Transcript ACT English - mrs. t`s english 11

About the ACT English Test
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The ACT English Test
• On the ACT English Test students have 45 minutes to
read five passages or essays on a variety of subjects and
answer 75 multiple-choice questions about them, an average
of 15 questions per passage.
• The English Test is designed to measure ability to
accomplish the wide variety of decisions involved in revising
and editing a given piece of writing. An important part of
revision and editing decisions is a good understanding of the
conventions of standard written English.
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Categories of Questions on the ACT English Test
The questions fall into two categories:
• Usage/Mechanics (punctuation, grammar and usage,
sentence structure)
• Rhetorical Skills (writing strategy, organization, style)
Students will receive a score for all 75 questions and
two subscores--one based on 40 Usage/Mechanics questions
and the other based on 35 Rhetorical Skills questions.
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• Students will not be tested on spelling or on how
well they can recall specific rules of grammar.
• Grammar and usage are tested only within the
context of the essay. They also won’t be tested directly
on their vocabulary, but the better the vocabulary, the
better they are equipped to answer questions that involve
choosing the most appropriate word.
• The questions and essays are side-by-side for easy
reference.
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The Usage/Mechanics questions focus on the conventions
of punctuation, grammar and usage, and sentence structure and
formation.
Punctuation questions involve identifying and correcting
the following misplaced, missing, or unnecessary punctuation
marks:
• commas
• apostrophes
• colons and semicolons
• parentheses and dashes
• periods, question marks, and exclamation points
The questions address not only the rules but also the use of
punctuation to express ideas clearly.
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Usage and grammar questions involve choosing the best
word or words based on considerations of the conventions of
grammar and usage. Questions will cover the following:
• Grammatical Agreement
* subject and verb
* pronoun and antecedent
* adjectives and adverbs with corresponding nouns
and verbs
• Verb Forms (principal parts, tense)
• Pronoun Forms and Cases
• Comparative and Superlative Modifiers
• Idioms
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Sentence Structure questions involve the effective
formation of sentences, including dealing with the relationships
between and among clauses, placement of modifiers, and shifts
in construction.
• Subordinate or Dependent Clauses
• Run-on Sentences
• Comma Splices
• Sentence Fragments
• Misplaced Modifiers
• Shifts in Construction
Many questions about sentence structure and formation will
ask about how clauses and phrases are linked. This means that
punctuation or lack of punctuation should be considered.
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Rhetorical Skills
Writing Strategy questions focus on the choices made
and strategies used by a writer in the act of composing or
revising an essay.
These questions may ask students to make decisions
concerning
• the appropriateness of a sentence or essay in
relation to a particular audience or purpose
• the effect of adding, revising, or deleting
supporting material
• the effective choice of an opening, transitional,
or closing sentence.
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Rhetorical Skills
Organization questions deal with the issues of
• order
• coherence
• unity.
Style questions involve effective word choices in terms of
• writing style
• tone
• clarity
• economy
Style questions require a general understanding of the essay
as a whole.
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According to Sparknotes on Grammar and Usage
• The passages usually cover a variety of subjects,
ranging from historical discussions to personal
narrative.
• Ten (10) questions will be on punctuation. You will
be asked to identify and correct any misplaced,
misused, or missing punctuation marks. The most
commonly tested on the ACT are, in order of
decreasing frequency, commas, apostrophes, colons,
and semicolons.
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According to Sparknotes on Grammar and Usage
• Twelve (12) questions will be on basic grammar and
usage. These questions usually target a single incorrect
word that violates the conventional rules of English
grammar. These questions test your knowledge of
agreement issues and verb forms and cases.
• Eighteen (18) questions are on sentence structure. These
tend to deal with the sentence as a whole. They test you
on clause relationships, parallelism, and modifier
placement.
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According to Sparknotes on Grammar and Usage
• Commas, apostrophes, semicolons, and colons are on
every ACT English test. Sometimes parentheses, dashes,
periods, question marks, and exclamation points are.
• Many of the questions will ask you to correct phrases
that are fine for spoken English but not for formal
written English.
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According to Sparknotes on Grammar and Usage
• Sentence structure is a BIG DEAL when it comes to
usage/mechanics problems. You need to know
* connecting and transitional words
- coordinating conjunctions
- adverbial conjunctions
- subordinating conjunctions
* subordinate or dependent clauses
- knowing when to coordinate and when to
subordinate ideas
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According to Sparknotes on Grammar and Usage
• (continued) Sentence structure is a BIG DEAL when
it comes to usage/mechanics problems. You need to
know
* sentence fragments
* comma splices
* run-on sentences
* misplaced modifiers
- dangling modifiers
* parallelism
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• Twelve (12) questions are on Writing Strategy. These
questions are concerned with the effectiveness of a
passage. The passages require that you understand the
point, purpose, and tone of a passage.
