ACT ENGLISH STUDY GUIDE

ACT English General Format •5 short essays, each with •15 questions •45 minutes to do 75 questions •Category 1: Usage/Mechanics - grammar and usage, sentence structure, and punctuation •Category 2: Rhetorical Skills - style, organization, writing strategy General Strategies 1. Read the whole sentence. 2. Read the whole paragraph. 3. Read the whole passage. 4. Read all the choices. 5. Eliminate and Guess. Any time a verb is underlined, check the following things 1. Agreement - the subject and verb must agree in number • Who is performing the action? • search for the core sentence: the subject and verb may be separated by interrupting clauses - ex: The dog that I got from the pound last week is barking. 2. Tense - a verb's tense tells us when the action takes place • Be aware of CONSISTENCY • the present perfect is formed with the present tense of the verb "to have" plus the past participle of the main verb -ex: Bob has been class president since 2006. • the past perfect is formed with the past tense verb "to have" plus the past participle of the main verb (it is the past of the past) -ex: Lucas had read the book before he saw the film adaptation. 3. Irregular verbs and past participles -ex: choose, chose, (had/have) chosen 4. Active (performing action) vs. Passive (receiving action) • look at the context to decide whether the verb should be active or passive Any time a pronoun is underline, check the following things 1. Agreement - pronouns must agree in number with their antecedents: singular to singular; plural to plural •Who or what does the pronoun refer to? -ex: The age of some TREES is determined by counting their rings. •Watch out for (1)vague pronouns, (2)mystery pronouns, (3)generic pronoun shift and (4)noun agreement (1) Scott and Bob were partners until he quit. Scott and Bob were partners until Bob quit.