the test, take the start time and add 8 minutes four times. Write down these times and be aware of how you are doing in relation to them. Ex: Start at 10:00, write 10:08, 10:16, 10:24 ,10:32 and end at 10:35 Timing for the Overall Section 10
- 14. Table of Contents 11 I. Timing II. Reading the Passage III. Compare and Contrast IV. Reading/Answering the Questions V. Types of Questions
- 15. Four Passage Types 1. Prose Fiction/Literary Narrative (Fiction) Narrative, story, memoir 2. Social Science (Non-Fiction) History, psychology, economics, politics, architecture, social interactions 3. Humanities (Non-Fiction) Art, music, film technology, literature 4. Natural Sciences (Non-Fiction) Scientific article, research, technology, or other nature topic 12
- 16. Passage Types – Structure Fiction Non-Fiction Like a novel Tone and characterization are common questions. Descriptive language and dialogue among characters “Moral of the story” 3 of the 4 passages Factual, often objective Author has distinct opinion Traditional format Intro, body, conclusion 13
- 17. Approach to Reading Passages How to use your 8 minutes per passage: 2-3 minutes reading the passage Don’t skim! You need to make this time productive. 5-6 minutes answering the questions Time yourself reading passages until you can get in the 2- 3 minute range and feel comfortable with your knowledge of the passage. 14
- 18. What am I reading for? 1. Main Idea What is the point? What is the author’s stance? What is the thesis? 2. Mental (or written) Map Short summary: A few words for each fourth of the passage Note where details are in the passage, not what the details are Be able to refer back to the passage 15
- 19. Mental Map It’s only important for you to remember where a detail is and how to get to it, NOT what it is. Don’t waste time memorizing details. For the ACT, an analogy would be knowing where a country is on a map, not what its capital is! If you know where it’s located, you can find it on a map and identify its capital. 16
Editor's Notes
- Teacher Notes 1. The Reading section marks a transition from a content-driven test (English and Math) to a strategy-driven test. Accordingly, there are fewer slides for Reading and Science because they focus on strategies such as when to read, how long we should spend reading, and how to answer different question types. After choosing strategies, it will be critical to practice them thoroughly until we achieve comfort with our approaches and can then focus on timing.
- Teacher Notes The structure of the Reading section is consistent – we always have four passages with 10 questions each, adding to 40 questions in 35 minutes. The piece that is less consistent is the Compare and Contrast, which can show up as any one of the four passages and changes from one test to the next. There are three question types: Key Ideas and Details: more than half of questions are evidence-based details, meaning we should be able to cite a line of evidence in the passage that points us to the answer. Craft and Structure: these questions pertain to main ideas and “big picture” elements to writing (i.e. the purpose of a paragraph) Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: these questions can be inferences or compare and contrast questions; though there are only a few per test, they can be the hardest for many students The emphasis of this course is less on question types and more on how to read a passage or question effectively.
- Teacher Notes The structure of the Reading section is consistent – we always have four passages with 10 questions each, adding to 40 questions in 35 minutes. The piece that is less consistent is the Compare and Contrast, which can show up as any one of the four passages and changes from one test to the next. There are three question types: Key Ideas and Details: more than half of questions are evidence-based details, meaning we should be able to cite a line of evidence in the passage that points us to the answer. Craft and Structure: these questions pertain to main ideas and “big picture” elements to writing (i.e. the purpose of a paragraph) Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: these questions can be inferences or compare and contrast questions; though there are only a few per test, they can be the hardest for many students The emphasis of this course is less on question types and more on how to read a passage or question effectively.
- Teacher Notes The structure of the Reading section is consistent – we always have four passages with 10 questions each, adding to 40 questions in 35 minutes. The piece that is less consistent is the Compare and Contrast, which can show up as any one of the four passages and changes from one test to the next. There are three question types: Key Ideas and Details: more than half of questions are evidence-based details, meaning we should be able to cite a line of evidence in the passage that points us to the answer. Craft and Structure: these questions pertain to main ideas and “big picture” elements to writing (i.e. the purpose of a paragraph) Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: these questions can be inferences or compare and contrast questions; though there are only a few per test, they can be the hardest for many students The emphasis of this course is less on question types and more on how to read a passage or question effectively.
- Teacher Notes The structure of the Reading section is consistent – we always have four passages with 10 questions each, adding to 40 questions in 35 minutes. The piece that is less consistent is the Compare and Contrast, which can show up as any one of the four passages and changes from one test to the next. There are three question types: Key Ideas and Details: more than half of questions are evidence-based details, meaning we should be able to cite a line of evidence in the passage that points us to the answer. Craft and Structure: these questions pertain to main ideas and “big picture” elements to writing (i.e. the purpose of a paragraph) Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: these questions can be inferences or compare and contrast questions; though there are only a few per test, they can be the hardest for many students The emphasis of this course is less on question types and more on how to read a passage or question effectively.
