Five Must-Know Reading Tips for the
ACT
 The reading test section on ACT is a 40-question, 35minute test that measures your reading
comprehension. The test questions ask you to derive
meaning from several texts by:
 1. Referring to what is explicitly stated
 2. Reasoning to determine implicit meaning
ACT Reading Tip # 1: Know How the
Test Is Scored
1. Unlike the SAT, there is no wrong answer penalty,
so make sure you answer every question, even if
you cannot eliminate any answer choices or if your
run out of time.
2. Have a pre-specified “Letter of the Day” like (A)/(F)
or (B)/(G) to fill in automatically so you don’t use
extra time deciding which answer choice you want.
ACT Reading Tip # 2: Know the Section
Structure
1. Section 3 is a 35-minute Reading section that starts
immediately after a 10-minute break.
2. There are four ACT reading passages that have 10
questions each, which equals a total of 40 multiplechoice questions that each have four answer
choices. There are four different passage types that are
always in the same order: Prose Fiction, Social Studies,
Humanities, and Natural Sciences. You can do the
passages in any order, so start with your strongest
passage type and work from there.
ACT Reading Tip # 3: Follow the
Recommended ACT Reading
Comprehension Method
1. Read the passage and write short notes next to each
paragraph.
a. Focus on the topic and purpose of the passage
b. Keep track of different people and opinions
2. Read the question and identify helpful hints.
a. Line references and keywords can help you find the
answer
3. Predict an answer BEFORE you look at the answer
choices.
ACT Reading Tip # 4: Know the ACT
Reading Comprehension Trap Answers
1. Distortion – twists details from the passage so they are no
longer correct
2. Misused detail – a true statement from the passage, but
one that doesn’t answer the question
3. Out-of-scope – includes information not included in the
passage
4. Extreme – too extreme to reflect the author’s purpose
(often includes words like always, never, best, worst, etc.)
5. Opposite – contradicts the information in the passage
“In Orbit”
Brenda Miller
July 20, 1969: I’m running in a
wide circle at the
far end of the cul-de-sac,
around and around until I
settle in the dust under a
thorny bush, but then my
name floats into the game,
calling me back as dusk
5 descends on the
neighborhood.
Other names unfurl like
ribbons, doors opening and
closing—Bobby, Brenda,
Laura!—and none of us kids
even says goodbye, we
just disperse, our small band so
easily dissolved. I
leave my perfect hiding place—
knees scratched, my hair
smelling of sap—to go back
inside, where it’s too
hot and smells of stuffed
cabbage, the television on to
the evening news. Father,
mother, brothers—we’re all
angled toward the television
because something
momentous is about to happen:
the first man to walk on the
moon.
“In Orbit”
Continued
Somehow we’re going to see
it. We’ll see
Armstrong in his space suit
emerge from the metal
door; we’ll see it as if looking
through a scratched and
dirty window, with blips and
bleeps and static and a
shimmering gray overlaying
everything because he’s
out there now, a lone man in
a different atmosphere
altogether, moving backward
down the ladder one slow
step at a time.
And then, right before his foot
touches
down in the dust, the words that
will become an emblem: one small
step for man, one giant leap for
mankind. He does it, takes a little
hop down onto that
alien surface, the only man in the
universe.
Everyone is sitting quiet, watching,
forks in
midair—I can see the profile of my
father’s jaw, my mother’s small
shoulders—and just at that
moment, I
decide to clank my fork on the
edge of my plate, to
make a loud noise that will
penetrate the vast silence in
which this man now moves.
“In Orbit”
Continued
Everyone turns toward me:
father, mother, brothers,
angry, annoyed, and my
father
says well, thank you very much,
and I know I’ve ruined
it, this historic moment. I
don’t know why I did it:
maybe I just felt vastly lonely,
want to make my presence
known, or maybe I thought it
would be funny, or maybe I
was kind of applauding, the
way the men in Houston
must have been jumping up
and down and saying
“mission accomplished”
After so many years of
study and work
and planning, they had done
it, they had put a man on
the moon! My faux-pas just
hangs in the air, the clank of
the fork still hurting my ears.
They turn back to the
television, the set of their
bodies so solidly against me,
and I guess I don’t really
understand why it would be
so great—to be a man on the
moon, exiled, in orbit so
far from home.
Questions
“In Orbit”
The narrator’s descriptions of
Armstrong suggest that she
sees him as ultimately:
A. self-confident and
triumphant.
B. isolated and alone.
C. awe-inspiring and
heroic.
D. stiff and
ceremonial.
The narrator suggests that
her family is angry and
annoyed with her for
clanking her fork on her
plate because the noise:
A. demonstrates that the
narrator has not been
watching the broadcast.
B. disrupts the family’s
observance of a momentous
event.
C. causes the family to worry
about the outcome of
Armstrong’s endeavor.
D. drowns out the sound
from the television.
Strategies for the Reading Test
 Of the four subject tests, it can be the most difficult to
prepare for the Reading Test. Doing well on the Reading
Test is not a matter of having tricks up your sleeve.
When you come to a question that asks about a passage’s
main point, you can’t rely on some handy main-point
trick to figure out the answer—either you know it or you
don’t.
 That said, you can use a general strategy to improve
your performance on the test. We like to think of this
general strategy as a macro approach to the entire
Subject Test, rather than micro tips to get you from
question to question. The crux of the strategy is your
ability to read well—that is, with speed and without
sacrificing comprehension.
ACT Reading Strategies
 The ACT Reading test is the most difficult of the
three other multiple-choice tests on the exam. It
contains four passages of approximately 90 lines in
length with 10 multiple-choice questions following
each passage. Since you only have 35 minutes to
read each passage and answer the questions, it's
necessary that you use some ACT Reading
strategies to boost your score.
 Otherwise, your scores will land somewhere in the
teens, which is not going to help you get a
scholarship
ACT Reading Strategies Summary
 Practicing with ACT Reading strategies is the key
issue for successful usage. Do not go blind into the
test. Practice these reading strategies at home with
some practice exams (that you can purchase in a test
preparation book or free online study questions), so
you have them firmly under your belt. It's much
easier to answer questions when you're not being
timed, so master them before you get to the testing
center. Good luck!