The Best ACT® English Strategies: Tried and Tested

Process of Elimination

Process of Elimination, or POE, has some value on the ACT® English Test. The English Test is very much an application of grammatical and rhetorical rules. You can always come to a definitive answer by understanding what the question is asking, knowing the relevant rule, and applying it on the Test. That’s it.

But not every student is going to know every single rule every single time. That’s when POE comes in. You may understand what it means on an abstract level. Let me add some details to the method.

You come across a question you’re not sure the answer to. I see this happen a lot with “vocab in context” questions. Let’s say for example you get this question.

Consider this example

I'm only asking for a minute amount of money for allowance.

1. A) No change
2. B) Hour
3. C) Second
4. D) Loud

This question is inspired by a real ACT® question a lot of students get wrong. There’s no shame in that – I’m merely pointing out that this is the optimal use case for this strategy for most students.

Here’s how I’d solve this problem. I’m reading the sentence. I can see that the word choice is changing. So the question must be asking about word choice. I’ll look at the word choices to see what the difference is among all of them.

Minute, hour, and second all describe time. I can’t have a time amount of money, so I’ll physically cross off with my pencil options B and C. This is very important. Out of sight, out of mind.

Why didn’t I cross off A? Well, I don’t know what else “minute” means, but I know it means something else. I can’t justify getting rid of it just yet.

Then I look at option D. You can’t have a loud amount of money. There’s nothing else it can mean. I’ll physically cross off that option.

That only leaves me with A. Now, I don’t know the alternative meaning of A. But I do know it means something else. And I know all of the other options are wrong. So by process of elimination, I’m left with answer choice A, even though I don’t know what it means. I know it must be right.

It is right! Minute also means a small amount (pronounced my – noot). So I’m asking for a small amount of money. That makes sense when I know the meaning of the word.

Don’t do this: A lot of students will pick any option B-D because they know what those words means, even though they know those options are al wrong.

You can use process of elimination in some limited contexts on the ACT® English Test to help you answer questions where you may not even know the right answer.

Passage Order

Passage order isn’t as important for the ACT® English as it is for the Reading. Here’s how it works.

There are 5 passages on the English Test. Each passage tends to have its own level of difficulty. Keep in mind that for the ACT® Test, difficulty means how many steps are required to get an answer. They call this “Depth of Knowledge.”

What you need to know is that most questions will require little justification, while few others will require several steps to complete. Harder questions tend to be clustered together on the same passage. So 1 of the 5 passages may have harder questions than the other 4 passages.

The order in which the more difficult passage comes is random. It’s not like the Math Test where questions become progressively more difficult. You should solve each passage in order, ~15 questions at a time. The main idea questions at the end of the passages are best done when you’ve completed the other 14 questions before. That way you have insight into the text.

Most students should NOT follow this strategy. By and large, most people can solve all of the questions in time. This strategy is most useful for students who have limited time to study for the English Test. If that’s you – don’t worry. Use this strategy to the best of your ability, and study for the next Test you take, if you have time to do so.