Transcript ACT/PSAE Reading Exam

ACT/PSAE Reading Exam
Workshop
Test Administration Schedule
Day 1:
 ACT English
45 minutes (75 questions)
 ACT Mathematics 60 minutes (60 questions)

ACT Reading 35 minutes (40 questions)

ACT Science 35 minutes (40 questions)
ACT Writing 30 minutes (one prompt question) OPTIONAL

Day 2:
 ISBE-Developed Science 40 minutes (45 questions)
 WorkKeys Applied Mathematics 45 minutes (33 questions)
 WorkKeys Reading for Information 45 minutes (33 questions)
How much time will you have?
You'll have 35 minutes to read 4
passages and answer 40 multiplechoice questions.
(8-8.5 minutes/passage + 10 questions)
Types of Passages

Prose Fiction (passages from short stories and novels)

Humanities (nonfiction passages with topics from arts
and literature, often biographies of famous authors,
artists, musicians, etc.)

Social Studies (nonfiction essays on anthropology,
archaeology, biography, business, economics,
education, geography, history, political science,
psychology, and sociology)

Natural Sciences (nonfiction essays on anatomy,
astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, geology,
medicine, meteorology, microbiology, natural history,
physiology, physics, technology, and zoology)
Scoring of the Reading Test
The passages are grouped into two pairs
for scoring:

Arts/Literature—includes Prose Fiction and
Humanities

Social Studies/Sciences—includes Social
Studies and Natural Sciences.
You'll get a total Reading score for all
40 questions and two subscores: one
for Arts/Literature and one for Social
Studies/Sciences.
Reading Test Content & Scoring Overview

40 questions
 4 passages
 35 minutes to finish the test
Reading Content
Prose Fiction
Humanities
Social Studies
Natural Sciences
Total
# of Questions
10
10
10
10
40
% of Test
25
25
25
25
100
Reading scores reported:
 Arts/Literature (Prose Fiction, Humanities)
 Social Studies/Sciences (Social Studies, Natural Sciences)
 Total test score
The ACT is a predictable test!

The format of
the test is the
same from year
to year.

You can change
your score
with practice.
Arts/Literature
Prose Fiction Passages
—tell a story about characters and about something
that happens to them
—ask questions about plot, character, mood, etc.
Humanities Passages
—describe or analyze ideas or works of art
—ask you to predict how the author would most
likely respond to a hypothetical argument or
situation
—ask you to infer or identify relationships among
events, ideas, people, trends, or ways of thinking
Social Studies/Sciences
Social Studies Passages usually present
information gathered through research.
—Look for names, dates, and concepts in these
passages, because you may be asked about causeand-effect relationships, comparisons, and the order of
events.
Natural Sciences Passages usually present
a science topic and an explanation of why
it is important.
—Pay close attention to cause-and-effect relationships,
comparisons, and sequences of events.
Types of Questions
1) Referring—find or use information
that is clearly stated in the passage
2) Reasoning—use passage
information that’s either stated or
implied in the passage and use it to
answer more complex questions
Content Categories of Reading
Questions
Significant details
 Main ideas
 Cause-effect
relationships
 Author’s voice and
method

Meanings of words
 Generalizations
 Comparative
relationships
 Sequence of events

Test-Taking Strategies

Pace yourself, but use the whole time.

Begin with the types of passages that are
easiest for you. (a.k.a “Triage”)

Know the instructions. Review them the
night before the exam so you don’t need to
spend valuable test-time reading them.

Watch out for camouflaged answers.
Test-Taking Strategies

Watch out for distracters (wrong answers),
which are there to break your concentration and
throw you off course.

The Four-Step System
Step 1: Find the lead words and phrases
Step 2: Scan the passage for lead words
Step 3: Skim and scribble
Step 4: The Loop

