ACT Sweep 3: Deeper Meaning

By Doug Buehl,
Madison East High School teacher
Member, Wisconsin State Reading Association

May 2002

That’s the point of this story? We have all experienced a familiar dreaded scenario – trapped by a garrulous and long-winded storyteller, we smile wanly and politely while desperately scoping out means of escape or at least the opportunity to change the subject. We are hearing more than we want to know about something that does not interest us, and we suspect that there is no point awaiting at the end of this tedious episode.

Students immersed in an ACT Reading Test on a Saturday morning may feel similarly ensnared. They are confronted with passages they may not particularly wish to read, and under the pressures of time, they may continually ask themselves: “What is the point to these ramblings about Huey Long, the Kingfish of Louisiana?” ... or architecture of Victorian homes in San Francisco? ... or the phenomenon of the halo effect?

The Strategy
The last two Reading Room columns (March and April 2002) described a three-stage protocol for successfully handling reading passages on the ACT college entrance exam. The 1st Sweep delineates an initial “sizing up” the material before reading. The 2nd Sweep provides guidelines for a somewhat faster than normal reading of each of the four passages on an ACT. The 3rd Sweep – answering the 10 questions per passage – will be outlined in this column.

Step 1: Students, of course, are very much used to answering questions about their reading. They have been engaged in a heavy diet of responding to questions virtually since they began their careers as readers in school. By the time they reach high school, most students are accomplished at answering detail questions that assess whether they “got the facts straight.” These questions involve a deeper level of processing, identify salient details and combine information to make inferences, draw conclusions, or develop generalizations. These questions remain problematic for many adolescent readers.

As a result, very few ACT Reading questions focus on a literal level of understanding. For example, an analysis of one ACT reading test revealed that 32 of the 40 questions went beyond a basic identification of important details and required some thinking at a more sophisticated level.

To introduce the 3rd Sweep through an ACT reading passage, emphasize to students that they should not expect many opportunities to quickly skim for correct answers. Instead, they should be prepared to connect meaningful information to get to the point of the short passages. In other words, they need to consider: “Why is the author telling you these things?”

Step 2: Next, introduce students to the classic question types that appear on ACT reading tests. Questions generally fall within two domains: those that involve examination of specific sentences or paragraphs and those that are more culminating and draw upon understanding the passage as a whole.

UNDERSTANDING SPECIFIC SEGMENTS OF A PASSAGE:

Question type and examples on ACT tests:

1. Directly stated – Is the answer directly stated in the passage? (According to the passage . . . Which of the following is not stated . . .)
   
2. Vocabulary in answer choices – Is the answer directly stated in the passage, but given in different words in the answer choices? (The main character’s attitude is described as . . . The passage indicates conditions were . . .)
   
3. Meaning of a word or phrase – What is the meaning of a certain word, phrase, or sentence in the passage? (The phrase “. . . ” most nearly means . . . As it is used in lines 7-8, the phrase “ . . . ” refers to . . .)
   
4. Reason for use – Why are certain words, phrases, or sentences mentioned in the passage? (The author mentions . . . in order to . . . )
   
5. Inference/implication – What can you infer from this sentence or paragraph? What is hinted at? (The . . . referred to in the first sentence is probably . . . )
   
6. Applications – How can you apply information in specific sections of the passage to other areas? (The author provides information that answers which of the following questions? Lines 47-49 would support which conclusion?)
   
7. Tone or mood – What is the tone or mood of a section? (Lines 14-19 portray a mood of . . .)

UNDERSTANDING THE PASSAGE AS A WHOLE:

Question type and examples on ACT tests:

1. Main point – What is the main idea of the passage? ( The passage is mainly concerned with . . . )
   
2. Author purpose – Why does the author tell you this? ( The author’s primary purpose in the passage is . . . )
   
3. Author attitude – Does the author have an attitude or viewpoint about something? Does the author show any emotion in the passage? (The author’s attitude toward x can be termed as one of . . . The tone of this piece can be best described as . . . )
   
4. Inference/implication – What can you infer from the passage? What is hinted at? (The author implies that . . . You can infer that . . . )
   
5. Author assumptions – What does the author assume but does not directly say? (Which of the following is an assumption made by the author?)
   
6. Application of ideas – How could you logically apply ideas from the passage? (The passage supports all of the following except . . . )
   
7. Author beliefs – What does the author apparently believe? (The author would apparently agree with . . . The author would likely support which of the following?)
   

Step 3: As students answer questions, encourage them to bounce back to specific sections of the passage when they need to clarify information and to re-read to make further connections. Generally, referring back to the passage will be most useful for questions that target specific sentences or paragraphs rather than those which involve understanding the passage as a whole.

Posted May 10, 2002