Mastering the ACT English: Proven Strategies for a High Score

Many students approach the ACT English test with a casual attitude, assuming that "sounding right" is enough. However, achieving a high score, especially a perfect 36, requires a solid understanding of grammar rules and rhetorical skills. This article provides comprehensive ACT English tips to improve your score, whether you're aiming for a modest improvement or a near-perfect result.

Understanding the ACT English Section

The ACT English section assesses your editing skills, focusing on your ability to identify and correct errors in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure, as well as improve the overall organization and style of passages. The test presents five passages covering various topics, from historical essays to personal narratives. You'll encounter underlined portions within these passages, and your task is to determine if they are correct as written or if an alternative answer choice would improve them. Additionally, some questions will require you to add, remove, or reorder text, and evaluate the passage as a whole.

The ACT English section is divided into two general categories: Usage and Mechanics (editing for grammatical errors) and Rhetorical Skills (editing for content and style). Familiarizing yourself with common question types is crucial for effective test preparation.

Key Strategies for ACT English Success

1. Master the Fundamentals

Before diving into advanced strategies, ensure you have a firm grasp of the fundamental grammar rules and rhetorical skills tested on the ACT English. Focus on memorizing broad rules rather than minute nuances.

Grammar Essentials: Review essential grammar skills, including subject-verb agreement, pronoun usage, punctuation, and sentence structure.
Rhetorical Skills: Understand the principles of effective writing, including clarity, conciseness, organization, and style.

2. Recognize and Eliminate Redundancy

Redundancy questions are common on the ACT English test. Redundancy refers to unnecessary words or phrases that can be eliminated without changing the sentence's meaning. Be aware of two types of redundancies: synonyms used to describe something and implied phrases that don't add anything to the sentence. The simplest, most concise answer is often the best choice.

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3. Practice, Practice, Practice

The only way to get a perfect score on the exam is to practice. It’s not enough to just study grammar rules and read tips and ACT® English strategies from a review book. Consistent practice is paramount. Take multiple practice tests to familiarize yourself with the test format, question types, and time constraints. Aim to take 3-5 full practice tests before exam day.

Simulate Test Conditions: Take practice tests under timed conditions to simulate the actual testing environment.
Analyze Your Performance: After each practice test, carefully review your answers, identifying areas of strength and weakness.

4. Target Your Weaknesses

Identify your weaknesses. There’s no point in constantly running through questions you find easy. Focus your study efforts on areas where you consistently struggle.

Create a List: Compile a list of questions you guessed on or answered incorrectly during practice tests.
Identify the Root Cause: Determine why you struggled with each question. Was it a lack of knowledge, time constraints, or a misinterpretation of the question?

5. Make Grammar Your Best Friend

For the ACT® English test, grammar needs to be your best friend. Don’t think of becoming a grammar nerd as “only a way to get a perfect score on the ACT®,” think of it as an essential life skill. To do this, you need to make grammar a part of your everyday life.

Real-World Application: Look out for grammar mistakes in brochures, posters, grocery store signs, etc.
Proofreading Practice: Proofread your friends’ essays and let them know that you’re going to be brutal.
Elevate Your Communication: Start posting, tweeting, texting, and messaging with a higher standard of grammar and punctuation.
Read Widely: Read novels, formal publications, reports, or whatever tickles your fancy. Just make sure they are high-quality works with no grammatical problems (unless you’re trying to find some!).
Review Your Writing: Look through some of your old essays and try to make them better.
Utilize Resources: Practice using Albert’s free Grammar course and grammar review guides.
Engage on Social Media: Follow grammar-related pages on social media.

6. Develop Efficient Test-Taking Strategies

Efficient test-taking strategies can significantly improve your score.

Time Management: The ACT English section has 75 questions on it. Set a target pace for answering questions and stick to it. If you find yourself spending too much time on a particular question, skip it and come back to it later.
Prioritize Questions: Answer the questions you're most confident in first, then return to the more challenging ones.
Eliminate Incorrect Answers: Use the process of elimination to narrow down your answer choices.
Trust Your Instincts: If you're unsure of the correct answer, make an educated guess and move on.

7. Check Your Work Methodically

Your goal on the ACT® English section should be to answer every question with confidence and still have time left over to go back and check your work.

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Mark Uncertain Questions: As you’re answering the questions for the first time, put a mark next to the questions you’re not 100% sure about.
Review Strategically: That way, when you go back to review your answers, you don’t have to spend time searching for the questions you should be double-checking. If you have time, go back for the third time. Ignore the questions you’re 100% sure about and focus on the questions you’re still struggling with.

8. Read the Entire Passage Carefully

When taking the exam, it might be tempting to ignore the entire reading passage and only read the underlined portion the question is asking about. Don’t do this! You’ll miss out on key information.

Understand the Context: Read the whole passage for understanding.
Focus on the Relevant Paragraph: Go back to the passage and find the underlined portion. Read through the entire paragraph that contains the sentence you’re revising, and don’t just read the underlined portion itself.

