ACT Reading Prep: Big-Picture Strategies for Defeating the ACT Reading Section
Upon looking over a sample ACT reading story and its corresponding questions, the section doesn’t seem like it would be too difficult. You read a short story and then answer some questions about it. How hard is that? Well, the actual reading and comprehension aspect of the reading test is not usually what students struggle with. In fact, most of the answers are there somewhere, embedded within the reading stories, so from a knowledge standpoint this section should be more relaxed than the others. The real challenge with the ACT reading section comes with the pesky time constraint. Students are given just 35 minutes to work through four short stories, each accompanied by 10 multiple-choice questions. Questions will range from broad, asking about the main idea or mood of the story, to specific, asking about key details in the story or use of particular vocabulary. For many students, 35 minutes is not enough time to read and absorb the four stories and work through all 40 questions thoughtfully. This is why having a strategy going into the ACT reading section is so important.
Looking for more focused ACT reading guidance? Check out our 7-Part Complete ACT Reading Suite!
While the content of the ACT reading section will take some practice and getting used to, for most students the big challenge is working through all four stories in the time allotted. Most students are not accustomed to being required to test at a certain pace; teachers at school will generally give students as long as they need to complete a test to their best ability. For this reason, students can get really anxious about the time constraints of not only the reading section but all sections of the ACT. You can learn more about what other major differences to expect on test day in our post here: 7 Ways the ACT is Different Than a Regular Test
It’s important for students to have a plan going into all sections of the ACT, but it’s particularly important to have a proven strategy on the reading section. Each student is unique, so what works well for one student may not work well for another. We encourage you to try some different strategies leading up to test day and identify one that allows you time to attempt as many questions as possible and answer those questions correctly as often as possible.
We’ve compiled a list of common strategies that work well for our students.
Give some of these a try – you may end up finding something that works well for you, too!
1. Change the order of the stories
There’s no rule that says you have to work through the reading stories in the order that they’re presented to you; you can reorder the stories however you would like. This can actually be very strategic. You may never have noticed, but every ACT test contains four different types of stories, and the order of these types never changes. What do we mean? The first story is always Prose Fiction, the second always Social Science, the third always Humanities, and the fourth always Natural Science.
Story 1: Prose Fiction, Reads more like a storybook
Story 2: Social Science, Fact-based - Reads more like a textbook
Story 3: Humanities, Reads more like a storybook
Story 4: Natural Science, Fact-based – Reads more like a textbook
Take this information and look for patterns as you complete practice exams. Are you consistently scoring better on stories 2 and 4 compared to 1 and 3? If so, reorder your approach so that you BEGIN with the textbook-like stories since those are easier for you. Start with stories 2 and 4, and then move to stories 1 and 3 later. You want to start with content that is easier for you whenever possible. Even if you see no significant difference in your scores across stories, you can still change the order if you would like. If you simply enjoy reading stories 1 and 3 more than 2 and 4, go ahead and start with 1 and 3. This is going to help you focus better because you are starting with stories you enjoy more.
2. Change the order of the questions
On the same note as #1, there’s also no rule stating that you have to work through the questions in the order they’re given to you. In fact, most students SHOULD NOT do this. The ACT knows that there are only so many ways that they can make this section of the test harder for you – I mean, the answers are pretty much all there in the stories somewhere. Therefore, they have to find sneaky ways of making the section more challenging. One of the ways they do this is by beginning with broad questions that ask about the whole story. A common first question that you will see following a reading story is something along the lines of “The main purpose of the passage is to:”… followed by four answer options. You may have just read the entire story and, therefore, be pretty well equipped for answering said question. However, if you save this question and answer it LAST you will have a higher probability of getting it correct. Why? Because as you work through the other nine questions you will continue to learn about the story. Therefore, you will have a better understanding of the story as you answer question #10 than you have when you answer question #1 regardless of if you have read the story or not.
You have a higher probability of answering any of the more specific questions correctly at the beginning of the question set than you do the broader questions. Save any questions that ask about the mood of the story and the narrator’s point of view for later in the question set. Similarly, don’t initially answer questions that ask you to infer something based on what you read. That basically means take what you know and make an educated guess on what you think might happen. You’ll be more ready for answering those toward the end than right at the beginning. Begin with the questions that point you to a detail in a specific line in the story or a certain vocabulary word, and then work your way out to the broader questions.
Examples of broad questions:
(Answer last)
The main purpose of the passage is to:
It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that…
The passage most strongly suggests that…
The narrator most strongly suggests that…
Examples of specific questions:
(Answer first)
As it is used in line 18, the term premium cars refers to:
What is the main idea of the second paragraph (lines 18-30)?
According to the passage, how many photos had been taken of the city?
3. Divvy up time – 10/10/10/5
If you disperse the 35 minutes you’re given on the reading section between all four stories, you’ll be sitting at 8.5 minutes to attack each story and its questions. For some students, this is enough time to work through each story, but for many students this is a tight time constraint, and they receive better results when they can take more time working through some of the stories. For this reason, a really common strategy that many of our students use is the 10/10/10/5 strategy. This refers to the minutes spent on each story. So you will spend 10 minutes on three of the four stories and then rush through the fourth story with the last five minutes. What this does is give you just a little more time to work more in-depth on three of the stories. Sure, you’ll be rushing through a story at the end, but for many students the score is higher when they can work through three stories carefully than when they frantically rush through all four stories.
