What is the best way to improve my ACT English score?

Answer 1

Send me your email address for a link to an English Cheat Sheet Plus Big 5 - 5 topics that cover a large portion of English questions.

Read "Complete Guide to ACT English."

Work practice tests. Send email to receive a link to answer explanations for 19+ tests. The explanations are cross referenced with chapters in the "Complete Guide to ACT English".

For questions with no question, if there's an option to DELETE, check it first. It's correct more than 75% of the time.

Shorter is better. When in doubt and when all things equal, choose the shortest answer choice. The Rule of 3 is that if there's an answer choice 3 or more words shorter than all other choices, that short choice is correct over 95% of the time.

If there are two options 3 words or more shorter than the other two options, then 95% one of them is correct. 95% of time, the shortest one is correct.

If there's one choice with a double dash, it's correct 95% of the time.

There are two situations on ACT with a comma before "and" - a list, when a complete sentence follows the and.

Nothing beats working practice tests, then analyzing and reviewing every question you missed. The last step is to re-work the test to make sure you get the formerly missed questions correct.

I can send you practice tests and a lot of materials for ACT prep.

Answer 2

The ACT English section is a fairly straightforward test of your ability to detect and resolve several of the most common grammatical and rhetorical issues that occur in everyday English writing. The single best way to improve your score would actually be to:

1.) Complete a few ACT English sections

2.) Note the areas of content in which you make the most mistakes (ex. deciding when to use or remove an apostrophe, choosing the correct verb tense, etc.)

3.) Review this content with an ACT English self-study guide or by hiring a tutor. Be sure to get some high-quality practice material to reinforce all of it.

4.) Repeat 1-3

However, if I had to name 1-2 areas of knowledge that would benefit most students the most on the ACT English sections (especially if they had a limited time to study) they would be:

A) Sentence Structure and Punctuation - learning how to distinguish an independent clause from a dependent clause or from a phrase (and knowing how to properly punctuate any combination of these), being able to locate the subject and main verb of the sentence, etc.

B) How to create stronger flow and better structure/organization in writing - a number of the questions deal with editorial concerns, such as whether to add, keep, or delete a particular sentence; where a particular sentence should be placed; and which of the answer choices contains the most relevant or helpful detail or sentence for a particular task, etc. Contrary to what many students think, the answer choice to such items on the ACT English section is NEVER subjective and can always be correctly chosen by learning how to think like the test-makers and identify the central concerns with structure/organization in writing that the ACT English section was designed to test.