Answer all the questions! Do not leave any
blank.
Prose Fiction Passage
Allen’s grandmother was readying herself to leave. She was, in fact,
putting the final touches on her make-up which, as always, looked to Allen as
though someone had thrown it on her face with a shovel. As Mrs. Mandale placed
her newly purchased bracelet over her wrist, a looked of troubled ambivalence
came over her. “Perhaps this bracelet isn’t right for me,” she said. “I won’t wear
it.”
Waiting now for 30 minutes, Allen tried to be tolerant. “It is right for
you,” he said. “It matches your personality. Wear it.” The bracelet was a
remarkable illustration of poor taste. Its colors were vulgar and the structure
lacked any sign of thoughtful design. The truth is, it did match his grandmother’s
personality. All that she did and enjoyed was tasteless and induced in Allen a quiet
hopelessness.
Allen most likely encouraged his grandmother to wear her bracelet
because he:
A. found it colorful and approved of its appearance.
B. found its appearance pathetic and wished his grandmother to look
pretty.
C. was impatient with his grandmother for spending time worrying
about the bracelet.
D. felt the bracelet matched his grandmother’s bright personality.
Prose Fiction Sample Answer
Answer=C
Prose fiction requires that you “read
between the lines” and draw inferences
about the way the characters feel or
behave.
The does feels that neither the bracelet nor
his grandmother are pretty or bright; he is
trying “to be tolerant.”
Main Idea Sample Question
In the last couple of decades, Victorian houses have been enjoying
a renaissance. Recent generations raised on the skim milk of
modern architecture lately have acquired a taste for the butterfat
and flamboyance of late 19th century design. As a result, restored
Victorians have become newly conspicuous throughout the country.
Old cottages and mansions left over from the previous century are
being refurbished everywhere, and in some communities entire
neighborhoods are aglitter with freshly painted towers, turrets, fishscale shingles, carved wooden fancywork, and other trappings from
those fabled days before the turn of the century.
Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the first
paragraph?
F. Many Victorian homes have recently been replaced with ones in the
Renaissance style.
G. People all over the country have begun to appreciate and renovate
Victorian homes.
H. Many architectural studies are being undertaken in an effort to become
more familiar with the Victorian style.
J. Many new houses are being designed to imitate the nineteenth-century
Victorian style.
Main Idea Sample Question Answer
Answer=G
This paragraph is a general introduction to the
passage, and the question asks for the main
idea of the paragraph. In the paragraph, there's
nothing about new home construction (ruling
out J) or about Victorian homes being replaced
with houses in the Renaissance style (ruling
out F). The paragraph doesn't mention any
studies, either, which rules out H. The
statement made in G is correct, and clearly the
best choice for the main idea of the paragraph.
Cause-and-Effect Sample Question
Roosevelt feared what Long might accomplish as a conventional
political operator, as a rival who might unseat him from the
presidency. On the eve of the election of 1936 most of the talk at
Democratic headquarters concerned Long's intentions, and it
was scared talk. Would Huey be a presidential candidate on a
third-party ticket? Long himself had a somewhat different plan.
According to the testimony of intimates, he intended to run some
liberal
Democrat as a third-party entry and so divide the liberal vote
that the Republican candidate would win. The Republicans
would be incapable of dealing with the depression, the economic
system would go to pieces, and by 1940 the country would be
crying for a strong leader to save it.
Huey Long's plan to "so divide the liberal vote that the
Republican candidate would win" hinges upon the
assumption that:
F. some Democrats would vote for the third-party entry.
G. most Democrats would vote Republican.
H. all Democrats would vote for the third-party entry.
J. most Republicans would vote for the third-party entry.
Cause-and-Effect Sample Question
Answer
Answer=F
The effect here is to have the Republican
candidate win a clear majority. Huey Long's
plan to cause this to happen was to get some
Democrats to vote for a third-party candidate,
while the other Democrats voted for their
party's own candidate. This would give the
Republican candidate a clear majority. So the
best answer is F.
Author's Voice and Method Sample
Question
Conceivably, it might have happened just as he thought it would.
Just as conceivably, it might not have. Long might well have
foundered on the rock of the two-party system, as other gifted
political rebels before him had done. Instead of grasping the
supreme success he saw as his destiny, he might have lived out his
life as a frustrated and embittered secondary politician. What might
have been can never be known. Fate, which has shattered the
dreams of other strong men, suddenly intervened. On a warm
September night in 1935 Huey Long, at the height of his power,
apparently invincible, was shot down by an assassin in his capitol at
Baton Rouge.
According to the last paragraph, the author believes that if Huey Long
would have had the chance to follow through on his plan:
A. Long would have failed to become president because fate would
have intervened.
B. Long would have obtained even more power as a third-party
candidate.
C. Long may have become a Republican candidate for president.
D. Long's chances for winning the presidency were about the same as
his chances for losing.
Author’s Voice and Method Sample
Question Answer
Answer=D
If you read this passage carefully, you can't
miss what Huey Long thought about himself.
But what does the author think? The author
may have a different opinion of the subject than
the subject has. The difference is important. It's
clear that the author of this passage isn't sure
about what might have happened if Huey Long
had lived and been able to run for president.
The author thinks the election could have gone
either way, so the best answer is D.
Generalization Sample Question
How strange that my parents didn't notice; normally, one