9. Understand the Test Makers

The ACT English Test is not a grammar test or a test of how well you write. Instead, the ACT tests your editing skills-your ability to fix errors in grammar and punctuation and to improve the organization and style of five different passages.

Editing Skills: Hone your editing skills.
Improve Organization and Style: Enhance the organization and style of the passages.

10. Use Answer Choices as Clues

The answer choices are your clues to identifying what the question is really asking. Do any of the words or punctuation change?

11. Trust Your Ear, But Verify

Your ear is pretty reliable at raising the alarm for outright errors and clunky, awkward phrasing. Always verify what your ear is telling you by checking the answers to identify the topic and confirm there is no error.

12. Embrace the "No Change" Option

Don’t be fooled or intimidated by the “No Change” answer option. Some students will feel tempted to choose this a lot. In reality, about 25-35% of the time, “No Change” is the correct choice. Choose the “NO CHANGE” answer option if you can’t detect anything wrong with the sentence. For grammar questions, make sure you’re evaluating the grammar of the sentence and not just listening to how it sounds in your head. If you really think it’s “NO CHANGE,” double-check the answer choices to be sure.

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13. When in Doubt, Go Short

Shorter is better. When in doubt and when all things equal, choose the shortest answer choice. The Rule of 3 is that if there's an answer choice 3 or more words shorter than all other choices, that short choice is correct over 95% of the time.

14. The Power of Deletion

For questions with no question, if there's an option to DELETE, check it first. It's correct more than 75% of the time.

15. Double Dashes

If there's one choice with a double dash, it's correct 95% of the time.

16. Commas Before "And"

There are two situations on ACT with a comma before "and" - a list, when a complete sentence follows the and.

Tailoring Your Approach Based on Your Current Score

For Students Scoring Below 26

If you're currently scoring below a 26 on ACT English, focus on building a strong foundation in the essential grammar rules and rhetorical skills.

Prioritize Key Skills: Focus on the most frequently tested grammar rules.
Master Sentence Structure and Punctuation: Learn how to distinguish independent clauses, dependent clauses, and phrases, and how to punctuate them correctly.
Improve Flow and Organization: Focus on editorial concerns, such as adding, keeping, or deleting sentences, and sentence placement.
Targeted Practice: Practice questions related to the specific skills you need to improve.

Identifying Question Types

The ACT English section includes two types of questions:

You’ll be given a passage to read, with whole sentences or parts of sentences underlined.
- Identify the best word to use in the sentence.
Questions with no question.

Strategy 1: Know What's On the Test

The first tip to doing well on the ACT is understanding what you're actually going to be tested on. The truth is, grammar is only half of the test. The other half is made up of what are called "Rhetorical Skills"-questions that are more about writing style and logic. At PrepScholar, we believe in dividing ACT English into individual skills you can attack separately.

Strategy 2: Learn the Most Important Grammar Rules

The reality is, there is a huge difference in how important different grammar rules are on the test. So some skills show up nearly 10x more often than other skills! This has a huge implication on what you should be spending your precious time on studying-not all study hours are treated equal. Look at the difference in commonality between the skills. Transitional logic shows up a whopping 9 times per test, while modifiers shows up just 2 times. Remember what we said about how you only need to get 80% of questions correct to get a 26?

The Importance of Reviewing Mistakes

When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. In a notebook, keep a separate section by grammar rule. It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation.

One step further: How do I solve this question?
One step further: Why did I misread the question? Why did I miss this grammar error? What trick did the ACT play on me?

Time Management is Key

Of all sections, ACT English has the least amount of time per question. Remember what we said above about getting a 26? You only need a raw score of 60 out of 75. Therefore, DON'T feel bad about skipping a question. Chances are, it's actually a pretty hard question designed to waste your time. Furthermore, you can't predict which questions are easy or hard. So if you find yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a single question, skip it for now. You definitely want to avoid sucking up 2 minutes on a single question. This requires discipline during the test, and many students ignore the clock until it's too late.

Avoid General Grammar Study

When many low-scoring students think about studying ACT English, they think it's mainly a matter of learning grammar. This points you in the wrong direction. Remember, ACT English tests grammar in very SPECIFIC ways. You're not learning how to write a good essay and using good grammar generally. The ways that grammar rules like punctuation or run-on sentences appear on ACT English are very formulaic-they show up in similar ways each time, with similar wrong answer choices. So to do well on ACT English, you have to train with the best materials focused on ACT English.

Additional ACT Sections

The ACT has four main subject sections: English, Math, Reading, and Science.

ACT Math

Start with solving the problem on your own. As a last resort, you can always experiment with plugging the offered answers into the equation until one proves correct. In planning your ACT study time, prioritize the different math skills. Accuracy is much more important than speed.

ACT Reading

The ACT Reading Section is the hardest of all the ACT sections to improve your score on. If you like one of the four subjects best, or if one passage looks the most interesting to you, start there.

ACT Science

ACT Science is a slippery little minx. It’s the least familiar section for most students, shows up as the final multiple-choice section when you’re as tired as possible, and it’s time-crunched to boot. This section looks at your comprehension of data and trends, how you connect, evaluate, and extrapolate information.

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