If you’re like many of the students who come to me for private tutoring to drastically raise their ACT scores, chances are that your high school teachers have primarily taught you grammar through a case-by-case, trial-and-error method.
What I mean by that is: you write essays for English class and your instructor marks them up in red ink (or by using the Track Changes feature of your word processor). The teacher assumes that these corrections will lead you to naturally deduce the larger concepts that hold it all together. However, this system means you may not actually know the actual rules of grammar per se… like, the black-and-white, Option-A-is-“correct”-while-Option-B-is-“incorrect” RULES. Am I right?
For the past dozen years, almost ALL of my test prep students have told me that they hear my voice and “my” grammar rules in their heads while writing essays and papers. They also often say that what they’ve learned from me for the English section of the ACT has significantly improved their writing in ALL of their subjects at school (not to mention, writing their college application essays).
ACT English section basics
So, what are these mysterious “rules” of which I speak? The ones that will magically and swiftly carry you to a perfect 36 in the ACT English section? Lucky for you, I’m breaking down all the content that you’ll need to learn to master this section in today’s post. But first, you need to understand the framework of the section:
1) How is the English section of the ACT structured?
The ACT English section tests your ability to swiftly and accurately edit passages in grammatically correct—and rhetorically sound—ways. The section consists of 75 multiple choice questions that must be completed in 45 minutes for a regular-time test taker. The section is broken down into five passages, each with 15 questions. No passage is harder than another, and the difficulty level of the questions is random. You might have a hard question followed by an easy question. YOUR job is to accurately answer all 75 questions at a speed of 36 seconds per question. (Multiply that by 1.5 if you get extended time.)
2) What’s the format of questions on the ACT English section?
Most questions in the ACT English section are “underlined” questions, meaning that part of the passage is underlined, and the answer choices provide different options that could take the place of the underlined words. However, some questions are “boxed” (no words are underlined, but the part of the passage that’s being asked about is marked with a boxed question number), and some questions refer to the passage as a whole. In addition, certain questions will use the words “NOT” or “EXCEPT” and ask you to find the answer choice that DOESN’T work. In short, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with these different question types—and always be aware of which one you’re working with come test day—to ensure you don’t make careless errors and get docked points!
3) Should You Guess on the ACT English section?
If you have trouble completing all 75 questions within the 45 minutes you’re allotted (for regular-time test takers), you’ll need a guessing strategy. Luckily, I told you my best ACT guessing strategies in this post.
What Grammar Is Tested on the ACT English section?
Here are all the grammar topics you need to master to earn a top score on the ACT’s English section.
Key Grammar Rules for the English section of the ACT
These are the basics you need to know before you can do anything else!
1) ACT Grammar Vocabulary
Before you can understand how to identify the subject of a sentence—and not get thrown by a prepositional phrase—in order to correctly pair it with the proper verb conjugation…well, you need to have an understanding of what a “subject,” a “preposition” and a “conjugated verb” are in the first place! Though you may not have to recite the labels of all the parts of speech to get a question correct, you’ll still need to understand the differences between an “adverb” and an “adjective” to work accurately.
2) Subject-Verb Agreement
You need to understand how to identify the subject of a sentence or clause and correctly match it to the form of the verb that agrees with it in number (as in, singular or plural). In addition, you need to understand the eight major ways the ACT English section could try to trick you so you can’t locate the subject in the first place!
3) Pronouns
Did you know that a pronoun can be the subject of a sentence and that there are certain pronouns that can be used for things (but not people)? For the ACT, you need to understand what a pronoun IS and how to correctly match it in case and number to the noun it’s taking the place of in the sentence. You’ll also need to know how to be consistent with pronouns in a passage, how to fix ambiguous pronoun references, how to use emphatic or reflexive pronouns, and how to correctly use relative pronouns.
4) Verb Tense
You also need to know how to correctly use the most common verb tenses—past, present and future—as well as some of the less common ones: present progressive, present perfect, past perfect, and conditional tenses. In addition, you’ll be required to know how to incorporate irregular verbs correctly into a piece of writing.
ACT English section: Complete Sentence Questions
Now that you know the basics, you need to be able to structure sentences that are complete…not fragments and not run-ons!
5) Sentence or Fragment?
Which clusters of words would actually form a sentence, and which would not? You will need to understand which grammar “bare necessities” form a complete sentence…and the combinations that only give you fragments and incomplete sentences and clauses. You’ll also need to understand Coordinating Conjunctions and Subordinating Conjunctions.
