Welcome to Achievable’s ACT English section. Before you move on to the other English chapters, read this section first.

Scoring well on the ACT doesn’t require a genius-level IQ or a 4.0+ GPA. The biggest key to raising your ACT English score isn’t memorizing every grammar rule in the English language - it’s getting familiar with how the test works.

It’s important to learn the individual concepts tested on ACT English, but it’s just as important to understand the overall structure of the section. In this chapter, you’ll learn what to expect on test day.

What is the ACT English section?

The ACT English section includes six passages. You’ll read each passage like an editor and decide what needs to be corrected or improved.

The passages cover a range of topics and genres. Typically, four passages have 10 questions and two passages have 5 questions. That means the ACT English section has 50 questions total (4 passages × 10 questions + 2 passages × 5 questions per passage).

The section is also timed: you’ll have 35 minutes to complete all 50 questions.

That works out to about 42 seconds per question.

Conventions of standard English

When most people think of ACT English, they’re thinking of conventions of standard English questions. These questions test your ability to use punctuation, sentence structure, and other grammar mechanics correctly. According to ACT.org, these questions make up 52–55% of the ACT English section. We break down the strategies you need for these questions in the following units:

• Punctuation
• Conventions of usage
• Sentence structure

Production of writing

Production of writing questions test your rhetorical skills, not your grammar skills. Instead of focusing on a specific word, phrase, or sentence, these questions ask you to think about the purpose and effectiveness of ideas across a paragraph or the entire passage. According to ACT.org, production of writing questions make up 29–32% of the ACT English section.

You’ll find the techniques you need for these questions in the following units:

• Topic development
• Organization, unity, and cohesion

Knowledge of language

Knowledge of language questions ask you to make decisions about style and tone. These questions make up 15–17% of the ACT English section, so you’ll see them less often than the other question types. Everything you need to know about answering knowledge of language questions is summarized in the following units:

• Concise rule
• Vocabulary
• Rhetorical style

How to beat the ACT English section

The ACT English section gets much easier when you know what the test is looking for and apply the rules you’ll learn in the upcoming chapters. Here’s a video with tips for mastering ACT English:

Now that you’ve been briefed, let’s dive in!