An earlier post gives insight into the ACT exam as a whole. Let’s look at the Reading section of the ACT exam. Reading section is the second section of the ACT which is to be attempted after the English section.
Reading section overview
Reading section in the ACT has 40 questions to be answered in 35 minutes. Your ability to understand the points put forward by the passage is tested in this section. You have about 68 seconds per question including the reading time on an average.
This test contains 4 sections. Three of them contain a long passage in topics ranging across social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, and prose. One section would contain paired passage. Questions are related to the passage and may related to both the passages in the paired passage section. It is not intended to test rote-recalling of facts from the passages but focus on more finer details.
The areas tested in this section are Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, and Integration of ideas and details.
Key Ideas and Details (18 – 20 questions) – This area tests your ability to understand the key idea mentioned in the passage. What is the author trying to say? What is the central idea or theme behind this passage or paragraph? What is the flow of information like in the passage? Asking these questions when reading passages across subjects would be helpful to better place you to answering accurately.
Craft and Structure (10 – 12 questions) – This area tests your ability to understand the choices made by the author. Understanding the words rhetorically would make the meaning much more clear in these questions. A grasp of meanings across synonyms would help.
Example: He ought to have told me. He must’ve told me. He should’ve told me.
The first sentence tells that the person has a moral obligation to you <something>. The second sentence implies that there would be negative consequences had he not told you that <something>. The third sentence means that the person is recommended to tell you <something>. Not doing so would not result in negative consequences.
Understanding how the meaning of a statement change as the word choice changes is the key to scoring better in the reading section.
Integration of ideas and details (8 – 12 questions) – This area tests your ability to understand logically and connect the idea of the passage with the details mentioned. What is the claim the author is trying to make? What details corroborate the truth of the author’s claim and what contradicts the same? Understanding how the author gathers and presents evidence, the reasoning behind the evaluation of an idea is important.
Sample questions can be practiced on the ACT page
Related Articles:
Read about the Overview of the ACT
Read about the English Section of the ACT
Read about the Math Section of the ACT
Read about the Science Section of the ACT
Read about the Essay (Optional) Section of the ACT
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