Enhanced ACT English Prompts
We’re well past first looks at the Enhanced ACT now that test takers have experienced the real thing in field test administrations. My recent recorded conversation with a mystery test taker revealed quite a few details about the Enhanced ACT, as has a thorough analysis of the exams in The Official ACT Prep Guide 2025-2026. So what new information do we know about the English section? Obviously, the Enhanced English section presents fewer items–50 instead of 75–to be answered in 35 rather than 45 minutes. But the most notable changes may be the most cosmetically obvious: every English question now has a prompt. More important, these prompts provide greater insight into what grammar and writing skills success on this test demands. Conventions of Standard English Throughout the history of the ACT, English questions testing understanding of the conventions of standard English grammar, usage, and mechanics lacked any kind of prompt.…
A Scholarship for Word Nerds
Does your inclination, endearment, and infatuation for the English language lead you to consider yourself a word nerd? My dear friend Jeanne Lucas was a self-professed word nerd herself. Jeanne was also a spirited educator and supportive friend who left this world far too soon. The National Test Prep Association, the non-profit organization of which I am the founding president, is proud to commemorate the life and legacy of a tremendous teacher through the Jeanne Lucas Memorial Scholarship. One-time $500 scholarships will be awarded to multiple students, and all language lovers in the high school graduating class of 2023 are invited to apply by submitting a response to the following prompt in 300 to 500 carefully selected words by May 1, 2023: Our dear friend Jeanne Lucas frequently referred to herself as a word nerd. She reveled in using lesser-known vocabulary in everyday settings. Jeanne’s love of vocabulary and grammar…
Solving SAT & ACT Organization Questions
The multiple-choice grammar and writing questions on the SAT Writing and Language and ACT English sections present a wide range of mechanical and rhetorical challenges. Test takers have to be as comfortable connecting subjects with predicates and pronouns with antecedents as they do connecting independent and dependent clauses. Even students who master mechanics still need facility with advanced writing concerns like, among other things, organization, unity, and cohesion. Both the SAT Expression of Ideas subscore and ACT Production of Writing Reporting Category establish organization as an imperative aspect of effective written English. Consequently, Organization questions on these tests require students to be able to place any piece of text where it belongs: — a word or phrase in a sentence — a sentence in a paragraph — a paragraph in a passage Most test takers find Organization questions both difficult and time-consuming. While the latter challenge can be overcome with…
Trust (Your Ear) But Verify
When discussing strategies for multiple-choice grammar questions recently–something totally normal people do all the time, I’m sure–I found myself surprised by how much one of my most respected friends in education and I differed on how useful “listening” for an error is. Continued debate proved inconclusive, so we brought the question to our big brain colleagues in Test Prep Tribe: “How many of you advocate that students “use their ears” to identify grammar errors in ACT English or SAT Writing and Language?” Unsurprisingly, the test prep community at large is split, at least as far as blanket statements about any particular approach go. However, the lively discussion around the issue helped formulate some nuanced rules about trusting your ear when solving grammar questions: In English, what sounds wrong is wrong… usually. Standardized exams like the SAT and ACT tend to test grammar through underlined portions of larger texts that may…
ACT English Learner Supports
Over the years, I’ve fielded the occasional question asking whether the SAT or ACT were offered in languages other than English. “How could they,” I’d reply, “when English is part of what these exams are designed to test.” Now, I’m not so sure of my answer. No, the SAT won’t be administered in Spanish or Mandarin anytime soon. Neither will the ACT, but that doesn’t mean the test isn’t becoming a bit friendlier to students for whom Spanish or Mandarin is their primary language. ACT, Inc. now provides supports on the ACT test to U.S. students who qualify as English learners to help ensure that the ACT scores earned by English learners accurately reflect what they have learned in school. What exactly are supports? They are not, as you might initially imagine, translated versions of the exam. The ACT really does test English, which is tough to do in, say,…
ACT Reporting Categories: ENGLISH
The ACT may serve as the world’s most popular college entrance exam, but this iconic test, in conjunction with variations designed for younger grades, fills other assessment roles as well. The ACT has been used by a number of states over the years in lieu of specific state tests to assess academic achievement and college readiness. Consequently, ACT score reports provide a lot more information than most college admissions offices pay attention to, including ACT Reporting Categories. Reporting categories, which we used to know as subscores, provide a more granular analysis of performance in each section of the ACT. Subscores were generally ignored by both colleges and students in the past, especially since they didn’t really add additional insight into performance. The one exception might have been ACT English subscores; the Usage & Mechanics vs. Rhetorical Skills dichotomy framed the differences between the science and art of effective written English…