4. Save the story with two mini stories for the end
In recent years, the ACT has begun to include a new type of passage within the ACT reading section. One of the four stories will actually be two shorter stories. They will then ask you a handful of questions about each of the stories separately, followed by a few questions that ask you to compare and contrast the two short stories. This section has been known to show up in any of the four story categories: Prose Fiction, Social Science, Humanities, Natural Science. Therefore, while you don’t know what type of story it will show up as, you know it will show up somewhere and need to have a plan for attacking it.
First, it’s important to be familiar with the format and the setup of this story. Make sure to practice this type of story so that it does not sneak up on you on test day.
Secondly, now that you’re super familiar with what this story will look like, you can start to think about how to use it strategically. Many students prefer to work through this story last. Some students choose this simply because they find the story more difficult than the standard stories. Other students use this story to assist with beating the time constraint. In fact, many students will pair the 10/10/10/5 method (#3 above) with this strategy as well — in the last 5 minutes of the section, you can usually work through at least one of the two shorter stories in full and answer its questions. That means that, even though you’re still guessing on several questions in the last story, there are also a good number of the questions that you are able to work through in-depth and answer with confidence.
5. Don’t Read
You’ve probably heard someone who received a good score on the ACT tell you that the secret is not to read the stories. Well, there can be some truth to that. Students who excel at reading comprehension and breaking apart reading passages can get by without reading the story at all. They dissect the questions and answers (often putting them in a strategic order – refer back to point #2) and pick up enough information about the story as they go on to correctly answer the other questions. Now, don’t just assume this is going to work for you. Remember that every student is unique and that what works well for your friend may not be your key to success as well. Try diving into the questions of a story without reading it first. Chances are you will figure out pretty quickly whether or not this is something that you can do easily or if this is something that is going to stress you out.
6. Read the questions, then read the story
Students who excel at reading comprehension can read a story and then recall most of the story and its meaning without having to go review the content again. But not everyone comprehends at the same level. Additionally, focus can be all over the place on ACT day, and you may find yourself getting distracted while you try to read, often realizing you’re reading and not retaining anything. The goal of this strategy is to help both readers for whom comprehension does not come super easily and those who are prone to becoming distracted while reading. With this strategy, you will read the questions first (but not the answer options!) and then go and read the story. The idea is that, as you read, you will recognize when you get to a point in the story that a particular question refers to. When you get to this point, let yourself stop reading and go work through that question while that part of the story is fresh in your mind and you know right where to look. Hopefully this will keep you from having to waste too much precious time after reading the whole story going back to dig for answers that you don’t recall.
7. Read the first and last paragraphs only
The idea of this strategy is to begin by obtaining the big-picture idea of the story as a whole by reading the introduction paragraph and the conclusion paragraph only. By doing this, you are getting an understanding of the overall point of the story, though you are missing all of the specific details within the supporting paragraphs. Having an idea of the big-picture will then assist you in answering the questions, during which time you’ll fill in the gaps of the details of the story. This is another strategy aimed toward students who either read more slowly or who struggle with recalling what they’ve read. This strategy is similar to “Don’t Read” - #5 above, but it gives students an idea of what to expect from the story and the questions, rather than diving into the questions blindly.
In summary, it’s really important to have an identified strategy that you’ve already proven works well for you for the ACT reading section. When deciding which strategies to try, consider a couple of things — reflect on your general experiences with reading: Do you struggle with comprehension or tend to remember everything you read? Do you enjoy reading or does reading feel like a chore? Do you tend to read quickly or do you like to take your time and absorb information slowly? Based on your answers to these questions you will have a pretty good idea of what your ACT reading performance would probably be like without a strategy in place. Students who struggle with comprehension or prefer to read slowly should focus on strategies that don’t include reading the whole story. Students who read more quickly and can recall content easily can lean toward those strategies more focused on reading. Whatever the case, make sure to test out any strategy before attempting to use it on test day. Every student is unique, and what works well for your best friend is not necessarily going to work well for you. Last but not least, practice, practice, PRACTICE! The reading section is no exception — the more you practice this section the more familiar you’ll be to the types of stories that show up, the language the ACT uses on the questions, and, perhaps most importantly, the strategy you’ll use on test day to assist you in defeating that pesky time constraint.
Hint: Most students will find success in working in an order of Easy to Hard across any given section on the ACT. The reason for this has to do with anxiety levels being lowest early on in the exam. While your anxiety levels are lower, you want to be focusing on what is easier for you and the questions that you are most likely to answer correctly. As time goes on, your anxiety levels will increase. When your anxiety levels are higher, you want to be working on the questions that are harder for you, since your overall probability of answering correctly goes down just based on what your hormones are doing!
Good luck, and happy studying!
INTERESTED IN TUTORING?
Working one-on-one with a test prep & college counseling expert can help you maximize your score on test day and get accepted to your dream school. Whatever your college prep goals, our team can help!
I want to sign up! - Set up online lessons using the link to our scheduling system.
I want more information! - Fill out the information in the link, and someone will reach out soon.