ACT English intro

Welcome to Achievable’s ACT English section. Before you start reading the other English chapters, give this section a read.

Scoring well on the ACT doesn’t require a genius-level IQ or a 4.0+ GPA at all. The key to raising your score on the ACT English section isn’t mastering every grammar rule in the English language. Instead, you need to become familiar with the test itself.

While it’s crucial to master the individual concepts of the ACT English test, it’s just as vital to know the general structure of the test. In this chapter, you’ll learn what to expect when you take the ACT English section on test day.

What is the ACT English section?

The English section of the ACT consists of five essays or passages. You’ll need to read each essay as if you were an editor and decide what parts of the essay need edits or revisions.

The essays or passages will cover specific topics across many genres. Typically, each of the five passages contains 15 questions. Overall, the ACT English section has 75 questions (5 passages containing 15 questions per passage).

Additionally, the test is timed—you’ll have 45 minutes to complete the entire test.

You’ll have roughly 9 minutes per passage and 36 seconds per question.

Conventions of standard English

A conventions of standard English question might come to mind when you think of an ACT English question. These questions will test your ability to correctly use punctuation, sentence structure, and other grammar mechanics. According to ACT.org, these questions make up 52–55% of the ACT English section. We break down all the tricks you need for these questions in the following units:

• Punctuation
• Conventions of usage
• Sentence structure

Production of writing

Production of writing quizzes test your rhetorical skills, not your grammar skills. Instead of focusing on specific words, phrases, or sentences, these questions require you to identify the purposes of the main ideas of a paragraph of the entire passage. According to ACT.org, the production of writing quizzes make up 29–32% of the questions in the ACT English section.

You will find all the techniques you’ll need to answer these questions correctly in the following units:

• Topic development
• Organization, unity, and cohesion

Knowledge of language

Knowledge of language questions require you to make decisions about a sentence or phrase’s style and tone. These questions make up 13–19% of the ACT English section. Therefore, you’ll see these question types far less than the other ACT English question types. Everything you know about how to answer the knowledge of language questions is summarized in the following units:

• Concise rule
• Vocabulary
• Rhetorical style

How to beat the ACT English section

Beating the ACT English section gets a lot easier when you know and follow the rules in these upcoming chapters. Here’s a video with some tips for mastering the ACT English section:

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