• When answering Writing Strategy questions, you must
decide the best way to support a point with evidence, to
introduce and conclude paragraphs, to make a transition
between paragraphs, or to phrase a statement.
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• Eleven (11) Organization questions can deal with
individual sentences, individual paragraphs, or the
passage as a whole. They will ask you either to
restructure the passage or paragraph or to decide on the
best placement of a word or phrase within a sentence.
• Twelve (12) Style questions focus on effective word
choice. They will ask you to eliminate redundancy and
to select the most appropriate word or phrase.
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• (Style) In order to answer style questions correctly, you
need to understand the tone of a passage, and you need to
have a good eye for clearly written English.
• Rhetorical Skills tend to be more difficult than
Usage/Mechanics questions. Usage/Mechanics require
that you understand grammatical rules. The Rhetorical
Skills questions require a sense of good writing, which
must be developed through review and practice.
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• In the English section, answer the questions in the
order that they appear. There is NO order of difficulty.
• The Usage/Mechanics questions appear beside the
section of the passage that they refer to. For the most
part, the Rhetorical Skills on the passage as a whole
appear at the end of the passage.
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• Guess! On the English section if you come to a
question you can’t answer, simply guess and move on.
• Don’t move on to a new passage without answering all
the questions from the previous one.
• Eliminate answer choices. Educated guessing is
always better than blind guessing.
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• When you have a question with multiple errors, try
to spot one error and use POE (process of
elimination).
A.Cathys’ friends left they’re bags in the room.
B.Cathy’s friends left there bags in the room.
C.Cathys friends left their bags in the room.
D.Cathy’s friends left their bags in the room.
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According to Sparknotes on Rhetorical Skills
• Don’t be afraid to choose “NO CHANGE.” This
should be the correct answer approximately 20% of the
time.
• The answer choice “OMIT” means what is underlined
should be removed. Use it when you know that the
passage reads better with a redundant or irrelevant
statement eliminated.
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According to Princeton Review—ACT English Test
• Think of it as an editing test. Your mission is to make each
passage as clear and as well written as possible.
• There is no order of difficulty of the passages or the
questions.
• On this section, think four words: Complete, Consistent,
Clear, Concise.
• Spot the error and then eliminate the answers that don’t fix
it.
According to Princeton Review—ACT English Test
• NO CHANGE is the correct answer about one-fourth of the
time that it appears.
• Choose a letter of the day. If a question is too hard or timeconsuming, use your letter of the day and move on.
• Always read to the end of the sentence before working the
question. Otherwise, you cannot correctly judge whether the
ideas are complete or incomplete.
• Think of punctuation as traffic signals: stop and go.
According to Princeton Review—ACT English Test
STOP signals:
• period
• semicolon
• comma + FANBOYS
• question mark
• exclamation mark
FLOW without unnecessary interruption:
• comma
• NO punctuation
According to Princeton Review—ACT English Test
• If you cannot cite a reason to use a comma, don’t use it.
• An idiom is a figure of speech that follows no rules. Most
idioms on the ACT involve a preposition.
• If you can count something (like dollars), use fewer, number,
and many. If you can’t count something (like cash) use less,
amount, and much. More works with both.
• ACT plays favorites with verbs, pronouns, apostrophes,
and transitions.
According to Princeton Review—ACT English Test
• OMIT is correct half the time it appears. If the underlined
portion isn’t necessary to make the sentence Complete,
Consistent, or Clear, get rid of it.
• Questions with EXCEPT/LEAST/NOT are becoming
increasingly popular, but they can also be one of the trickiest
because the correct answer is grammatically wrong.
Example: He returns with a dozen bagels and spreads them out
ceremoniously across the kitchen table while the house is still
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as hushed as a whisper.
2.Which of the following substitutions to the underlined
portion would be LEAST acceptable?
F. top of
G. on top of
H. on
I. over
and
English
If your students are entering 11th and 12th
grade without knowing basic grammar
usage, then consider establishing an
Vertical Team. The amount of learning that
must precede the taking of a test such as the
ACT cannot fall on one teacher or grade
level.
Examine all the skills on the various parts of tests and your
school’s test scores. What are the weakest areas at your
school? Consider where to introduce certain skills. You
might even try to get your feeder middle schools involved.