- Teacher Notes This is a common question among students – sometimes with a pessimistic tone. Students have taken Reading sections for most of their academic careers, as far back as third grade. Whether they know it or not, they have established intuitive strategies. You might have students raise their hands and explain the strategies that they currently use. Some thought questions include, “Do you read first or start with the questions? How long do you spend reading? What are you reading for?” etc… The next slide will get into three ways we can improve a reading score.
- Teacher Notes As much as anything, this slide is a reminder that strategies and/or practice tests alone are not enough to maximize a Reading score. If the only reading we ever do is 80-100 line passages, then we are missing an opportunity to improve reading comprehension. Regular reading – something that can become a habit over several weeks or months of a course – is highly recommended for its ability to improve the speed and effectiveness of our read-throughs. The emphasis of class time is strategy and practice; we use a combination of timed and untimed practice. Untimed practice allows us to focus on accuracy when time is not a limiting factor, and then ultimately, we have to practice in an authentic, timed setting.
- Teacher Notes 1. This slide is a reminder that we are not trying to fit students through a mold and say that there is only one way to improve a reading score. Instead, your job as the instructor is to introduce approaches in the slides that follow, facilitate practice, and help students select the strategies that produce the most points.
- Teacher Notes The reminder is that many of the questions on the test and evidence-based details, meaning we are doing ourselves a disservice if we are not looking back at the text for evidence. If we find ourselves making assumptions or answering too many questions based on our memory of a brief read-through, then we are probably missing something! The exercises related to the Reading Section will include some in which students are asked to tie their answers to specific pieces of text.
- Teacher Notes The statements on this slide are “simple” on the surface level, but let’s take a deeper dive: Each question is equal in value: do not spend too much time on any one question; save a question for the end of the passage if needed. Points are scored while answering, not while reading: We make the point that “Points are scored while answering, not while reading” as a reminder that it becomes wasteful of time when we read for too many details. Students will soon learn that we are reading for “Main Idea” and “Mental Map,” not to learn everything about the passage Going in “order” by question number: Not only is there “no rule,” but we encourage students to approach the passages and individual questions beginning with those they find “easiest” and progressing to harder, more time-consuming passages/questions
- Teacher Notes You will notice that there is no “Content” section. Math and English rely heavily upon the content that students know, but the Reading and Science sections rely more on strategy and timing. Though we will not strictly time the first couple practice passages, timing is ultimately a significant factor for students, so we will talk about how to divide your time appropriately.
- Teacher Notes Students will develop a good sense of timing through practice, but they must always be aware of the time. Find the clock in the room, and bring a non-beeping watch! Note that this “8-Minute Rule” does not necessarily mean that we should drop everything and more onto the next passage at eight minutes. Rather, we should be conscious of the need to work quickly and more onto the next passage within a couple minutes to give ourselves a realistic chance at the later passages. Timing is a delicate balance because especially in the reading section, it is difficult to return to a passage once we have moved on from it. How do you split up the 8 minutes? Stay tuned!
- Teacher Notes 1. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A SOUND READ-THROUGH. We could work on question-based strategies endlessly, but they will be fruitless without reading effectively. In this section, we will consider questions such as how to read and how we can use the structure of an ACT reading passage to our advantage.
- Teacher Notes The four passage types always show up in this same order. Read through the subjects. Remember that the Compare and Contrast could be any of the four passages. Students should not always answer passages and questions in the order that they appear! This is true in all sections but especially in Reading and Science. Have students discuss the different passage types at their tables; each student should have his or her own strengths and weaknesses, but it can be helpful for students to talk about characteristics in passages that make them easier or harder. Common strategies: Save the Prose Fiction for last because the figurative language and lack of structure can be difficult for students Save the Compare and Contrast for last regardless of where it falls because it can be time-consuming and challenging
- Teacher Notes: This is a good time to provide some insight into the mind of the test-writers. In the same way that the ACT expects logical, organized writing from students in the Writing Section, it presents logical, organized writing structure in the Reading Section. As a result, we can expect to find an introduction, conclusion, thesis, etc. and can draw on that structure to find answers. Read through the structural elements that we expect to find in a fiction or non-fiction passage; discuss how these elements can be helpful to us. For example, we expect to find “big picture” information in the introduction or conclusion, whereas detailed evidence is contained within the body.
- Teacher Notes For most students, the goal should be to read a passage in 2-3 minutes, leaving 5-6 minutes to answer the questions. Exceptions include students with extended time and those with scores in the teens or low twenties who can improve their scores by answering questions from 3 passages very well and not worry about finishing the fourth passage. Students may try to debate the rule related to skimming. Their understanding of skimming may be different than what this implies. In the next few slides, we will address how to appropriately read (and not skim). You might ask students how they distinguish between “reading” and “skimming.” At POINTS, we would say that skimming is the act of looking at words and possibly picking up a few random details but failing to arrive at the main idea. When we read, we hit every word but focus on the main idea and formation of a mental map (see next slide). Students will have many practice opportunities in class and for homework in which they will time themselves and develop a sense of how long they have to read a particular passage.