sniffle and they were feeling my forehead. But sometime
during the night we must have entered that world of
mischance that parents so fear, with its history of
catastrophes occurring in eye blinks when parental
vigilance lapsed.
The narrator considers her parents' behavior, as it is
described above, to be:
A. habitually indifferent.
B. unusually lenient.
C. particularly strict.
D. unusually inattentive.
Generalization Sample Question
Answer
Answer=D
The best choice is D, "unusually
inattentive." The narrator suggests that
her parents were usually extremely alert
to her condition (ruling out A) but that for
some reason they were much less
careful that day (ruling out C). B is less
appropriate than D: "lenient" suggests
the narrator's parents were intentionally
granting privileges or relaxing rules,
which is clearly not the case here.
Comparative Relationships Sample Question
But Pluto furnished a surprise. Pluto and Charon are so close to twins in size and
so close together that gravity induces a bulge in Pluto. The bulge is great enough
that Pluto is tidally coupled to Charon just as Charon is tidally coupled to Pluto.
Thus, Pluto always shows the same face to Charon just as Charon always shows
the same face to Pluto. It is the only example of mutual tidal coupling in the solar
system. The result is that for an astronaut standing on Pluto, Charon is either
always visible or never visible.
The shadows we see on Charon reveal an uneven, cratered landscape. Like Pluto,
Charon is light gray, although somewhat darker and more even in color than Pluto,
as was known from measurements made from Earth using the Pluto-Charon
eclipses. The very slightly reddish brown hue of Pluto is missing from Charon or at
least from Charon's Pluto-facing side, that is the only side we get to see from the
surface of Pluto. Missing too from Charon is the methane frost which partially
covers Pluto. With Charon's smaller mass and therefore weaker gravity, whatever
methane ice there was at the surface has evaporated. Perhaps this in part
explains why Charon is less reflective. The escaping methane has exposed frozen
water to view.
The passage asserts that one feature of Pluto that is lacking on Charon is:
A. escaping methane.
C. a cratered landscape.
B. noticeable gravity.
D. methane frost.
Comparative Relationships Sample
Question Answer
Answer=D
This question requires that you understand the
differences between Pluto and its moon,
Charon. Because so much of the passage
compares the two, you'll have to read closely to
find the answer. The information supporting the
best answer, D, is in italics; the information
ruling out the other choices is sprinkled
throughout the two paragraphs.
Meaning of Words Sample Question
He went to Washington with the conviction that his destiny would
lead him to the presidency, just as from youth he planned step by
step the career that would lead him to the highest office. He entered
the Senate as a liberal Democrat, a supporter of men and measures
to curb big business. In 1932 he advocated that his party nominate
as its presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt. Long stumped
vigorously for Roosevelt in the campaign, and after the latter's
election there was a brief period when it seemed that the two were
going to make an unusually effective combination, the Eastern and
the Southern liberals working together for liberal reform. That
possibility evaporated almost immediately. He realized that
Roosevelt was a man who had a will fully as strong as his own and
who was also just as great a politician. Returning from an interview
with Roosevelt, he said to a close friend: "I found a man as smart as
I am. I don't know if I can travel with him.”
As it is used in the passage, the word stumped most nearly means:
F. cleared.
G. baffled.
H. campaigned.
J. trimmed.
Meaning of Words Sample Question
Answer
Answer=H
If you were a contestant on a quiz show and you couldn't
figure out an answer, the host might say that the question
"stumped" you. That's the same definition as in answer G,
"baffled." But that would be the wrong answer here, because
in this passage about the politician Huey Long, the best
answer is clearly H, "campaigned.“
Note that, generally, meaning of words questions contain line
number references to make it easier for you to find the word,
phrase, or clause being asked about.
Sequence of Events Sample Question
What Kenny meant was the Ghirlandaio painting, which he'd
heard about from me. It had required astonishing bravery to
approach him in the schoolyard, to speak to him for so long, but
that was minor compared with the courage it took to mention the
unmentionable—that is, Miss Haley's nose. I don't recall how I'd
phrased it, how precisely I'd made it clear that there existed a
work of art with a nose like our sixth-grade teacher's. It had left
us both feeling quite short of breath, as if we'd been running and
had gotten our second wind and were capable of anything. And
in that light-headed state I offered to take him to see it. It would
be easy, I said—I knew the museum so well we could sneak off
and get back before anyone noticed.
The passage suggests that the narrator was first introduced
to the Ghirlandaio painting:
A. in a classroom art lesson given by Miss Haley.
B. in an art book presented to her by her parents.
C. on a previous visit to the art museum.
D. on the museum trip with Kenny and her classmates.
Sequence of Events Sample
Question
Answer=C
To determine the best answer to this question, you need to
find the most reasonable conclusion based on the details in
the paragraph. A is unlikely given that the narrator's
classmate Kenny heard about the Ghirlandaio painting from
the narrator, not from Miss Haley. The paragraph doesn't
support B. D is incorrect because the narrator describes the
nose in the painting to Kenny before the museum trip, which
indicates she was already familiar with the work of art. C, on
the other hand, is well supported by the paragraph: the
narrator tells Kenny about the painting and assures him that
with her extensive knowledge of the museum, they will be
able to sneak off to see the painting without anyone missing
them.
Last but not least…
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