6) Punctuation Rules
Once you can correctly identify which clusters of words can stand on their own and which cannot, you need to know the EXACT types of punctuation that you can use in each scenario. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish—combine two sentences, add extra information, combine one complete with one dependent clause, indicate possession, etc.—there are specific punctuation choices that work and that don’t work. My famed Punctuation Cheat Sheet breaks all of this down for you.
7) Transition Words
You know all those words that help you process what you’re reading by giving you signals about the relationship between one sentence and the next? Words like “however,” “additionally” and “therefore”? These are Transition Words, and you need to understand the different types of them, all the possible words you may come across on test day, as well as how each one is used grammatically.
8) Extra Information
Is a word or group of words necessary for a sentence to be complete—or does it merely give us some details that are nice to have? You’ll need to identify which words are totally necessary to a sentence—and which are merely extra information—and learn to punctuate them correctly to earn a top English score on the ACT!
Advanced Grammar Topics for a High ACT English Score
After you’ve learned to correctly form complete sentences, you need to know the following advanced topics that govern how to pick the correct word/wording and how to phrase your sentences so that your writing is crystal-clear and concise.
9) Comparisons
Are you comparing a person, thing or action to another? Or to many others? Depending on the situation, the way you express it differs, and the words you use differ! You’ll need to know the ins and outs of comparisons, superlatives, and common word pairs to master the English section.
10) Parallelism
When you use common word pairs or list multiple items, you need to structure them the same way. For instance, “Nina likes singing, dancing and to swim” is WRONG on the ACT, but “Nina likes singing, dancing, and swimming” is correct. However, it gets more complicated than that on the ACT!
11) Modifiers
When you add extra information or an introductory phrase to a sentence, it modifies the noun it’s closest to. And if the noun it’s closest to isn’t the noun it’s talking about…you have an ACT English problem that you need to fix!
12) Word Choice
On the ACT English section, “Word Choice” means much more than mere vocabulary: it means diction, idiom, and register. As in, do you know the difference between frequently confused words (like “illusion” and “allusion”)? Do you know which preposition goes with which verb or saying (why do we “listen to” instead of “listen on”?)? And finally, can you select the words that match the degree of formality in the passage?
13) Redundancy
Redundancy is when you repeat something again and again and again after you already said or wrote it. (See what I did there??) And redundancy is WRONG on the ACT’s English section! For a stellar score, you’ll need to identify when a sentence is redundant and fix it so it’s not.
14) Efficient Writing
Similar to Redundancy, the ACT tests your ability to edit passages for efficiency. What does that mean? It means that if a sentence is super long or clunky... it’s most likely WRONG. On the ACT, you’ll have to eliminate the clunkiness (and the passive voice!) to find the correct answer choice!
What Rhetorical Elements Should You Study for the ACT English section?
Many questions on the ACT English section aren't about grammar, punctuation or sentence structure at all. Instead, these questions are about the logical cohesion and flow of the passage as a whole. There are a few specific types of “rhetoric” questions that you’ll be tested on, so you need to understand how these questions work and understand your strategy for getting to the correct answer!
15) Adding and Deleting Sentences
Many ACT English questions will ask you if the writer should add a new sentence or delete a sentence that’s already in the passage. To answer, you’ll have to figure out if the sentence in mind is relevant. I show you my fool-proof system for answering this question type in this blog post.
16) “Goal” Questions
Another ACT English question essentially asks you to play a game of “Simon says” with your editing. Your task is to follow directions, even if you don’t like it.
17) “Primarily Lose” Questions
There’s also an ACT English question that asks you what the passage would “primarily lose” if the underlined portion were taken out.
18) “Writer’s Goal” Questions
A few questions on the ACT English section ask you something along the lines of, “If the writer’s goal here were to ______, would this passage accomplish that goal?” These questions are about recognizing the scope of the passage: is it more general or more specific?
19) Logical Order Questions
Finally, there will be questions on the ACT that ask you to figure out where a sentence or a paragraph should be placed, so that the paragraph and passage make logical sense! You can waste a lot of time on these questions…OR you can learn a system to do them efficiently!
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After YEARS teaching this stuff and getting fantastic scores (and college acceptances!) for my students, I finally wrote it all down in a concise, easy-to-read, captivating book that connects ALL the grammar dots so that you can ace the ACT’s English section! If you want to master ALL of the ACT English topics I just mentioned—as well as my proprietary tricks and strategies for all ACT English rhetorical question types—you can purchase my ACT Grammar Cram Plan here.
Alternatively, if you want to be taught by the master herself, you can find out how private tutoring with me works—and if I have availability—by contacting me here.
