Nerdy ACT English Stuff

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Nerdy ACT English Stuff

• Ooooh! Fun!

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Test Breakdown

• 5 Passages 75 Questions 45 Minutes
• 15 questions per passage
• Average 9 minutes per passage
• Usage/Mechanics (40 Questions)
• Punctuation (10) Grammar/Usage (12) Sentence
  Structure (18)
• Rhetorical Skills (35 Questions)
• Writing (12) Organization (11) Style (12)

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General Test Strategies

• Dont waste time reading the directions.
• Read the entire selectiondont just skip to the
  underlined portions.
• Pace yourself! You have about 36 seconds per
  question.

4

• Look at all answer choicesdetermine how they are
  different.
• Be active with the testcross out incorrect
  answers.
• If there are two grammatically correct answers
  choose the most concise (KISS).
• Make sure your answer doesnt change the meaning
  of the sentence.

5

• The NO CHANGE choice is not any more likely to be
  correct.
• The OMIT choice is statistically more likely to
  be correct.
• Guessing doesnt count against you, so dont
  leave any questions blank!

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Some practice questions

• Get ready to try your hand at

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Punctuation

• Understand conventions of all punctuation and
  relate punctuation to meaning.
• Commas, Colons, Semi-colons
• Semi-colons connect two complete thoughts
• Colons are used to represent the phrase as
  follows
• For example, the chili used extensively in the
  Southwest is the Anaheim pepper, its fairly
  mild, with an SHU rating of 1,000 to 3,500.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. pepper its
• C. pepper, its
• D. pepper its

8
Punctuation (cont.)

• Apostrophes plural vs. possessive
• The doctrine was derived from the Neoplatonists
  who revived the teachings of Pythagoras.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. Neoplatonists that
• C. Neoplatonists that
• D. Neoplatonists who

9
Punctuation (cont.)

• Parentheses separate related, non-essential
  information.
• You can try to make a case for chocolate as a
  major food group (Ive tried for years), or for
  getting your Recommended Dietary Allowance of
  calcium other ways.
• NO CHANGE
• group Ive tried for years,
• group, Ive tried for years
• group Ive tried for years,

10
Grammar/Usage

• Understand the agreement and proper use of major
  elements of the sentence.
• Understand agreement between subject and verb
• An audience of thousands of expectant people who
  have come from afar to listen to live music in an
  outdoor setting seem terrifying to a nervous
  performer.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. seems
• C. have seemed
• D. to seem

11

• Agreement between pronoun and antecedent.
• Singular --body, --one, --thing, each, another,
  either,
• much
• Plural both, few, many, most, several
• Anyone who wants to be famous can get their
  name in the news.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. his name
• C. theyre names
• D. their names

12

• Avoid low level word choices and confusing/ wordy
  phrases
• The artists had hidden a profound meaning
  behind the literal and wished nature to be a
  moral lesson to man.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. meaning which was behind
• C. Meaning being behind
• D. meaning behind and in back of

13
Style

• Understand appropriate use of words and images,
  maintain consistent style and tone, and avoid
  ambiguity, wordiness, and redundancy.
• The Pennysylvania Dutch came to settle the
  area.
• The German settlers made important
  contributions. One of the important
  contributions made by these German settlers to
  frontier life was the Pennsylvania rifle.
• -What would you do with the underlined sentence?

14

• Active and Passive Voice
• A ? The dog bit the boy.
• P ? The boy was bitten by the dog.
• The students were bored into a stupor by the
  long, rambling grammar PowerPoint.
• The long, rambling grammar PowerPoint bored the
  students into a stupor.

15
Sentence Structure

• Understand relationships between and among
  clauses, placement of modifiers, and shifts in
  construction.
• Misplaced Modifiers
• The corn was roasted by the boys skewered on
  the ends of long pointy sticks.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. The corn skewered on the ends of long pointy
  sticks was roasted by the boys.
• C. The boys roasted the corn skewered on the
  ends of long pointy sticks.
• D. The boys, skewered on the ends of long
  pointy sticks, roasted the corn.

16
Sentence Structure (cont.)

• Parallel Structure same grammatical tense and
  form within a sentence
• Delinquents are defined as those who violate
  laws, disobeyed authority, or behave in ways
  that endanger the safety or morals of the
  community.
• A. NO CHANGE
• B. disobeying
• C. disobedient
• D. disobey

17
Strategy

• Recognize an essays purpose and coherence.
• Opening, transitional, and closing statements.
• However contrast Furthermoreaddition
  Thereforecause/effect.
• Judging the effect of adding, revising, or
  deleting supporting material.
• Providing interpretation of a statement,
  clarifying a general statement with examples,
  furthering an argument with information and
  logical reasoning, quoting an expert on the
  issue.

18
Organization

• Understand how to organize ideas and judge the
  relevance of statements in context.
• Topic sentencesmain idea Rest of
  paragraphsupporting details Closing
  sentencesummary and connection to thesis.
• Patterns chronological, compare/contrast,
  illustration, definition, classification,
  cause/effect

19
More Practice

• Open up your test booklet to the first English
  practice test.
• You will have 9 minutes to complete the first
  passage.

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(No Transcript)
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Good Luck