Reading

Original practice questions written to the published framework for this section. No expert has reviewed them, and they are not taken from any official exam. Try each one before you open the answer.

1. Question 1Foundational

   Which ACT reading reporting category covers the meaning of words in context, the organization of a text, and an author's point of view?

   1. AKey Ideas and Details
   2. BCraft and Structure
   3. CIntegration of Knowledge and Ideas
   4. DProduction of Writing

   Show answer

   Answer: B. Craft and Structure

   Craft and Structure covers how a text is worded and built: word meaning in context, organization, and purpose or point of view. Key Ideas and Details covers what the text says and supports, while Integration of Knowledge and Ideas covers evaluating arguments and comparing texts.

   Key insight: What the text says is Key Ideas and Details; how it is written is Craft and Structure.

2. Question 2Foundational

   A passage begins: 'For decades the marsh was treated as wasteland, drained and paved wherever a road was wanted. Only after repeated floods did engineers concede that the marsh had been doing expensive work for free.' What work had the marsh been doing?

   1. AAbsorbing floodwater the city later had to manage at a cost
   2. BGenerating revenue for nearby landowners
   3. CBlocking road construction for decades
   4. DProviding habitat that engineers had studied closely

   Show answer

   Answer: A. Absorbing floodwater the city later had to manage at a cost

   The phrase 'expensive work for free' is explained by the repeated floods that followed the draining, so the work was flood control. Roads were built across the marsh rather than blocked by it, and the excerpt mentions neither revenue nor habitat study.

   Key insight: Decode a metaphor by the concrete consequence the surrounding sentence names.

3. Question 3Intermediate

   An article states: 'The committee's so-called solution was to schedule another meeting.' What attitude does the phrase 'so-called' convey?

   1. ASkeptical
   2. BAdmiring
   3. CNeutral and factual
   4. DNostalgic

   Show answer

   Answer: A. Skeptical

   'So-called' signals that the writer rejects the label, and scheduling another meeting is offered as evidence that nothing was solved. A neutral report would simply state that the committee scheduled another meeting.

   Key insight: Evaluative words such as so-called and supposed mark judgment, not neutral reporting.

4. Question 4Intermediate

   Passage A argues that urban trees lower summer temperatures, and Passage B reports that the cooling effect disappears where trees are widely spaced. How does Passage B relate to Passage A?

   1. AIt qualifies Passage A by naming a condition that limits the effect
   2. BIt contradicts Passage A by denying that trees ever cool a city
   3. CIt restates Passage A using different examples
   4. DIt shifts to a topic unrelated to Passage A

   Show answer

   Answer: A. It qualifies Passage A by naming a condition that limits the effect

   Passage B accepts that trees can cool a city but narrows the circumstances in which that happens, which is a qualification. A genuine contradiction would require Passage B to deny the cooling effect entirely, and it does not.

   Key insight: Naming a condition under which a claim fails limits the claim; it does not refute it.

5. Question 5Advanced

   A historian writes: 'The treaty is remembered for its borders; its most durable clause, however, concerned river tolls.' What is the function of the clause beginning 'its most durable clause'?

   1. AIt redirects attention from a familiar detail to one the historian considers more important
   2. BIt gives a chronological account of the treaty negotiations
   3. CIt defines a legal term for readers unfamiliar with treaties
   4. DIt concedes that the treaty's borders were unjust

   Show answer

   Answer: A. It redirects attention from a familiar detail to one the historian considers more important

   The semicolon and 'however' set the remembered borders against what the historian judges more lasting, so the clause reorders the reader's priorities. The sentence defines nothing and makes no claim about whether the borders were just.

   Key insight: Function questions ask what a sentence does for the argument, not only what it says.