- Teacher Notes As a lead-in to this slide, ask the students to articulate the purpose of the read-through: “What are you reading for?” It can be a very difficult question to answer, but we need to clarify so as not to waste time reading the wrong things. If a student’s definition of “skimming” includes finding all of these elements, then yes, skimming is fine. For most people, though, skimming means only reading the first sentence in each paragraph and glancing over the rest of the sentences before moving to the next paragraph (or some variant). The latter version described is NOT adequate unless time is a limiting factor on the last passage. After this slide, every student should be able to answer the question of “what they are reading for.” Soon, students will practice these read-throughs.
- Teacher Notes Talk through this analogy: if we know a country’s location on the map, then we do not have to memorize its capital; instead, we can look at the map if someone asks for a capital. It’s similar for the Mental Map on the ACT Reading section. We want to know where details are, but not necessarily what they are, knowing that we can refer back. Consider it an open-book quiz! The goals of the Mental Map are two-fold: (1) To have a brief summary of each paragraph of section as we go and (2) to stay focused, knowing it is our job not just to let the words pass in front of our eyes but to summarize what we read.
- Teacher Notes 1. The first practice read-through will be completed a couple paragraphs at a time as a class. Students may read off the slide and make notes in their binders, or they can refer to Passage #4 (Natural Sciences) in the 2016-17 Preparing for the ACT practice test. Remember that the goal is to read for a Main Idea and Mental Map, which should then be the focal point of discussion among students.
- Teacher Notes After students have been given a minute or so to read, enter into a discussion regarding the contents of the paragraphs. We want to begin by reading the introductory sentence or two because they give us a sense of the paragraph’s topic. In this example, we learn that the article is titled “The Jaws that Jump” and was published in the Natural History Magazine. At this point, you can call on students to describe the main idea and the summary (map) of each paragraph. Examples of map summaries are given, though there is not necessarily a “right and wrong.”
- Teacher Notes After students have been given a minute or so to read, enter into a discussion regarding the contents of the paragraphs. We want to begin by reading the introductory sentence or two because they give us a sense of the paragraph’s topic. In this example, we learn that the article is titled “The Jaws that Jump” and was published in the Natural History Magazine. At this point, you can call on students to describe the main idea and the summary (map) of each paragraph. Examples of map summaries are given, though there is not necessarily a “right and wrong.”
- Teacher Notes After students have been given a minute or so to read, enter into a discussion regarding the contents of the paragraphs. We want to begin by reading the introductory sentence or two because they give us a sense of the paragraph’s topic. In this example, we learn that the article is titled “The Jaws that Jump” and was published in the Natural History Magazine. At this point, you can call on students to describe the main idea and the summary (map) of each paragraph. Examples of map summaries are given, though there is not necessarily a “right and wrong.”
- Teacher Notes 1. Paragraphs 3 and 4
- Teacher Notes 1. Paragraphs 3 and 4
- Teacher Notes 1. Paragraphs 3 and 4
- Teacher Notes Paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 When you complete a discussion of the final paragraph, consider the passage as a whole: Introduction: impressive defenses by ants Trap jaw prey technique Analogy for energy transfer; research intro Research findings re locomotion Locomotion type 1: escape jumping Locomotion type 2: bouncer defense Conclusion: evolution of the trap-jaw Seems like a logical structure! We would now be in a great position to answer the questions, which students may do in groups if time permits. Time permitting, students may also practice their main idea/mental map strategies on the Prose Fiction passage, discussing the contents of the passage as a group before entering into the questions.
- Teacher Notes Paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 When you complete a discussion of the final paragraph, consider the passage as a whole: Introduction: impressive defenses by ants Trap jaw prey technique Analogy for energy transfer; research intro Research findings re locomotion Locomotion type 1: escape jumping Locomotion type 2: bouncer defense Conclusion: evolution of the trap-jaw Seems like a logical structure! We would now be in a great position to answer the questions, which students may do in groups if time permits. Time permitting, students may also practice their main idea/mental map strategies on the Prose Fiction passage, discussing the contents of the passage as a group before entering into the questions.
- Teacher Notes Paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 When you complete a discussion of the final paragraph, consider the passage as a whole: Introduction: impressive defenses by ants Trap jaw prey technique Analogy for energy transfer; research intro Research findings re locomotion Locomotion type 1: escape jumping Locomotion type 2: bouncer defense Conclusion: evolution of the trap-jaw Seems like a logical structure! We would now be in a great position to answer the questions, which students may do in groups if time permits. Time permitting, students may also practice their main idea/mental map strategies on the Prose Fiction passage, discussing the contents of the passage as a group before entering into the questions.
- Teacher Notes Paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 When you complete a discussion of the final paragraph, consider the passage as a whole: Introduction: impressive defenses by ants Trap jaw prey technique Analogy for energy transfer; research intro Research findings re locomotion Locomotion type 1: escape jumping Locomotion type 2: bouncer defense Conclusion: evolution of the trap-jaw Seems like a logical structure! We would now be in a great position to answer the questions, which students may do in groups if time permits. Time permitting, students may also practice their main idea/mental map strategies on the Prose Fiction passage, discussing the contents of the passage as a group before entering into the questions.