Adding, placing, transitioning: Complete Guide to Order on the ACT® English

Sample Text

Let's look at a sample passage to practice these question types:

Some people A call themselves beekeepers, when they're really bee havers. 1 There are so many reasons a hive B might not survive the winter, like freezing, not having enough food, or mold. 2 However, with the summer time troubles C, it becomes difficult to keep your bees for long at any time during the year. 3 But if you do succeed, then you are in for a very rewarding hobby D. 4 Keeping bees – being apiarist – is a tough hobby.

Add Info

If the writer were to add the following sentence, it would most logically be placed at point: A B C D

such as mites, overheating, bears and wasps,

Let's go back to point A, B, C, and D to see if this information makes sense anywhere.

• A – This one would make the people mites and overheating. That's obviously wrong.
• B – The hive isn't really a mite or overheating. Wrong.
• C – Summer time troubles such as mites, overheating, bears and wasps. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. All of these things can be summer time troubles. Let me just check D.
• D – No, these things aren't a hobby. So definitely C is correct.

Sentence Placement

The writer is considering moving the sentence:

Keeping bees – being apiarist – is a tough hobby.

Where should the writer move the sentence to make logical sense? These questions are the same as paragraph placement questions. The only difference is that instead of placing sentences somewhere, you'll have to figure out where to place an entire paragraph.

The logic for doing so is the same. Look for context in the sentence before or after. Use Process of Eliminationto narrow down your options.

Let's look at the sentence, then the four possible options:

Keeping bees – being apiarist – is a tough hobby.

• 1 – This actually looks pretty good. It goes right after the topic of being a bee keeper is introduced. It further clarifies the author's point. Maybe it's a bit repetitive. But they're not asking us to get rid of the information. They just want us to move it to make the most "logical" sense. That means where it matches the text the most. I'm probably going to say 1.
• 2 – This doesn't work because it interrupts the flow. The author is talking about bees surviving the winter, then the summer. This answer choice makes no sense in that context. Wrong.
• 3 – 3 might actually look okay. But the next sentence totally negates the sentence. It'd be weird to say bee keeping is a tough hobby. But if you do succeed, you are in for a very rewarding hobby. The repetition of the word hobby convinces me 3 is absolutely wrong.
• 4 – This is where the sentence is currently. It has the same problem as three. Since 1 is a possible answer choice, that seems better. I'm going to go with that.

That's how I would actually solve this question. 1 is a pretty good answer choice. And it's right!

Transition Words

By now, you're probably getting the hang of these questions. As always, we're looking for context.

… enough food, or mold. However, with the …

• No change
• Conversely,
• On the other hand,
• Additionally,

We need to go back to the text to see what's happening. If we read a sentence before and after, we see that there is a sort of contrast proposed: summer and winter. But the contrast is saying that both times are hard for bee keeping, due to the variety of problems. So they're actually "agreeing" with each other.

That makes this question easy to answer. Only option D provides some sort of agreement.

These sorts of questions always rely on some sort of context in the actual text. Be sure to find that and you'll be able to do these questions no problem.

Key Takeaways

• Always look for context in the surrounding sentences.
• For "Add Info" questions, find where the new information fits logically.
• In "Sentence/Paragraph Placement" questions, make sure the moved text matches well with its new surroundings.
• For "Transition Words," make sure the chosen word accurately connects the ideas in adjacent sentences.