Tutor Yourself #9: The English Section

English? Didn’t we already do reading?

Yep. This is the grammar part.

The ACT English and SAT Writing sections consist of two types of questions: “grammar facts” and “writing opinions”. While each question definitely has one correct answer, the grammar facts questions ask about a particular word or phrase, and only one answer choice is grammatically correct according to the rules of standard academic English. The writing opinions questions, on the other hand, are often looking for the “best” or “most effective” way to state something; while one answer is best, others may be grammatically correct as well. It is important to know whether you are looking at one type of question or the other.

“Grammar facts” questions can be identified by the lack of question stem. That is, there’s no question. They just list answer choices, which can replace the underlined word or phrase with the matching number. The answer must be grammatically correct, but does not necessary sound good.

The writing opinions questions, on the other hand, always have a question stem. They use words like “best” or “most effectively”. That means that one or more answers may be grammatically correct, but may not be the best way to write something. You have to identify which one is best. (Hint: It’s often, though not always, the shortest.)

The main strategy for the English section (and also all the other sections) is to learn the question types. Neither test is particularly creative. The same types of questions come up, along with the same types of tricks. Learn the common error categories (subject-verb agreement, connecting clauses, transition words, etc.) so you know what to look for.

Learn the common tricks. On every single test, you will see at least one question that separates the subject and verb with a descriptive phrase separated by commas. The phrase is meant to distract you so that by the time you reach the very, you have forgotten whether the subject is singular or plural. Just knowing this trick is enough to beat it most of the time. Become familiar with the tricks you are likely to see on each of the common question types.

Process of elimination. Even if you can’t pick the right answer, eliminate the ones you know are wrong. This will improve your odds of guessing correctly.

Let it be. It’s important to keep in mind that if there are four answer choices, “NO CHANGE” (keep the word or phrase as it is written) will be the answer roughly ¼ of the time. Sometimes you want to keep scouring the paragraph until you find the error, but there isn’t always one there.

Next up: The Science Section