Passage types

It’s essential you’re able to identify what kind of passage you’re reading. Each passage has important things to note about it. These notes will help you find your answers more quickly and save you time.

It’s also important to remember the following:

1. There are four reading passages on the test.
2. These four reading passages will come in the same order every time.

We briefly discussed passage types previously. In this chapter, we’ll go into more depth so you can better recognize them when you sit for the test.

Literary narrative

The first passage of the ACT Reading section is called a literary narrative passage. It may be called by a few different synonyms on the top of the page (e.g., prose fiction, fiction). But the same strategies that we discuss here apply.

The literary narrative is a short, often fictional story that is centered around characters. The literary narrative focuses on the perceptions, observations, feelings, and thoughts of characters. These things will be important to mark as relevant information like we discussed in the Annotating chapter.

Accompanying a literary narrative, there are often several questions that ask what’s going on in a character’s head.

Here’s an example of such a question.

Thus, It’s vital to note the perceptions, observations, feelings, and thoughts of the characters.

What relevant information should you look for in a literary narrative passage?

Social science

The second passage that you will come upon is always the social science passage.

The social science passage is a nonfiction text describing a historical person, event, or place. It’s like reading part of a history book. So, it only makes sense that the relevant information you should take note of on the social science passage is what makes it part of history.

What do we mean by that? More specifically, you want to take note of the following:

1. The character’s background
2. The character’s accomplishments
3. The character’s values and beliefs

Even though the list above uses the word “character,” it’s important to remember that we could be talking about the background of an event or place rather than a person (or character) depending on what the passage is talking about.

Take a look at this example of a social science passage question.

The question above is asking about the character’s values and beliefs—one of the important things to take note of from a social science passage.

Question: The social science passage is nonfiction. True or false?

Humanities

The third passage you will see on the test is always the humanities passage. This is a cross between the first two passages we already discussed (literary narrative and social science). It is a nonfiction text, like the social science passage, but it also has the possibility of being a story-like text surrounding the thoughts and feelings of a character.

So, where do we go from here?

The trick is that the Humanities passage will either behave like a literary narrative or like a social science passage… and you have to find out which it is.

But fear not. There’s a simple way to find it out.

1. First, ask yourself if the passage is in first person (using language like “I” or “me”) or in third person (meaning the author is not a character in the text).
2. If the passage is in first person, then treat it like you would a literary narrative. Humanities passages in first person typically focus on philosophical observations or lessons the characters learn.
3. If the passage is in third person, then treat it like you would a social science passage.

So, what things should you annotate as relevant information if the humanities passage is in third person?

What things should you take note of if the humanities passage is in first person?

Natural science

The fourth and final passage in the reading section is the natural science passage. This is a text about scientific topics like biology, chemistry, or physics. Thankfully, there is no need for previous scientific knowledge to do well on the natural science passage. They will give you all the information you need to answer the questions.

The natural science passage is similar to the social science passage in that its purpose is to inform the reader about real-life things. So, just as you want to take note of “what makes history” (or what is important to history) when you’re reading a social science passage, you want to take note of what is important to science when reading a natural science passage.

What do we mean by that?

We care about big picture things. Key theories about why the Milky Way has such a definitive warp might be appropriate things to annotate if they are expanded upon throughout the entire passage. Little details said only once and then never mentioned again (like the fact that the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is about 50,000 light-years from the galactic center of the Milky Way) are likely not important.

Other key things to look out for:

1. Clearing up scientific misconceptions
2. What the author is trying to prove in the last paragraph

Even though it might seem like the natural science passage is paragraph after paragraph of scientific facts, there is a point to the author saying all of these things.

Often, the author will identify a scientific misconception near the beginning or even middle of the passage and then clear it up in the end—serving to prove something in the last couple paragraphs. These overarching ideas are the ones to note for later and to annotate as relevant information.

Here’s an example of a question that asks about these overarching ideas.

So to recap, what things are important to mark as relevant information from a natural science passage?

Paired passages

One of the above passages will also be what’s called a paired passage. It looks something like this:

There will be a “Passage A” and a “Passage B,” and your job is to navigate two sets of text along with their questions.

Thankfully, there is a strict pattern to the question set for paired passages. They will:

1. First, ask questions about Passage A (for this particular passage above, that includes questions 1–3)
2. Second, ask questions about Passage B (questions 4–7 on the passage above)
3. Third, ask questions comparing both passages (8–10 on the passage above)

On certain paired passage question sets, they may ask more questions about Passage A than Passage B or vice versa. The takeaway is that they will always appear in order.

Knowing that the questions appear in order is important because it affects how you approach the paired passage. Here’s what we recommend:

1. Read Passage A
2. Answer the questions for Passage A
3. Read Passage B
4. Answer the questions for Passage B
5. Answer the questions that ask about both passages

If you had to guess, why do you think we suggest reading only Passage A before starting to answer the questions?

You now know the different passage types you’ll encounter on the ACT Reading section. Well done. If you can remember this come test day, you’ll have a distinct advantage over your peers on the ACT.

Remember, the ACT might be challenging, but parts of the test are incredibly predictable. You now know which passages appear on the test, what they cover, and the content you will be quizzed on. So, when you sit for the test, you’ll know what to remember to raise your score.

Key points

There are four passage types that will show up on the ACT Reading section. You will see them in this order every time:

1. Literary narrative
2. Social science
3. Humanities
4. Natural science

For each, you should take note of different things to help you answer the questions:

• Literary narrative: the perceptions, observations, feelings, and thoughts of characters
• Social science: the character’s background, accomplishments, values/beliefs, and things that make history
• Humanities: this could either behave like a literary narrative or a social science passage; it should be annotated accordingly.
• Natural science: what is scientifically important, clearing up scientific misconceptions, what the author is trying to prove in the last paragraph